We planted marigolds today.

They have done well in our rocky soil,

withstood the heavy winds

that buffet our valley,

and they looks like sunrise

in the middle of the grass.

We’ve tried other flowers

but they seem either dull or bland

and by end of summer, look tired

unlike the marigolds which persist.

It’s dusk now

with a lot of green covering the hills

as they roll out of sight.

The sky is a darkening purple

with a moon fat and full and waiting

like the barn cats down the road,

itching for action by night.

I can still make out the colors

of flame that herald summer

as the marigolds and I settle in.

Take your coffee
however you like, with or without garnish
or better yet, take tea.
Don’t ask impossible shapes of clouds.

The whole allure of watching
was born in me when I was young, always new to a place; I could see more clearly
detached and through a camera lens.

I wore layers of green today
and I think it was a bid
for dressing for the job I want.
I want to sink into the forest floor.

The woman in the book wore green
and she was beautiful with perfect eyes
like the sea. Mine are mossy at best
and I look like a ragamuffin in mixed layers.

Experiencing the rain at night
when you can’t see or hear or feel clearly
is a gift of perception which is ironic
as senses are taken away to receive it.

Pale green the spring air, a little wind
makes breathing labored
so that some retorts are a gasping thing,
grasping for a hold

finding it easier to breathe
when looking up at heights
unimaginable – disimagined, detached
as the views can be better
with eyes firmly shut
at least when we’re children
dreaming without knowing
better

Wherever you are
I am on the other side
recognizing a symbiosis with moss
and how good it it feels to dwell in fog

softly climbing, falling apart a little
on the way up
incomparable (pick your pronunciation)
in the moonlight, the poet said at lunch,
the tearing apart of paths
to the music of birds no matter the weather

feathers holding together
a larger picture
with bustling people in faceless cities
and houses waiting to be filled and loved
with people who want the same

down the lane, a few hours from lunch.

There was something about a willow
years ago that called to me,
its shape all ethereal,
wispy-bendy branches,
and a phrase about its strength…
See how it bends, I read.
See how it blooms quietly by the lake.
Hear its soft leaves fluttering in spring
and falling in autumn.
I thought that would be my tree,
the swan would be my bird,
and I would be my own angel somehow.

But grace has found me hawks and herons,
a small pond full of dragonflies,
woods full of firs and alders,
and more storms than I can count.
I have broken and mended,
fallen and stood again,
sometimes by degree- acorn to oak,
eternal spring ready to burst inside
even when the season has shifted.

It was hours in the car
but we held hands
and the sky kept changing
so time was but a breath,
a turn of the light,
feet landing on grass in one place
and rock in another.

There was a beautiful old house
about halfway through the trip,
a bit ramshackle with peeling white paint.
It had put up a fight with nature
in the middle of a once-tended field
but nature was now winning,
vines and flowers and weeds claiming
more and more, beams and windows fading.
Time was taking a deep breath there,
taking in the house like it was sucking air
enough for a deep dive underground
to rally old roots and new shoots.

Content to keep going,
I would have liked a longer look
and maybe a word with the hawk
that perched in the pines,
but I remember the angle of its head
as it surveyed the landscape
and I was glad to be part of it.