We Were Toddlers Once

As toddlers, we knew that

everything everyday was new

and exciting— 

The new book that was read to us

at least fifty times like it was the first time;

the places we went that were always a favorite.

We absorbed something from each reading,

from each visit,

from each new person met.

We were in awe of the world.

You could tell by the way we squatted 

to get a better look at what was on the ground,

or how we stretched ourselves to see what was 

in a tree or in the night sky.

We wanted to know the name of a bird or a star,

and we knew when to pull 

a carrot from the garden for a snack;

you could see our joy by how we colored 

in our coloring books 

and on the walls.

After traveling in our remarkable, unnameable realms

and evading the wild beasts that lurked everywhere,

unaware of the dirt that often covered us,

we were simply looking to figure out 

how our world was put together.

Our wide eyes said everything 

that needed to be said. 

From: Getting There

Unpub MS p. 7

More To Do

I think I should become wind again,

wild again, 

elemental again,

bending everything,

clanging my bells 

to my howling gusts and bluster.

I could be impudent in an

already precocious sky,

with all the forces seen and unseen,

wrestling clouds to churn into 

and out of each other.

I would blow Virga sideways.

It’ll disappear before it hits the ground,

but the air will smell of rain.

What fills the heart cannot be explained.

Wrestling clouds may be futile. 

Do it anyway.

Still, there is more to do

and places to go.

I won’t be a piddling thing.

From: Getting There

Unpub. MS p.6

At Our Age

When we were 

seven and eight years old, 

when the world was at our mercy,

we were nearly perfect.

We were running and shouting

and the world was full

of wonder and possibilities,

as vast as the nearest field;

as close as the starry-starry sky;

as scary as those wild things 

in the noise of night.

We could be notorious and contrary,

rarely did anyone get hurt.

Each day of traveling in the galactic realm 

always seemed better than the last.

The dirtier we were, the farther we had traveled,

in no hurry to get home or older.

From: Getting There

Unpub. MS p. 4

Notes Before The Blue Moon

 30 October 2020

The moon is bright enough to sing drunk or sober.

Watch how the range grass responds to the lover wind.

An owl is hooting, so musical after dark when all else is still.

Nothing is as it seems because we see only what seems to be.

We think of disappearing without thinking about

what disappearing means when existence ends. 

I would love to roll with the inside of a fragrance,

then I’d know what a fragrance really is.

The grasslands are always fragrant— 

I would be that; it would be me.

Of forgetting and disappearing, The Watcher says, 

Don’t forget that stuff. You might need it.

From: A Rambly Search for Innocence, Time, and Love

Unpub. MS p. 10

The Way Of Angels

to Mary Oliver

I was a bird that traversed land 

and shadows and heaven’s gardens, 

thinking I could become an Angel.

Some said to find which constellation 

rose at my birth, but it seems like 

they all rose.

When I step into the dim morning air 

without coffee, the birds are puzzled, 

sensing something is missing.

I know music; I know prayer.

I don’t know the way of angels,

but I know they can’t be too far off.

From: Shorts: Short Poems on How We Ramble

Unpub. MS p. 69

Looking For The Man Who Lost His Mind

 While listening to Dvorak, Symphony #8 in G minor

When I sit outside I breathe

great gulps of space,

but Wind reminds me who’s

really the boss of the grassland.

Wind makes its way through the goodness 

of the world, and through the terrors of the world.

I need raw, tempestuous energy;

inspiration burning in the blood— 

Fiery. Wild. Original.

Screw neatness; tidy categories; tight forms; 

screw creative limitations of any kind.

I want to be devoured by passion

and freedom of the journey;

by silence and exile.

Absolute truth is beyond our grasp.

The only asylum is non-existence.

I’m free to not know,

I can rest in mystery.

I may not understand what I believe,

but I know it will sound like dignity.

My doubts are sacred.

God, stay close as I wander.

From: Getting There

Unpub. MS p. 29

Start A Fire

Coyote lays it on the line to some 

backsliding Boomers

There Earth, there Heaven, those I know.

From the Divine, interventions we crave.

It’s the Divinity close we want to touch.

We of course cannot, as I have before said.

Poet knows, Watcher knows, Traveler knows.

But you and you and you do not know.

Didn’t we learn something from The Moody Blues, 

In Search of the Lost Chord?

Cat Stevens’ Tea For the Tillerman?

Simon and Garfunkle’s Bridge Over Troubled Water?

Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow?

Gabrieli, Beethoven, Hindemith, and Nielsen?

Doing what were you those youthful years all?

Laugh if you must, but so essential those times were.

Forget did you fundamental humility and 

rules for honor and dignity there are?

On Earth, live the time of your life;

the life of your time; life without fear.

You work. You play. You live truly.

Condemn evil, be kind and gentle.

Speak of goodness, do charity.

Become fire. Become that lover, red hot.

From: Addendum

A work in progress