Moon Over Borah

Moon Over Borah

     Photo credit: Willy Braun

It's the way light 

sits on her crags 

sketches shadows 

in charcoal runs 

that disappear in a cluster

of scattered pine. 

The way caliginous clouds 

shroud her apex, 

virga drifting off the skirts 

of the storm. 

She stands watch 

as wind coils devils 

of dust, racing 

a lone pronghorn 

through a tract of sage

where Indian paintbrush 

blooms pink and purple lupine 

sway to the echo 

of thunder rumbling 

down the canyons 

of Lost River Range. 

And always,

it's the way Moon 

sits in her saddle, 

his face glowing soft 

against the climax 

of her summit. 

Laurel

May 28, 2025

Momma

I am trying to define this new ache. To make sense of the picture now the piece of the puzzle that is you is gone. There’s an empty space, a hole where my heart keeps tracing your outline, as if somehow in the drawing I could find a way to put you back.

There are tracks in the snow of my memories where toboggans loaded with ham and cheese sandwiches are pulled into winter pines and skis lean against leafless aspens. Where your laughter bursts from broken snowballs, and a fire waits to warm our mittened hands.

There are rows and rows of fresh tilled earth where every spring you and daddy made a garden, where your hands tirelessly pulled up weeds to keep them from choking growth. And I see you diligently, devoutly weeding the spiritual garden of our home.

There are sunlit trails meandering through our summers where saddles squeak and the soft nickering of horses greet a Sunday sunrise. Where saddle bags are loaded with the lunch you prepared to be shared on Red Ridge peak, and the call to war of “apple core” was greeted with a chorus of “Baltimore” before the remains of the snack were launched at the elected “friend.”

And now there will forever be the fall. When meadows have shed their purple penstemon and ginger Castilleja no longer brush the hills. When the fracture of friable leaves beneath my feet will remind me of the gray November day when you were drawn away.

I whisper to the heavens, “I love you, Momma.” and your echo wraps around me, warm as arms, “Loved you first, love you most.”

November 22, 2024

Because beautiful memories should be kept in a poem

...for Kelly Rutt

Before she knew cancer was eating her ovaries,

before her body could no longer fight

the war that raged in her cells,

she gifted me a compass

set in a hexagon block of inlaid wood.

Black face with white degree increment lines

and N E S W in bold, kelly green…

bold…

Kelly.

There is a crimson arrow

resting right above N

always seeking true north,

pointing to a path that

leads me back home,

but I must choose

to look,

to learn,

to follow…

truth-seeker,

truth-teller,

way-finder.

She walks with me in my dreams,

arm warm across my shoulder…

the same shoulder she once worked

the knots out of as we soaked at Goldbug,

telling me I carry too much…

now a memory brought to life

on a ruminant night.

She reminds me, hands are instruments

of healing and lifting,

for expressing joy and gratitude,

but become useless when filled

with too many burdens,

when we carry too much.

We don’t need a compass

as we wander thin places,

gathering memories like bouquets

of forget-me-not,

and we are never lost here

long enough.

April 12, 2023

Laurel

Small Roughnesses

I washed my sheets today and hung them to dry outside in the sun, just like you used to do, clipped with wooden pins to a plastic line. 

They hung like white flannel flags of surrender waving at the Arizona heat. And I remembered why you preferred line-dried towels. How you said they smelled of summer and loved the small roughness of fibers that had not been softened by modern conveniences. 

Today, I thought that tomorrow will be four weeks without you, yet every day there's something of you filling the small moments of my day.

Dec 14, 2024

Laurel

A Thin Place

I saw the flicker  

where time escaped 

through a crack 

in the black 

of your pupil 

An unraveling spiral 

of triskelion gathered

what was buried 

long ago 

in the limestone 

of Kinbane. 

The recoil 

snatching at memories 

buried in sand and stone 

and the salted scent 

of Lag na Sassenach 

fogged a thin layer of sweat

in the heat between us.

When the pupil of night 

gathers starlight 

in a Colorado sky

My dreams walk 

the labyrinth of Dara knots.

