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

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

Kids Daydreaming In Willcox

Summers, 1957-1963

It was something in the shape of the landscape,

the weight of light and darkness, our impressionable age,

the shrug of the wind, the chatter of creatures, and how 

the moon poured itself into the tangles of fear and fantasy.

The neighborhood dogs became animals

of unusual stature. They walked taller

so we gave them new names like 

Bruiser, Ginger, Fang, Casper, and Winnie. 

Sometimes we wondered if time stood still 

on the cloudy days. Watches were unaffected.

Andy said that real time stops.  All watches are

past real time. They could be years ahead.

There was no reason to doubt him.

Judy liked to collect rain water. 

When she got a full cup, she watered the 

little rock garden she kept in her bedroom.

Mary, Judy’s little sister, applauded when 

she saw everyone being followed by flutterbys.

Sue and Bertha saw flocks of birds they had never seen.

They named them ‘Garblers’ for their confusing song.

They came every summer until Sue and Bertha 

started high school. The birds were sadly missed.

We clothes-pinned canasta cards to our bicycles 

to slap against the spokes. We all rode Harleys,

bravely exploring the wilderness.

On moon-lit nights we rode our Harleys into the sandpit,

singing Ghost Riders, the balm to our grief,

asserting freedom from the chaos of some of our homes.

We were the Paladins who kept our world right side up

so it would spin into another day, and all would stay well,

with never a thought that one day all this would disappear.

From: Stumbling Through Dreams, Memories

and the Unintelligible

Unpub. MS p. 8

Past Seventy-Six

 2025

Am I as old as I think I am?

I think I’m seventy-six 

but time can tip us 

one way or another

and turn us inside out.

Just yesterday I was twelve

and I’m still in the same body.

Aging separates us 

from imaginative reality 

leaving us in the realm

of wishful thinking and envy.

It happens imperceptibly 

and progressively 

while doing what we thought

we were supposed to be doing.

It’s not too late to look past the numb 

and blunted world into those things 

that are eternal, beautiful, and magical,

to reverse our downward slide,

to return to our natural sense

of imaginative reality,

to speak in thunder,

to write in dreams,

to wander with 

sacred intent.

From: A Preface To The Universe:

Women, Getting Older, and Other Mysteries

Unpub. MS p. 34

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