I saw a little girl plant a tree
on a beach by a watchful lapping sea;
her mother dug the hole
and by lark I guess covered in the tree.

To their sturdy neighborhood, I then saw them go:
to family, friends, perhaps we may say too
one to a moon-dipped lover, lulling by the shore.

Skip and hop, spin and swirl, laugh aloud, hand-in-hand,
bare-foot princesses dancing through august light.
Whatever cares they share hidden by delight.


I will remain, I think, with the tree.
Soon and carefully I will take it
to a place of loving worms in dark, moist earth,
to dig it a home free of the watching, lapping sea.


© 2016

Arkansas skies, endlessly wise and wider than the bluest tide
Dam closed so **** close to the edge, bullishness of the blueish hue
Borders of the borderland shuffles eastbound,
walls get built and torn back down
To see a thousand sunsets, grows tiring
Turn my back, decision made to see no more

I want a garden
Like the one my mother planted
Cherry tomatoes, yellow squash,
She even tried a watermelon one year

I cannot remember what happened
To that garden when she was gone
It stayed where it was, I’m sure
For a time
Until a new family moved in

Part of me hopes the plants
Never stopped growing
The leaves on her tomato plant
Taking up the whole yard
Providing endless nourishment
For the new inhabitants

More of me hopes they
Ripped up the roots
Planted new grass,
Maybe put down sand
Added a swing set

My mother would have loved to know
That her garden was kept beautiful
But I was never as selfless as my mother
My heart cringes at unknown hands
Picking at the beauty she created
Keeping a part of her that I had to lose

I am not a gardener
My tomatoes will expire long before me
But I will still tend them
In the hope that she will see
I tried to make my garden
As beautiful as hers

strip and skinny dip
in the ocean of solace
float on your back
and watch the stars wink

entertain the seraphs looking
down on you
flail your arms and move
your legs
let them tell the creator,
oh god, she's making an
ocean angel

and you'll hear him laugh
in thunders

allow yourself to feel
small, so tiny
to be strangely frightened
but electrified when you smile
at some stranger in a dark alley

allow yourself to feel

because there is so much death
but also so much life
so

strip and skinny dip
in the ocean of solace
float on your back
and watch the stars wink

The house, old and gray,
Sits back in a field
As houses did then,
Before cars came to compress the day.

From here I see the woods,
The river’s run, the spiral of the valley
Under clouds of rolling snow
To the road the machines come through.

I think I will stay here tonight
To keep company with the house,
And recreate the goodness of our small love,
To be ready for them when they come.

Yet I fear when they come
I will only say I came to watch
Machines destroy a house
Built with someone else’s small love.


© 2016

Brown leaves sparse caught
To gray trees reflected in the river
Running under winter light
Cold, hard, blue, to ice
To mist, to the sea.


© 2016