six geese fly true north along the rocky mountain spine of the west in a loose v below a low white sky over the eastbound highway I wonder how they know which direction to go how nice would it be to have a sense of purpose an instinctual...

on a rare weekday off we hit the mountain the same one where 27 years ago I learned how to ski and where I have skied most of my life there is the old lodge which looks and smells the same as it always has the only difference is that the chicken...

stars are echoes cast out into the dark which tumble through the nothingness and in a forever we could scarcely imagine if we take a moment to look up reach our eyes these blips of long ago light gone from where they came from but...

mostly a house sits empty it is built to hold lives and those who hold those lives in their bodies must work to afford the house and so a house sits empty but sometimes we are home this is when we are in the house our two lives who this house...

I often write about how humans are supposed to be the shepherds of nature how our place in the world was to tend to the forests was to tend the animals was to help the cycle of coexistence not to break it but I realize now the limit of my...

waiting for a light to change I watch the snow melt into long drops of water on the windshield of my truck it’s so cold today that I can feel my nostrils freezing as I step outside but the sun still shines and turns ice to water turns snow to...

we are working on a house where a fire came through less than five years ago I remember right after the thing was contained driving through these woods it looked like a bomb went off a metal garage had melted into a puddle which shone dully in the...

I go to the grocery store and Los Angeles is on fire and so is the Middle East but in a different way and somebody behind me in line says it’s the driest January in one hundred years and I buy some apple sauce and some cough syrup and some sliced...

everything feels different  on the last day of the year  it’s a small sort of death  the last sandwich for lunch  the last gallon of gas  the last long drive home  in after work traffic  the last credit...

what is it about the ocean that we find so captivating is it that most of us do not get to see it often that it is a trek to get there and thus special because of its novelty or perhaps instead there is something instinctual in us because so long...

I guess I’m lucky today in that I’ve watched the sunrise and sunset and they were both pink and framed by mountains and plains grass and puddles of snowmelt which themselves cause the color of the sky turning pink and blue and white it really...

it’s ten degrees out and I’ve not written a good poem in a week or maybe ever I’m driving to work as it seems I often am and the road is icy my lover sleeps at home and so does the rest of the world it’s not yet day and the snow and the dim take...

there’s an apple tree in the backyard I’ve written about it before I was taken by it in fall when the leaves were changing and the apples were red we picked them every morning cut them up for breakfast pressed them into cider baked them into...

soft orange at the horizon line like the edge of the world is gently burning the city shimmers with lights and all the little lives in it the trees are brushstrokes ink against the charring sky the mountains still dark silent sleeping strong snow...

the sun floats in blackness spinning burning huge casting light over our galaxy giving warmth and glow each speck of shine has to travel so many miles in the dark to reach us here I drive to work in the truck I’m listening to music and I have a...

I’m driving to therapy after finishing work I’ve been awake for twelve hours already I’m worried I’ll never publish again that the world is going to end and that I’m making no progress in anything at all there is construction on the highway two...

I woke in the night and thought of a poem but my mouth was dry and we’d went to bed late and had an early day tomorrow and so I decided not to write it down figuring I’d remember it come morning I bet it was a good poem about how hard life...

it’s like I’ve heard before / so many times / but only just started / to understand there’s only this and nothing else / and this is all we can control ...

the fall leaf trees / just at dusk / their gold almost glowing / like they’ve stolen / just a bit of the sun / and they hold it there / in their branches / as the day dies ...

will I look back / and wish we had more time / to do nothing together / to bike through the empty evening street / listening to the night birds / and bats and crickets ...