I touch you again

and time rewinds 

through tangles of fate 

green threads spilling 

from the hands of Urðr.

June 30, 2024

Between Times

She writes to me: We only go back as far as our hearts allow*

And a dream of celtic knots tied between two draws me back to a memory of walking through Stones of Destiny, my bare feet sinking into the cool grass of Hill of Tara. 

I return to the scene of the climb**

the assemblage of all my deamons dancing 

like dandelion seeds adrift in dust devils 

The way his voice scooped them away, caught them one-by-one and exchanged them for the pieces of my soul held in Duma na nGiall. 

I sit on the mound, 

listen to Nantes promise to gamble fright away 

watch a field of rapeseed bloom yellow just across the hedge

and I feel the hand of wind brush away the years… 

The vision fades with the stars into a flannel grey sky

and I rise early

watching the things that only come out at night go back to bed***

Laurel 

June 13, 2024

Nods to *Dorothy M, **Brion B, and ***Scott G

 

Manistique in March

We walk along the beach against a steady wind that whips my hair in coils around my face, twisting against the restraints of my hood until they fly free in the breeze. 

A steady roil pushes the heavy glass of frozen waves until they smash and break, piling in fractured heaps along the beach.

Fragments of ice fringe the shoreline, a chaos of crystals refracting the rays of light brave enough to escape the caliginous gray.

Holding gloved hands, we gaze across the waves to a crimson lighthouse, a monolith standing solid on the breakwater. 

And I feel the lake. Her nature heaving, gyrating, releasing, and reeling back everything she is and leaving all her heaviness in the sand.  

March 23, 2023

Laurel 

Cacoethes

I am craving

he breathes in my ear… 

and suddenly I’m lost

and there are no trails

through the tangles

each inhalation an ache

an indulgent shudder

and every exhalation 

a reckless invocation

his whispers

twist around me

wisteria words twining 

gauntlets and corselette

of fragrant vine

I turn to taste them

inhale the sun-soaked scent

and sample their exquisite 

honeysuckle nectar...

I am craving

Corners

There are still days I find my way 

to the corner of my ache, 

curl around your memory, 

and fill an old grief with fresh tears. 

Days when nostalgia is an echo 

calling from red canyon cliffs 

and dreams fold familiar 

fingers around mine 

as I search for a handhold. 

A ghostly apparition of virga

is a caliginous curtain 

in the gathering storm

and when thunder shudders 

through my pane, the flicker

in my pulse reminds me

I still search for you 

between bolts. 

Laurel 

Dec. 23, 2023

Hangover

last night's vodka 

fogs my tongue 

as the words he pierced 

into my heart

form a storm front, 

press against temple walls 

until they tear through ducts.

the aspens in my dream 

have shivered all their gold 

away, and my eyes open 

to high desert and dusty 

sagebrush littered with 

ticks and dust devils.

Reverie

Rising day wraps aspen in mist

drifting off the hot spring 

pooled in a circle of rocks.

Pine and sage perfume the dawning; 

follow where I have journeyed 

to the water's edge 

disturbing a pair of carrion.

Earth is forgiving beneath bare feet

here in the fold of grounded fog,

so I sit, hands cupped in my lap

like an empty boat between my thighs

and contemplate crows. 

Washing the wall

This morning

I finally washed that wall

The one in the bedroom

He smashed his drink against.

I wiped out the streaks

The tear stains in the gray.

I am not sure why it took so long.

Perhaps I needed the reminder?

But a year is long enough 

To watch my wall weep.

Laurel

Oct. 17, 2022

sage caves

Ah...this desert...she is easy to admire from afar, but to truly love her, you have to risk a walk with her roughness, learn to navigate around the edges of her eruptions. You will need to drop into her darkness, lose yourself amongst her ice altars and befriend her demons. You will be required to emerge from her brooding disquiet and still find her beautiful.

