A Wilding Dream

Yellow seasons, red clouds,

drinkable dawns and wine— 

we certainly indulged.

Then an orchestra,

sprawling, treacherous, and lavish

with wilding percussion,

rainy brass, nervous strings,

and chatty woodwinds.

A growing dissonance of voices

on top of the deep roar of traffic

and sirens, a scream for help,

the crash of cymbals, bossy and jagged,

tumbling down concrete stairwells,

cutting through all things fearful,

then quiet but for the breezes sighing

through the barb’ wire fences

and over the range grasses.

In the discomfort of chaos,

another glass of Syrah, 

a Brahms symphony,

and a found book of Psalms.

From: Ponder: Dreams, Memories, 

and the Imagination

Unpub. MS p. 47

Something Or Other

I am not a lunatic but madness might be a factor.

Do we wait for a savior, or bring one into existence?

Music resonates in consonance with the creator’s voice.

What isn’t transformed by fire is eaten by envy.

Many Boomers couldn’t get enough of the world;

everything opened, everything poured in, then too much.

One day, several years ago, I realized everything had changed.

Inner voices were unhinged by my confusion. Ageing does that.

Innocence has become more important as I have gotten older.

And I have wondered if idealism is another form of innocence.

Little by little, while on the road, a new voice

emerged that I came to recognize as my own;

the extraneous bits of life fell away.

There is no language for that,

only the surge of the soul 

and the swelling of the heart.

from: Buckle Up! A Boomer’s Meandering Musings on

Innocence, Time, and Love, From Then to More Recently

Unpub. MS p. 39

Blue Horses

Inspired by Mary Oliver

Now and then,

when a human event intercedes,

what seems necessary is not necessarily so.

Betrayed by a lover, poetics seem a ramblescat,

a mere caption, phony, like, who would want to know?

In a near wilderness where Blue horses, 

out from colorful dreams, 

are messengers from another world,

their watery movements and desert patience

have brought solace and taken me on quiet rides

while the grassland is softly sensuous

and I awaken.

from: Ponder: Dreams, Memories,

and the Imagination

Unpub. MS p. 31

On Knowing Nothing

I know that I know nothing.   

                        ~Socrates

It’s easy to walk into this,

a swirling mist,

and remember the stories

of no words, from the beginning,

the ones no one could tell us.

It’s the realm of the Great Unknowing,

of wordlessness and silence,

where mythic truths come to us

to reside in our hearts,

notoriously and sensuously,

intangibly and mystically.

We are nearly perfect here,

remembering a world

that was the impulse of wonder

and imagination, 

living from our hearts,

breathing the wilderness

where nothing is explained 

but somehow known,

where fragrances are seen,

flavors are heard,

but our tears will remain salty.

from: After All the Years of Gravity

Unpub. MS p. 4

What I Mean to Say

One afternoon in therapy

Eternally emerging,

from what I was 

into what, I don’t know.

There were times I thought I knew.

Then there were times I thought I knew nothing,

but actually did know something.

Some days it was ‘Yes.’

Other days ‘No.’

And other days, ‘Maybe.’

Contradiction.

Paradox.

Unsettled.

Nothing gone from ourselves

is gone forever.

Knowing too much?  Oh sure.

What do I lack?  Nothing but that ‘one thing’

(I thought I would find it in The Moody Blues).

Or do I have too much of one thing,

not enough of another?

I have a reservoir of love, sure,

everyone says so.

(Who cares what everyone says, right?)

Or are they full of crap?

Tomorrow I’ll see a world differently,

or a different world,

small as they both are.

As always, there is tomorrow.

from: After All the Years of Gravity

Unpub. MS p. 3

Notes to a Man

Do you remember the first time

you realized the world was new,

when words had their places?

They didn’t always 

work the way you wanted them to.

When others used the same words,

you were disappointed,

but you learned to use them to leap 

into clouds of the unknown.

And remember your first truly passionate kiss?

The one that made your body vibrate,

closed your eyes, sapped your strength,

weakened your knees.

Your body became a furnace,

your sanity became chaotic,

the crackling madness of love 

made a strange kind of sense.

When you saw the world

through the eager eyes of your children,

through their questions and wonder,

through their gestures of offering you water,

you realized everything has its purity,

old and new, coming and going,

a colorful world after all,

and that you were an ordinary man

blessed by an intangible mystery

that made you something more 

than you would have ever expected.

from: A Preface to the Universe:

Love, Nature, & The Mysteries Within

Unpub. MS p. 9

Good Men

When I turned sixty-three,

memories of such things visceral, 

prickly barbed, smelling of sweet,

sweaty landscapes, unvoiced,

still clamorous of families and children

strewn within my bones,

my head and teeth, and in the iron 

of my blood, unseen, but certainly felt.

