The water is cold near this spring and I watch the first flakes of late autumn snow land on tree branches. The flakes form a textured coating resembling an artist’s touch. They fall like ashes playing amongst a thick mist hugging the forest. The mountain is somewhere behind these trees, somewhere behind these foothills. Wild mist is elusive, skittish, a feral kind of weather with no city lights to reflect the symmetry of urban yellows, greens, and reds. The mist fools you into believing this stream does not follow a path of least resistance, but it does, even if it looks like it’s wandering, like a fragment, a lost sentence the mountain has thrown down upon uneven parchment. Soon the snow will cover everything, branches will be weighed down and the only thing seen is the creek slicing its way through white. I cup my hands, holding fingers together…tight. There’s a seam where they meet, one hand layered over the other.
Images by me.
To be Published Schedule Rooted Literary Magazine - 12-31-2025 Juste Milieu - Issue 19 - 2 Items! Winter 2025 Press Pause Press - Volume 13 - Fall of 2026
Published Muse-Pie Press - Issue #52 Fall 2025 https://www.musepiepress.com/
Watching November. Stories of leaves and lives, the paths of weather and wind. The naming of storms as they move across oceans. Characterized. Rummaging inside the stories, among their array, thoughts detained by tracking their descents, following the arc of their flaws. Outside, the leaves are in wet piles, soon to be gathered up in a blend of red and gold from clutter to compost. There is no catharsis here. Only fiction contains them. The blue jay parents who caused such a fuss protecting their young last spring are still around. Quiet now. One of them still tilts her head, listening.
Rain falls hard Upon paved cities of fortune Dressed in gowns of glass. Once she had thought cities held melodies That singers know.
Now that she has sang Her throat seems parched Yet melodies still pour From lung and breath And her heart Looks in upon itself Even if only as metaphor.
Lazy Concrete – Image is mine as all of them are. Click on image to enlarge.
Late summer sun caught Inside a young fall Pokes a warm beam of light Through a window, stirring up A ballet of dust within A slow tangle of choreographed chaos Dampened only by early evening’s Crisp air hinting of shorter days
The first fallen leaves Curled, cooked and crumpled By autumn’s summer mask Resemble large beetles who scurry like scarabs Upon sunbaked sidewalks Dancing with determination until Fall’s chill settles into season
You smile, that crooked little smile, and the pendant you wear, the one of the moon, lies upon your chest, where I’ve listened to your heartbeat...that safe place where I felt the coldness of that pendant become warm. Fate plays with fools just as much as it plays with winners. I’m not sure which one we are.
This I know.
We are speeding up, like the universe.
You and I, faster and faster.
Someday we will be nothing but speed, eternal hurrying, a blur, consonants & vowels blended into mush. There may be times in the future when we misunderstand each another.
But I’m here
Now,
To form no words, just caress our created warmth, hold up the sky with you.
Forget reading the stars, their letters are in disarray, light years away from creating sentences. We will move and become nothing but movement...yet still lie together, inseparable like Earth and moon, while dark matter stretches galaxies into nothing but the faintest of glimmer and all stories cease.
The roads are young Next to old mines Their abandoned tools Rust under partial skies Between pine, cedar & fiddlehead fern Scattered as remembrances Remnants, filtered, fill A monochrome story The history of desire
We take pics Searching, digging For images & stories Miners with phones Manufactured from extractions By otherness who unearthed the Silica, Cobalt, & Lithium To preserve the likeness Of the barn that leans Of the old growth Of the green gems of water Its opal pools Repurposed
A group of teenagers Run around the wilderness Sit under a coniferous Writing poems with emojis Acronyms and abbreviations While an app wants to know Name License plate number Car model How many in the party? Reason for your visit
The path follows a simple circle Through hemlock, cedar, & ash Smooth Like a freeway of dirt Only the creek works hard Passing under footbridges An August trickle
Today, I hear the rain fall Slicing the month into two dry halves Branches droop under the weight of the new moisture Fresh drops, warm With summer inside them
Apples will begin to fall Blackberries ripen Hanging on to the moisture of last spring’s slanted rain From seed, plant, growth Love and again
Hi everyone! I’m pleased to announce that Spillwords has published my poem The Ocean in their Featured Posts column. Check it out below using this link or the image below! Give it a little love by liking it on the Spillwords site. Thanks! It’s kind of ironic, since I’m on my way to the ocean right now!
Inside a Gifford Pinchot Forest night Denny and I, with his Wasco legs Cupping our hands to make an old whistle Like the hoot of an owl to settle our minds From the fears of the directionless twirl of sky Those fires of Warm Springs The silence of the river’s falls The countless ghosts of oolichan.
Upon hearing the tones from our small soft hands The deer stand still, freeze in their tracks Only the heat of their breath moves Their black pool eyes, starless earth sight. Like the solemn overstory that extinguishes The travelling of stars All relativity stilled The planet, a jar, hermetically sealed Each branch in the maze of Douglas Fir Above our heads Are old stories still being told anew Our voices, with purpose, retell them to each other.
Stories of disappearance Stories that burn Denny says, “Little Fish, You have so many names.” And we know all about burning Such dry kindling, which are our bones Denny and I, the last ones That will end here with us without anyone knowing Just ask the dust.
The forest hides its mirrors in lakes and ponds And the stick people dance around their shores Denny & I saw our reflections for the first time When we took a drink Our spirits stained a huckleberry purple
Upper Twin Lake during a cold but dry winter. Mt. Hood peaks over the tree line. I won’t be posting as much, as I am in the midst of organizing material for a classic publishing medium. Thanks for all your support!