November Ends

November Ends

in a time of rotting brown mushrooms

a musty, under-the-fallen-leaf time

a time for compost, Constant Comment tea

and nutmeg anticipation.

Crime and Punishment lays open on her lap

pages flip like a moth in a smoky russet breeze

while corn stalks snap under the crow’s

polished purple-black weight.

This is the time for fence mending:

to repair or replace sister rails,

leaning posts in concrete footings,

pry, brace, plumb, tighten the turnbuckle

on sagging gates, this is the time

when snarls of fox fur clump on barbed-wire fences

and snow geese etch against a tarragon sky

while milk pods explode into millions of beginnings.

(Honorable Mention in Oregon Poetry Association contest--2014)

From the banal to the sacred

Emptying the Dishwasher

Rinse water collects

in bottoms-up coffee mugs

reflecting puddles from my past.

Remember this one

from the strawberry-blond student

who couldn’t spell

but painted glory

on a morning mug,

or these matching mugs

from my nieces

(we reserved for weekend coffee

in bed with books and snippets

of secrets from the past).

I unload two water bottles

from the kayak trip

(when snowy egrets

performed a sky-dance –

remember that),

a lid-less mason jar

that held botanical samples

for your latest illustration project,

glass dessert plates

from my grandmother,

casserole dishes from a sister-in-law

(who shops on QVC for stoneware

in the pattern she picked out for me –

guess that’s how it goes

if you’re wedding-less),

your flatware,

my stemware,

Tupperware with permanent spaghetti sauce stains.

Finally, I unload the three

handcrafted ceramic bowls –

terracotta clay, glazed

with lake-blue swoops

like feathered tracers

in a cloudless sky –

(a peace offering from my first partner

whose affair propelled me

into a studio apartment

with little to call my own –

she donated three straight-backed chairs as well –

triumvirate trinity of memory).

Sandy is dead now.

The chairs, long gone,

but the bowls serve us

stone-ground oatmeal

every morning.

Fern Frenzy

I hear fiddlehead

tunes unfurl and play

for the lady nestled

in bleeding hearts

while licorice adorns

large leaf maple

and sword clashes

with stinging nettle

for the maiden’s

delicate hand.

One rivulet murmurs

condolences to the common

cottonwood sapling bent

from January’s freezing rain

deer, dear and hart’s tongue

drape and drink beneath

the bulging branch

of a grand old white oak-

a swan’s neck curve

across my path-

years of storm survival

offer a graceful arch

for me to travel over

or under, my choice,

with the reminder

that I do not have to grow

straight and tall and thin

to be magnificent.

Volcanic Love Poem

Venus of the Cascades

Mellifluous mouth

which has not declared

Inanna – spring flow

has not declared

tidal fountains

rise high with blood

not declared

mountain and flood

resplendent rage

declared

Inanna

my face is dust

in your name

New Year Request

Lunar Appeal

     to Sumerian poet Enheduanna

Lady of the half light

moon priestess in a desert night

shine silver on Artemis sage

who roots and recovers

iron-red soil – once a mountain

under sea - now cinder cone

and hardened ash – a wasteland

that folds and faults

until time allows trust

and healing-juniper union

Let the world know

Lady of the half light

furious heart above ocean midnight

thunderous sighs and tectonic

calls for justice – illuminate

black waters that smack foam white

against pillow basalt –

beyond temperance your tempest

could destroy us all

unless we attend to whale cries

above the tidal dirge

It is time

on this obsidian eve

from the land of civilized kings -

lady of the half light

let the world know it is time

for all our moments of splendor

for all we call divine

to merge in a constant alluvial flow

with each prosaic day - wax bright

oh lady of the night

and let the world know it is time.