Then the unpacking.

Sometimes a reminder, a trigger,

the snap, and we wonder, 

What if…? or Why this...?

Where on earth were we going

with all those things, 

with all those attitudes?

Was it somewhere 

beyond everything littered here?

It’s a new thing this age.

We cannot minimize 

the truth and sadness of the things 

and people we left behind.

When men have learned

finally how things work,

how to live with the notion of our

sensitive male ego,

how to talk with our eyes,

how life should be lived,

how we understand mercy, humility, 

and a little something about women,

we realized fully the pain of achieving wisdom,

our souls laid vulnerable to the vast unknown.

from: A Preface to the Universe:

Love, Nature, & The Mysteries Within

Unpub. MS p.5

Old Juan

A painting by Wood Woolsey (1930)

Phoenix Art Museum

Phoenix, Arizona

You have had your time in the sun.

Your hands, stiffened by hard work, 

are now at ease on your lap.

A cane helps you get around.

Memories are thinned and uncertain.

Are there old friends still alive?

Do you have children?

Who helps you day to day?

Your magnificent gray beard hides

the shape of your lips,

the jut of your chin;

your pants are ripped at the knees;

your boots have trod many miles;

your large, well-worn hat covers your head

to your eyebrows, 

but it’s about your eyes, old man,

a weary, world view of life you can’t hide.

You have been through dust storms of all seasons.

How many miles did you ride with the herds?

followed how many roads?

pierced how many lies?

Was there one great love?

One great loss?

Whatever it is you left behind,

you know you can’t go back.

Would you even want to?

But you have wisdom no one else has.

It matters, yes, but who is there to listen,

to take heed of the lessons of an old man?

Your weariness has caught up with you.

It’s your turn to sit in the shade and rest,

to watch a world go by with some disdain,

to nurse the silence of your final years

while a plant in the yard 

sprouts into new life.

from: Memories of things Left Behind

Unpub. MS p. 52

How Is Where About The Blue Round

 The child within the child within— 

I have questions:

How is the sky?

How is an egg?

How is an egg a sky?

What is the eye roundabout?

But...how is round?

Just round?

Or is the eye a round sky?

Or a blue egg?

Or a planet?

Where is the all get around?

Round, round get around like that.

Rabbits and quail especially get around.

How is especially?

Does it run and leap great distances?

Walk on muddy paths in bare feet?

Is a yawn an especially?

Or a speciality?

You mean like Javelinas and Coyotes?

How is madness?

When I saw you for the first time,

reason went mad.

Where would reason go?

When are the mountains invisible?

How does faith go to cry?

What is the how of a horseless horse.

Who is a roundabout 

stuck with the we of God.

from: A Preface to the Universe:

Love, Nature, & The Mysteries Within

Unpub. MS p.2

Silence

To some of us the world is blue with silence,
because silence is bright yellow, bright green,

and silence is wide and narrow,

full of prayers, full of good and evil.

And following along are the thunderous silences,

like empty sports stadiums, closed race tracks,

and shattering cruelties that surround us in red.

There are curiosities of silence, of the strong, silent type,

the quiet ones, those children who have been too quiet

for too long; the silence of the sulking, depressed, lonely,

contemplative, guilty, puzzler, wanderer, and lover.

There is the silence of love’s hidden work,

the burning silence of sunrise and sunset,

and when the music begins, silence deepens it.

For the troubled: outward silence; inward screams.

Make room for silence; live in the mercy of silence.

When you are in the noise of nature and you hear 

your footsteps and breathing, bow in that holy place.

Let silence be an art we practice.

from: Finding My Way: One Man's Quest for 

the Divine Presence  

Atmosphere Press 2026  p. 2

Three Poems About Getting Older

 Friends

By the time I realized I was getting older, 
I was sixty-two, divorced and lost in the tall grass.
Over time I denied my aching joints and muscles,
my increased vulnerabilities, and couldn't admit
that I was no longer invincible.
I realized that diseases not normally killers, could now be;
that my body felt like I carried too much of the world.
The hard realization of acceptance
eventually became unavoidable.

I’m seventy-seven and don’t like cooking for one;
I don’t like sleeping alone, and I’m finished with dating.
I’m lost in the age of memories, missing my wife
and our shared memories, estranged from my brothers,
sometimes feeling loneliness and depression,
decidedly unmoored and irrelevant.

So I drink to dull all that.
I sit with my favorite wine or tequila
in a strange universe of silence and solitude,
enjoying my art collection and counting my blessings,
at peace that I am friends with whatever
I’m sipping during the evening’s
waning glow.

Life Support

It is difficult to let go losses,
pain, and disappointments;
of things you think should never
have happened but did.
Some things have had no closure
and we want that finality
but it is elusive.
Some surrender to isolation
and addictions.

