The morning air
is sweet and earthy,
smelling of dry pine
and imminent heat,
someone upstream
is burning sage,
someone's smoking weed,
or maybe that's
a nearby skunk.

Leaves and foam
drift and swirl 
along the surface
of the clear water
that's always here
but never the same.

It's peaceful and slow
despite knowing
the heat's rising
and the groan of trains
is coming, sometime,
as it always has been
here in Dunsmuir.

Ears fixate
on old songs 
spilling out of the house,
Echo & the Bunnymen,
lips like sugar,
sugar kisses!

The Promise,
promises when you're in doubt,
look around, and I'll be there,
sings When in Rome,
those smoldering eyes
and shadows on those devasting
shoulders, elbows and knees,
falling in love with an album cover!

What'd he say?
Some days better off dead?
If when, why, what?
Those Pet Shop Boys know
that West End town,
those West End girls!

The Fixx,
hauntingly, singing
while foreign affairs 
are screwing rotten,
line morale 
has hit rock bottom,
talks of peace
being trodden.
When, then, today?
What's changed?

Mind drifts back
to dancing in that club
just off Copley Square,
hot, sweaty, crowded, 
loud and outstanding.

David Byrne & Talking Heads
reminds me of the light
in her eyes,
this must be the place,
home!

Someone licks 
the wick of the sun,
it's done for another day.

Sailboats tuck their sails,
the bay grows quiet and dark,
the heat recedes
and fog recalibrates
everything.

Wild parrots,
at least the ones around here,
fly in raucous flocks
of indiscriminate numbers,
flying with abandon
to who knows where.

Crows, it's hard to know
what the hell they're up to,
loud renegades 
flying off together, 
just as frequently 
one flying off by itself,
clearly guilty
of something.

Doves just appear,
like an apparition
from another dimension,
quietly finding 
a random perch,
atop a utility pole
or the point of a roof,
cooing for a companion
who generally is not far away,
they like hanging in pairs
and don't seem to care
who else is around.

Hummingbirds fly
with messages 
from the other side
straight up and down
as much as 
forward and backward
and hover in one place
as much as they do
anything else.

Eagles,
so majestic and resilient,
soar sacredly above us all
and fly however they want!

My imagination flies
like an overinflated balloon,
untied and released
directionless out into the world,
and I'm always eager
to see where it lands.

They scream
when they kick
the ball, and
scream even louder 
when they 
or someone else 
misses it.

They scream 
when they're 
chasing someone
and even louder 
when someone's
chasing them.

They don't know
any better,
free to run,
jump, and play,
free to scream
and yell every day,
just because 
it feels so good.

They don't know,
or likely not much yet,
about that other side
of the world,
where kids like them
scream and yell
not because it's fun
but because 
they're scared
and hungry 
and don't know 
where to run, or 
even have a place
or someone 
to run to.

They scream 
and scream
and scream 
and you pray 
someone hears 
their screams,
that we don't all
turn away.

She left 
a note 
on a bench
at the school,
letting someone know
she found their phone there
and provided a number
to call her
at home.

She found
a feather
and stuck it
in a crack
in the bark
of a tree.

She bought 
a coffee
and set outside
and watched
the traffic
ease down 
the street.

She wondered why
it took her so long
to spend mornings
this way,
then walked home.

I like to watch it
burn through 
the clouds
and fog
and mist
and any misconceptions
of what it is.

The almighty 
on button,
at it's simplest, 
turning back 
the night
by turning on 
the light 
of the day,
pulling the birds
back into the sky
and the boats
back onto the bay.

It liberates 
the trees,
helping them 
reach higher
and wider
and, if they're lucky,
wilder, too.

It turns up
the volume 
and accelerates 
the pace of everything 
we do as we move
through our day
after day after day
in every corner 
of the world.

Much like a river,
it never burns
the same hole
in the same place,
moving incrementally,
methodically,
always anew,
always hopeful.

Raw eggs, too,
break wide open
more than merely breaking
when dropped on the floor,
their white spreading out thinly,
their yolk, likely,
breaking open, too!

Hearts break
all the time
and sometimes
break fully open,
revealing deep feelings
and vulnerabilities
and exposing them 
to unexpected experiences
and, hopefully, 
with patience and time,
stimulating growth,
hope, and resilience. 

That's the hope
when things break
wide open!

Like the Euphrates,
and the Congo,
the Nile,
and the 
Mississippi.

I can say
I know a few,
grew up on two,
literally on the banks
of the muddy Muskingum
and the ornery Ohio,
ancient ones when it comes 
to our nation,
watery highways
for the pioneers
making their way West.

