Forest for the Trees
I come upon that sweet stump of tree,
softly shaped like a carefully chosen apology.
Sorrow seeping out like cold, black molasses.
Sweet syllables from a slow mouth.
I regard not the smallest berry on the vine,
nor the prominence of leaves at every step,
nor the wide-open sky, boundless,
without birth or death to contain it.
Only songs from trees,
from the soft brush of wings,
from the soaked white petals of dusk.
Buried in the flesh of the tree,
a thousand rings of ecstasy,
and the bud that promises forever.
Winter Field
Thin slices of morning slip through yawning windows.
A blackbird rises to meet an imaginary sun.
His eye is the moon, perfectly formed.
His breath is winter from wing to wing.
A lone, black dog moves through a snow-covered field.
The shadows from his legs form crucifixes in the snow.
In the forest, a tree resists its own stillness.
The solitary sound of aching limbs.
​
(recipient of the Heart Poetry Award, 2016)
The Ant
Weightless as a whisper, intoxicated by his own tiny breath,
peace-loving, yet reckless as a shard of glass.
In his mind, a cloaked bee ready for battle.
Member of a brown army, gouging at the earth
in cadence with the rhythm of the rain.
Many small eyes comprise the one, great eye
watching me now. Knows my shape
as shadow and light, carries
the weight of a fallen brother,
returns him to the cannibals of their order.
No time for sorrow or rotting segments,
only ceaseless work, small and private
Impressions upon the earth.
Like these poems we write.
No time for shallow or resistant lines.
Only ceaseless work, small and private
impressions upon the page.
​
(from Rosebud literary magazine)
Time of Night
We are obliterated by night,
by the wayward stars and their secrets
I step into the membrane of the night,
stretching my arms upward
until the bones of my fingers hook
the flesh of the moon. Fevered,
I pull her luminous skin toward me
until she no longer resembles
a mouth-gaping lunatic.
I cannot get hold of her completely,
her shadows are carelessly stitched,
her illusion is worn.
I retract, retrace each damp footprint
until I am wholly returned to where I started:
cloaked in black, shuddering
like the stars.
​
(from Grasslimb)
Natural Birth
I walked into the woods,
and the moon placed a cap of light upon my head.
My feet pressed into the raw earth,
and all around the air trembled
with the sound of a thousand throated frogs.
I stood, silent, and felt the hunger inside me grow fierce.
The night sky threw a starry arm across my shoulders,
and lead me further in until I found my other self as a tree.
Its branches were my limbs. Its bark, my skin.
My hair, now supple leaves, bright and wet.
And when the dark hole of my mouth opened,
I felt the glory of earth on my tongue