Light within Darkness

Out in the night, when the juniper trees are but shadows, and the birds have gone quiet, I turn off my headlamp and look up at the blackness. Slowly, shimmering flecks appear, a cluster here, a river there, until a blizzard of stars dances across the sky lighting up...

The Ocean Life

I am a sea creature swimming in the Beloved’s warm current. I fly, flip and turn in perfect weightlessness. Never do I have to return to that dense, land-locked realm Where each step leaves a heavy footprint. Here, in the blissful blue, I float on wonder,...
Be Foolish

Be Foolish

Read a poem to an audience while your voice and hands shake with fear. Give that coin to the homeless man who will likely buy drugs. Tell your friend you love her even as the air shimmers with awkwardness. Let the wind blow your hair into a rat’s nest, the sun burn...
Life of a Snowflake

Life of a Snowflake

Snowflake, glistening in the sun you swirl up, down and around your fellow flakes playing in the rays that will soon kill you with their warmth and brightness. And yet you dance, float above the gravel, flip and turn glint like a spark set on the wind. You spare...
The Inner Garden

The Inner Garden

I plant the seeds carefully using rich soil and compost— tomatoes, beets, radishes, tatsoi, arugula, cucumber and patty pan squash. Then I wait. Soon the tiny seedlings appear. They push up through the soil, a miracle of fragile green! Every morning I go out, check...
The True Home

The True Home

  You dreamed of houses: A hacienda surrounded by a verdant ranch, An airy sanctuary perched on a hill, A wooden shack floating away in a river. In the dreams the house was your life. All activity centered around it— you mended stucco, planted lilacs, repaired a...