I started my career
on a slow
shallow one,
the Merrimack,
where they use to make hats
and buggy whips,
a river that meanders 
along the border 
of New Hampshire and Massachusetts
before emptying into the ocean
at Plum Island.

I have fully embraced others
after moving West,
hiking, wading, and drifting along
the Sacramento and McCloud,
the Pitt and Deschutes,
the Kenai and the Kasilof.

I can say
I've always lived
on or near rivers,
heard their soft songs
and learned their languid language,
grew to understand
how they're always there
and never the same.

I can say 
I've grown to appreciate
how a river flows,
but also know
all the rivers
I know are 
pretty shallow.

Nevertheless,
like Langston,
I feel my soul
has grown 
as deep, maybe deeper,
than the deepest rivers
I know.

He’s twenty years
behind her, 
her first and oldest
with eyes that show
their own worry and wear
yet still hold
a softness for most
all she says.

She talks
and talks 
in rambling 
disjointed circular
monologues, mostly
starting a conversation 
with distant details
of convoluted context
and quickly snaps 
at questions about
her intent with ‘Well,
let me finish. I’m trying 
to tell you!’

It’s frustrating
and frequently infuriating
but he takes a breath,
reminds himself 
of the twenty-year
difference and attempts 
to acquiesce.

They’re five feet apart 
on her front porch,
sitting in wide armed
white wicker chairs,
sharing a bottle of rose,
a bowl of olives, 
a board of cheese 
and hummus and
carrots, pita chips,
and pepper salami that
she’s convinced
will be too spicy 
and make 
her choke, plus
the wine’s too cold
for her COPD throat. 

Along with her 
concern about 
salt in the salami
and acid in the thin slice
of backyard tomato she just ate,
she doesn’t understand
how anyone could vote for that man, 
what the Supreme Court was thinking 
when it overturned Roe, 
or why her geraniums 
look so lousy 
when just a week ago
they were gorgeous, 
full and vibrant red.

‘Look at those plants 
over in Carol’s yard,
just bursting,’ 
she says, then adds,
‘I think someone’s 
dog peed on mine.’

She sips the rose.
He just stares
into her hazel eyes
and doesn’t know
what to say.

It’s the silence
in such conversations
that seem to un-nerve her,
the void an unknown
she wants to fill 
before it gets too big
and engulfs her.

He wonders 
about her partial
and her sunken cheeks, 
her thinning hair, 
worries about her
balance and lack of it,
her waning sense of adventure
and fear about 
nearly everything 
outside her door
beyond her porch.

He worries about
how much time 
she spends watching CNN
and her special daytime show 
and how little time 
she spends in the sunshine
and breathing 
fresh air.

She waters the fern,
deadheads the sad geraniums,
and notes with glee
all the buds and blooms 
on her hostas.

He stares
into her hazel eyes
and knows it’s wise
to let her go,
let her meander
through her days
not to his projected
expectations 
but to her priorities 
and shifting motivations.

She sips her rose
and cracks 
a mischievous smile:
‘Let's have 
another slice 
of that tomato.’

You're the one
I think of
when I think of
how I want 
to spend 
the rest of 
my life.

You're the one
I imagine being with  
when I imagine
what lies ahead.

What lies ahead,
who knows,
but I know 
who I want there 
with me!

It's been that way,
every day,
since the day
you said,
'I do!'

But they just walk,
tall and straight,
white pants, white shirts,
black pants , black T,
eyes forward,
pre-occupied.

Thinking 
about it,
maybe I'm the same,
thinking about things
far from this street,
thinking about 
what things
might have been,
still enjoying 
what they are,
but pining 
for so much more.

In the Midwest,
I fondly recall,
it starts in early Spring
with a profusion 
of Forsythia,
its long wispy branches
bare of anything 
but bell-shaped flowers
that are
yellow.

Nature's promiscuous
when it comes 
to its palette of colors,
it also clearly leans into 
blue, purple, and pink,
along with black and white,
think stars against 
the sky at night.

But it holds
a special place
for 
yellow.

The birds
sing just as sweetly,
the rivers and creeks
flow just as steadily
and, occassionally, 
are just as muddy.

The airs 
heavier, but I
feel lighter,
familiarity and family
lightening the load.

You can definitely go home.

She exudes
a young confidence,
an urgency 
to get on with it,
no signs of worry,
fatigue, or fear.

She sees
something important
with clarity 
and a conviction
to do something 
about it.

She resurfaces
in my sleep,
same bright eyes,
same fixed lips,
same quiet conviction,
same unblicking stare.

