"cairn" poems
.
Each morning I rise unto hours,
Wheeling in sun, with wee wild flowers.
An hearty wish, on hills by the sea
Each day I skip about live stones,
In winds I run, deep dancing my bones.
I am made of each, cairn on hillocky
Each sweep of air a breathy kiss,
On skyline by the sea, one mighty bliss.
Dancing my bones, in winds I run
Each hour a new turning of page,
Each heap on hill, of these I am made.
Wild wee flowers, wheeling in the sun
May 20, 2016
May 20, 2016 at 12:52 AM UTC
there is hope
like a rising sun
on a distance horizon
lighting up the morning sky
pushing the darkness aside
melting the clouds away
the rays warm my face
coaxing a smile
squinting my eyes
i take a breath, savoring being alive
the sky is blueing deeper, clearer
morning haze is lifting, disappearing
life is awakening, stirring, moving
the beauty is overwhelming, awe inspiring
i see anew, with an indigo eye
things i’d sensed but never knew
i feel too deep, intuit too much
beheld as a curse, repressed, suppressed
i burned, screamed, fell into ashes
my soul lay fallow, quiet, healing, waiting
resurrecting from cold dark depths
heart beating, eyes opening, arms reaching
vindication from self doubt
forgive me Cassandra, Cairn, Mother
i weep, openly, proudly, for your grace
it is the 9th and final gift
Jan 6, 2019
Jan 6, 2019 at 2:26 PM UTC
The water paints with sound
redamancy upon the shore
and our hearts.
And the cascade reminds me
Time can be beautiful,
Love is first shallow,
And then deep,
Oh, so deep, my love,
The color of shale and cobalt
We sit on the rocky shore
And stack stones into a cairn
Making the moment, the place.
Finally, he says, *we’ve seen the ocean
Together.*
As if seeing the vastness of Resurrection Bay
Perfects our Pacific love
Deepening.
We skip a few rocks
To test the shallows
To find the deep
To discover what we believe awaits us
In the future:
Love like waves
Pulled by the moon--
My hand pulled by yours
To go home.
Jun 17, 2014
Jun 17, 2014 at 3:41 PM UTC
(i)
It's no use
the legs aren't up to it anymore
and he's barely an eighth of the way up the mountain
when some kindly climbers
opt to help him down.
Confused and broken of spirit
he is returned to the home
and time stops passing once more.
(ii)
The fog whose descent
has sent him north
has one last trick to play:
though he reaches the top,
through bog and heather
and bone-weary exhaustion,
it is the wrong mountain.
He has misremembered the name
and all he finds at the hard-won cairn
is a gentle slope down the other side
and a group of picnickers
who eye him with sympathy.
(iii)
A circle which was opened
when he was fourteen;
when a frozen night in a frozen tent
was swept aside
by a breathless climb
to a dazzling white peak -
Liathach -
and a view over crashing cliffs
into the wild blue
bore the thought,
"This, when the time comes,
is where I will end it!" -
is closed.
And the body joins
the half-flown soul
in the mist-swallowed distance
and beyond.
Dec 16, 2012
Dec 16, 2012 at 8:03 AM UTC
This morning I asked a rose
for a kiss
dew on her petals
tears from my eyes
All the emerald leaves in my garden
are garbed in noir
and Joy the parrot has shrouded herself
with raven feathers
We bow our heads, close our wings in prayer
to honor our dear friend, Sam the Cairn terrier
who gifted us so many, many hours of
sunny, frisky, faithful love and devotion
These memories bring a smile to our countenance
and lift our spirits beyond the temporal horizon
where we can clearly see
beloved Sam playing frisbee with God
running free through Doggy Heaven
Mar 23, 2013
Mar 23, 2013 at 10:01 PM UTC
Even here, miles from town,
Joshua trees raise twisted arms,
like dancers locked in a song’s last note.
I lower myself,
not as a hero in the final act
but as an old father grown tired,
disc inflamed in the back,
knuckles scraped, work
too new for such an old body.
My youth spent bent in labor,
family cut away in anger.
Before I rot away in some churchyard,
I kneel with the fool’s wish
the spring could wash it all from me.
The sun drags its red spine
across the ridge.
Stone steadies my shoulders in its cool grip
I dissolve into cloud,
a child warmed in arms of water,
its breath rising around me like ghosts.
Rain breaks, sudden and brief.
Creosote exhales its sly, eternal smell.
A cairn rises from the sand,
stones balanced without name-
its long shadow
measures this sand in silence.
Alkali on skin,
sulfur edge to air,
dust on tongue.
Gravity presses,
bone across rock,
and heat seams my back-
a mercy scraped thin,
hours from the outskirts.
A mountain hangs upside down
on the pool’s surface.
I drink not my reflection,
but the earth’s fire gone gentle.
Sep 7, 2025
Sep 7, 2025 at 2:06 PM UTC
anxiety guillotine, hanging
from a thread, suspended above
my sunburnt neck. i'm utterly spent.
another day, back bent in the stocks,
latched in for the Kafka-esque:
carnivalesque body-horror.
shovel white-hot daggers
beneath finger-nail keratin.
bite my tongue off with police-tape teeth.
sadist, savor my godless screams.
drawn and quartered. send my limbs
to the map's furthest corners.
horseflies' aborted eggs
nest amidst maggot-infested
intestines, dangerously dangling.
turn my frown upside down.
stick a razor-blade
in my mouth
and pull 'till i grin
like chelsea.
interned within an unmarked grave,
save for the cairn made from the same stones
i flung myself upon from a great height. a wave
dashed against the rocks, endlessly rebuffed—
the sea's clairvoyance couldn't budge the boulder.