Nostalgia settles in us—
what we did, the guilt we carry,
the sorrow, the good times,
and maybe a little obsession over
what could have been,
pestered by those what if questions.
And longing draws us in to what can never be.

We worry about our children who have to work
through their difficulties without our interference.
As children they needed us, then they didn’t.
Thankfully, my children are blessings
and are better parents than I was.

My memories of times and places intermix,
faces and voices fade in and out,
and the memories of my youth
are like looking through rain splattered windows.
Regardless, memory is the life support I hold onto,
despite the shadows and ghosts of the past.

Like Ice

The older I get,
the more vulnerable I feel.
I no longer have that feeling
of invincibility, like I could do
anything and live to tell about it.

Everyone is fearful—
there is too much of the world
in our lives,
too much bloodshed,
too much corruption,
too much greed, avarice, and gluttony.
We are limping and our hearts are horribly bruised.

I catch myself looking at alumni web sites,
counting the number of classmates and friends
who have passed away.
Most of them I hadn’t seen in sixty years,
but I still mourn the losses.

And despite my age, experience, and therapy,
I am unable to shake off the dark companion
that sits on my shoulder like ice.
No matter the therapeutic manipulations,
it’s just there, intractable, a part of my life,
one of many things I have to let be.

~Marc A. Crowley

The Owners Of Granada Street

Willcox, Arizona

The Late 1950s

Good friends, mostly boys, 

a few girls, but we all owned it.

No one fought over it.

It was our refuge from the eruptions

of domestic authority.

Baseball, softball, football,

tricycles, and bicycles,

roller skates with metal wheels 

(remember the key), and hide and seek.

Summer nights, sitting under the corner street light,

swarmed by flying insects, watching bats 

and the occasional owl; 

from boisterous to subdued,

it seemed to us like a pretty good world.

During our street games, 

we stepped aside for the few cars to pass.

The drivers knew us well.

The Baptist pastor and his blue-haired wife scowled,

but everyone else had friendly smiles and a wave.

Once in a while a neighbor

would stop and bat a few balls to us.

I have never forgotten their smiles,

looking like they were twelve again.

From: Small Places, Big Places, Everywhere

Unpub. MS p. 41

I'll Remember This Much

About 1962 

Willcox, Arizona

Let’s not think about where 

our old neighborhood went.

The street names have remained,

but searching will not find much of

anything removed. It just looks different.

Remember how we played basketball

in December’s chill and frost,

fingers becoming stiff and red,

and how the O’Connor’s blood hounds

chased the ball until one of them

bit a hole in it?

In spring, when all flowers blossomed,

the land seemed merciful and soft.

Then summer, with a few days too warm,

displayed new mirages in the distance,

silvery and ghostly and mysterious.

We rode our bikes out toward them

but soon realized we weren’t 

getting any closer.

I remember especially the autumn 

of my eighth grade, when boys and girls,

shimmering in fall colors and full blush,

noticed each other differently, 

gradually becoming aware 

of our awkward civilities, 

of boys’ cracking voices, that whatever began 

blossoming the previous summer 

made us fidgety and confused,

having no idea what was really happening.

In the tenth grade I realized what had

really happened, and that memory

has tickled me ever since.

From: Memories Of Things

Left Behind

Unpub. MS p. 46

Reflections Of A Journeyman Seeker

I’m terrified of deep water, sharks, and barracudas;

of long dark tunnels with no end or light in sight.

I have been a lonesome traveler, a Journeyman Seeker,

at home in prayers, a fan of metaphor and paradox;

a window builder, a carpenter, a teacher,

a lover of wine, Beethoven, and Mary Oliver;

of my children and grandchildren and dear friends;

of art, pianos, poetry, caresses, and sky blue eyes;

of an embrace that says I will never let you go.

My journeys have taken me 

to the depths of the Grand Canyon, 

the rugged heights of the Sierra Nevada,

to deserts, forests, and the Columbia River Bar, 

to the Pacific’s boisterous, unrelenting surf,

and into the inexplicable presence of the Divine. 

Everything I have seen and done has been a blessing.

I have mellowed with age, my face weathered, my hair thinned,

disregarding anything a mirror has to say, a small price paid 

for stepping into and out of nature’s spiritual mysteries, 

embracing passion and risking a vulnerable heart laid bare,

for without passion, we won’t know where love will take us,

we won’t know a way into the depth of love and trust, 

we won’t know the wondrous heat of a lover’s fiery kiss.

From: A Preface to the Universe

Unpub. MS p. 57

Subversive Meandering

Listen without ears to the voice

that calls you, Come this way.

The intangible things that breathe 

have no names but are life.

Something in the mist and fog

of our mystical musings awaits us. 

One step more into 

the cosmic wobble, lovers,

always one step more.