Why are you here?

What do you want 
me to do?

What are you 
trying to tell me?

She doesn't blink,
doesn't soften her stare,
doesn't shift her lips,
just turns, head high,
eyes forward
glaring into it
with clarity and conviction
and urgency and
leaves me!

The characters 
are already 
out there!"

So, with that in mind,
on our flight
a day or two ago
from SFO to DC,
I sat and watched and listened
as the wife of the man
sitting next to me,
asked her husband:

"Did you eat
your tangerine?"

"Sure did," 
he replied.

"So where's the peel?"
she inquired.

"I put it in my pocket,"
he said sheepishly,
knowing that answer
wouldn't fly
with his wife.

"It's going to be a mess!"
she said.

"Likely!" he replied.

She just stared at him,
he stared back at her
and shrugged.

He looked at me
and we shrugged
at each other.

Then all three of us
quietly turned to our books
and hunkered down
for the four-hour flight.

John Prine 
would like
that guy!

I want to look down,
take in whatever
most appeals to me,
or maybe I'll first look up,
feel the sky against my skin,
get lost in a swirling cloud,
touch a star,
if I can.

I don't know
if a hot air balloon
can go that high,
so maybe 
I'll have to take that ride
in my mind's eye.

And that's
just fine!

So what 
if I wear 
loud shirts
and goofy hats?

If I love dogs
but don't care
so much 
for cats?

What's wrong
with that?

So what 
if I can't properly pronouce 
foie gras or beef bourguignon,
and prefer Neil Young to Beethoven?

If I vote blue
and you vote red,
so what, as long 
as we can still head 
to the bar and enjoy 
a beer and a game of pool 
and laugh at that fool
wearing the loud shirt
and goofy hat!

We need 
more of that!

Dragonflies and hummingbirds
and the random butterfly 
supervise from above, 
an old grey cat
prowls the tops of the fences,
disregarding any intended boundaries,
an old man two stories below
occassionally naps in the shade
on a cushioned bench,
his mouth gaping open,
but silent. 

A pair of tall brown boots,
old and worn,
sits on the patio  
just outside the back door 
of a house down 
the street behind us.

They're not cowboy boots,
but then, not not them either.
Somewhat out of place,
they just lately appeared,
unclear whether they belong 
to someone living there
or to a visiting friend.

The neighbor next door 
recently, severely pruned their trees,
reopening their view to the bay, 
once again letting the morning sun
hit their deck and spill into their 
livingroom and down their hallway.

That's as it is today,
much like it will be tomorrow,
a bit will change,
the old man may or may not nap again,
the cat may or may not wander away,
the boots will likely stay,
so will the solitude
of our neighborhood jungle,
unless someone needs 
to replace their roof.

Watching from a deck
a couple of stories above
our quiet, leafy streets,
the slick calm of the bay
out in the distance,
I drink a cup of hot coffee,
comfortable and safe,
peaceful and serene.

Most mornings
are about the same
these days.

Wake up to war,
in the headlines, for us,
war on our minds,
heavy in our hearts
but at the end of the day
far away.

Somewhere someone else's 
morning is obliterated,
their neighborhood bombed,
their city streets leveled,
their and their loved ones
lives devastated,
many ended.

Most mornings
are about the same
these days,
governments and the media
turning war into a boxscore:

3.2 million Iranians displaced
1 million Lebanese displaced
Thousands of airstrikes 
Thousands of drone attacks
More than 4,000 people dead
More than 1,300 civilians dead
More than 207 children dead
More than 170 people dead
from the bombing 
of an elementary girls' school,
mostly young girls,
and that's just 
one war,
the most recent one. 

Daily declarations 
of who's winning, who's not,
more assassinations 
of feared leaders,
new resignations
of contrarians,
endless devastation,
to what end?

What if 
our mornings change?
War no longer just headlines,
our cities become 
the front lines,
our streets become
the war's battleground?

Unless something else changes,
most mornings would be
about the same
those days,
waking up to war,
but, at our doorstep.

A friend put it there
long ago
saying she suspected
there'd be days
when I'd want 
more options
than the status quo. 

If I get up early,
before sunrise,
before the background hum
of the commuter traffic,
before the coyotes
start slinking 
through the neighborhood,
I can pick a different way
to start my day, 
weatherwise, that is!

I can pick:
sunny
cloudy
rainy
foggy
steamy
warm and breezy
misty and moody
quiet.

Icy
snowy
stormy (including lightening and thunder)
freezing
blistering cold
aren't on the menu.

Neither is over,
sadly!