Cliff Lake

Morning is a trio of blue herons flying low above the emerald pools, their rattling cries echoing high in the rocky cliffs. Two bald eagles perch high in a pine across the lake, exchanging low, throaty greetings and chattery calls. A lone bat scoops one last gnat off the placid face of the water as dragonflies rise to take on the chase among the tall grasses and lakeside willows. A pair of green darners tangle in the air above my head, whirring furiously, their wings click and their bodies lock as they spin earthward. My red prijon stretches lazily at the waters edge, her stern nosing gently into the lake while her bow firmly grasps the land. And a cup of coffee from the jet boil warms my hands as the sun saunters into the sky dressed in apricot and violet.

Rewarming

Take my hands
if you can bear the chill
for I have tucked them
tightly in crossed arms
but still my body shivers

read my palm, the line
that refused to rise,
and tell me if you see
what I already know

my heart line is the constant
master of my head line
my life line is splintered
frayed across my palm

draw your finger through
the furrows, where the fragrance
of forget-me-not still lingers,
warm peaches and mandarin
that leaves a bitter bite

chart a course around each callous
like a brand new journey
on a worn out map and leave
a trail of silver pennies
a shining path on moonless night

whisper encouragement
like kisses on my fingertips
until the blood rush
gives them warmth

and when I can bear them
when the bite of frost
has at last released
Take my hands

Laurel
Sept. 14, 2022

Effervescent

September 25, 2022, 5:30 a.m.

I make my way to the hot spring and immerse myself in the healing waters.
Overhead, Taurus shines bright in the still black sky, standing guard between Orion’s notched arrow and the daughters of Atlas.
Mars has shifted and now rests above the tip of the bow, a burning ember eye watching the brilliant constellations.

Leaning against the rocks edging the water, I wait.
I watch them fade as rising day flannels the sky behind me with soft grays and pinks.
I wait, and I listen as bubbles rise from the hot spring source, a constant, soft-sizzle as they break the surface tension in the stillness…
irrepressible effervescence.

flame skimmer

Storm over Grand Junction

I cannot find it in me to relinquish that weekend: The sun setting my arrival in Grand Junction, the virga gray over Grand Mesa lit by drifting rays, and the splinter of light slicing a bit of rainbow.

It is beyond me to forsake the desert; all her reds and golds bowled by Books, and Monuments, and Grand Mesa... how does one abandon Grand Mesa? Where evergreens and volcanic rock skirt a hundred lakes and aspen groves applaud the wind that conducts afternoon lightning shows, thunder echoed in their clap.

Where Saturday night, when the tent was pitched next to a single, white columbine, the rain came, and we escaped the downpour by sitting in the cab of your Ranger sipping Knob Creek and interrupting the chatter of rain, then hail, then rain punctuated by booming expiations. And then afterward, when the fire was blazing down to cooking coals, we filled time drunk and tented away.

How does one obliterate this beauty? I cannot omit the Sunday night storm approaching from the east as the sun set behind us in the west. The wonder of sitting in the Colorado National Monument under a shelter overlooking Book Cliffs; watching rainbows rise from the valley where Independence stands red and resolute in the dusk of day. The lightning cutting caliginous curtains and swells of thunder rolling up the valley to wash over us in undulating repercussions.  

If I could define this missing, if I could write it out, perhaps he would understand storm-spilled tears and forgive the fingers that still reach to touch cascades of rain and reserve the surge of cloudbursts. Perchance he could comprehend why my upturned face still seeks the kiss that mists rainbows across my lips. But I cannot put the chill of Colorado summer rain against his skin or impress upon him the icy drops that soaked your hair and trickled through your beard. He cannot hold the weight of Colorado rain in the cup of his hands.

Seeking after that sweet golden clime*

Nothing fills the chasm of your absence
like the crest of a wind swept summit
the arm of summer warm on my shoulders
and the craggy echo of September sun
reflected in the face of a placid lake

*with a nod to William Blake

she brings me dragonflies (for Aysia)

with wide eyes, wonder-full
and outstretched arms

she comes to me

I have a gift for you
something I found

delicate hands lift
the jarred amber insect
      
vellum wings gravely
drawn under its body

perfectly still