Heart, mind, compassion, empathy.

Our souls. Even those that are 

imaginary and fictional, we name. 

Words become us, however reckless.

Nothing that lives can be safe.

Stop listening to the music

and become the music— 

bang the drums, play the trumpets,

sing the prayer, be what you are.

Should we trust anyone’s 

proclamation of faith 

who doesn’t argue with God?

From: Getting There

Unpub. MS p. 15

Getting There

at seventy-seven

Funny is age,

getting there day by day, 

without really noticing, then

wham-O! here they are. 

The years.

The memories.

There was nothing to warn me 

that this was coming,

that sense of sorrow that in my chest swells,

the ache we’ve all had just before

shedding tears from pains or losses,

though some might be shed later,

in their own time,

without warning or reason.

Gently it takes me into a place past all knowing.

I don’t know the why of it,

and I don’t try to know,

but Knowing does come out of it.

And there is sweet nostalgia,

rising, like softened anxiety, 

a five-year-old innocently looking 

into the world, a little scared,

visions of curiosity and wonder;

(the world works how?),

the excitement of all things new,

now saying to myself,

Oh, what I missed, what I missed.

Today I step more softly,

and remember there is joy all around.

The heart knows 

what the mind cannot understand,

how it feeds the soul,

how it balances the body,

stays reason and lets loose the wordless seasons,

opening blossoms— sorrow, nostalgia, and joy— 

each its own beauty.

I know my stories, the who and the how— 

joys, failures, tragedies— 

but the real stories, 

the ones I’ve never breathed,

only my heart 

knows best.

From: Getting There

Unpub. MS p. 39

What Hope Brings

I have traveled throughout 

the western states, and I have seen 

some breathtaking scenery

from Yosemite, the Cascades,

Snake River, the Grand Canyon,

to the turbulence of the Pacific Ocean

where it meets the Columbia River.

I have seen magnificent sunrises and sunsets,

Roosevelt Elk grazing outside my tent;

eagles, hawks, ravens, gulls, and breeching whales.

All of these things made my chest ache,

my breath deepen, my arms stretch out,

wanting to take all of it in to my body.

I have a notion that true love,

however defined, would be like that, 

and that lovers would look at each other 

like they would look at the beauty of nature;

their chests would ache, pulses quicken,

breaths deepen, and their arms would

wrap around each other in a way 

that says, I will never let you go.

Such is my fancy, my dream, my hope,

and hope will always bring good things.

From: Small Places, Big Places, Everywhere

Unpub MS p. 44

From Where Love

Three Short, Related Meditations

I.

To know more than just things,

words are not enough.

There must also be shivering

within our souls like surf 

that endlessly swirls and frets

around piles of rocks, water worn.

II.

A shortened life is never more

than half a breath away.

Our knowledge of sorrow will take us

into the depth of kindness,

calming rough-edged lives.

It isn’t possessing that matters.

For millennia, many have chosen

to make the best of love.

III. 

Earth changes.

Marsh water rises gently into mist.

Ah, look, there are other ways to wander.

Regardless the speed of our feet,

the wings of a falcon,

or clouds before the release

of water made new,

let us wander gritty and well-tempered

with a gentler step upon this suffering earth.

From: Memories Of Things Left Behind

Unpub. MS p. 28

The Same Trump

 ...and Trump posted a video depicting the Obamas as apes.

This is the same Trump who mocked disabled people;

the same Trump who said that because he's famous

he can grab women by the "pussy";

the same Trump who encouraged a takeover

of the Congress of the United States that ultimately KILLED five people;

the same Trump who didn't bat an eye when the mob

wanted to hang Vice President Mike Pense;

the same Trump who, on his first day in office in 2025,

pardoned those same people who stormed Congress;

the same Trump who has dispensed with morality and civility

and allows thugs with badges, guns, and face maskes

to arrest a five year old child.

And how much richer is he now than when he took office

a year ago?

Have people lost their shit detectors?

Have people lost their ability to be sickened by this behavior?

Have people lost their ability to recognize immoral actions?

Have we lost any sense of mercy, justice, and generosity?

Oh, dear God, awaken us.

Words On Fire

We need words 

rampaging back and forth,

up and down from everywhere, 

like blood drained from an opened vein.

Words that carry life and death,

danger and challenge, risk and terror,

love and kindness, fearful and brave,

wandering in the heart of darkness,

feckless and undaunted;

searing, razor sharp words slicing

the reigns of blind stupidity,

mediocrity, and tyranny,

shredding all of them

into millions of pieces.

In the end what we really need are words

of blazing love, blistering fire unleashed;

unabashed, bare, vulnerable, indomitable,

ready to ignite a fearful heart 

and go bravely into the wild passions.

From: Small Places, Big Places, Everywhere

Unpub. MS p. 28