May 17, 2017
May 17, 2017 at 12:15 AM UTC
Today, I told a butterfly he was God
my eyes followed the magnificent cape
of his orange monarch wings
from September flower to flower
The inquisitive coral throated lizard
leaping over the garden jhoola
listened, awestruck as I announced
with deep conviction
"You're, God too, my friend"
It was time to tell Joy, screeching
at the top of her parrot lungs and
Sam my bright-eyed cairn terrier
the exciting news
I could feel the teal blue heavens,
all the creatures of our earth and
beyond breathing in
absolute pin drop silence
as I filled a glass with water
opened my mouth
and slowly poured
God into God
Aug 7, 2013
Aug 7, 2013 at 12:07 PM UTC
Lightly airbrushed girls, they tie ribbons in
their hair. Speak of innocence as they kneel
to their own affairs and softly say their
prayers. Skeletons and piano keys,
porcelain, extraordinarily white
and wary to be played, so unlike your
auricular thoughts. Grimoires and cairn like
symphonies, we’re wanting to be repaired.
Oct 26, 2011
Oct 26, 2011 at 2:13 PM UTC
a cairn on every mountain
chronological tricksters stacked
by near naked natives, or frat brothers
who pointed the way there
with crushed Bud cans?
fossils were less disingenuous,
treasures from a Jurassic sea, staring
back at me--coprolites a fine find, evidence
our voiceless progenitors also
squatted and shat
after days of wilderness
wandering, I found a lonely menhir
tall as two men, wide as one, in no
particular vantage point
to the sun
who carved this monolith
I'd never know; how it was dragged here
would vex me even more
I sat beneath its shadow
until it stretched a desert mile
all the while watching, waiting
for someone to return
to claim it
when no one finally did,
I rubbed my hands on its weather worn flanks,
and bid goodnight to ancient strangers
who worshiped this silent stone
Nov 1, 2015
Nov 1, 2015 at 11:04 AM UTC
Disappointment dogged their every step
on the trip back from the Pole.
Amundsen had bested Scott,
as the World would soon be told.
Evans was the first to die,
to perish in the frost.
Oates, the poor old soldier,
was next to pay the cost.
Crippled by an old war wound,
Home base too far to go,
He walked out in a blizzard
and was buried by the snow.
Eleven miles to fuel and food
The three men left were stranded
A fierce winter storm held them at bay
Empty bellied, empty handed.
Bowers first, then Wilson died,
felled by dysentery .
Scott, their brave Commander,
then wrote his final entry:
“A pity, I can write no more,
too weak to venture out.
Nearly snow blind from the Frost,
by Winter put to rout”
Eight months later, a rescue party
came upon their sad remains
Robert Falcon Scott had died.
The world would learn their names.
They raised a cairn of ice around
the place where brave men died.
A crudely fashioned wooden cross
they placed above on high.
Jan 4, 2012
Jan 4, 2012 at 10:34 PM UTC
The jealous poet
Is careful to write more than he reads,
Worried that each reading leaves
A stone
Upon a rocky mound
That time cannot age or wear,
For as stones lift it from the ground
It makes his own cairn seem more bare.
Apr 17, 2015
Apr 17, 2015 at 9:48 AM UTC
An old black vulture landed in a tree
overlooking Chickamauga Creek;
gave me a sidelong glance.
I thought of Edward Abbey,
critic of government agencies,
professor and park ranger.
Abbey is buried in an illegal grave;
a cairn of stones covers
his remains.
His friends saw to his request,
wrote on one stone,
“Edward Abbey, no comment.”
The nemesis of Glen Canyon Dam
desired no memorial,
got one anyway.
He always said he’d come back
as a vulture next time,
just seemed fitting.
I looked up into the oak,
said, “Hey there Ed,
looks like a good day for flying.”
Abbey didn’t say a word
just gave me that sidelong look,
the old buzzard.
Jun 11, 2015
Jun 11, 2015 at 11:05 PM UTC
Aye in time we hear yer callin',
Yer mucket words o' the mairn fallin'.
Ah see yer schemes, laid gipet an cal,
Yer feverish plots ah see em ahl.
So Aff ma hinkin an aff my ma back min,
Av geet yer bags ye sees av packed em.
Awa we ye poison flooer,
Tae rubbled ruin, yer cairn nae moor.
Yes in time we hear your calling,
Your soiled words of morning falling.
All your schemes, laid childish and cold,
Your feverish plots i see them all.
So leave my thoughts and leave my back man,
I have your bags, you see ive packed them.
Away with you you poison flower,
To rubbled ruin, your mountain no more.
May 18, 2016
May 18, 2016 at 10:48 AM UTC
Of chancellery
Egyptian charm
Rosetta stone
Within his arms
He never thought
He'd do her harm
He kept her safe
His special cairn.
Upon his altar she was set
Phylactery, his amulet
Tears of gratitude he wept
For such a prize
As what he kept
But though she had
The center stage
All the time
She fumed with rage
He was a fool
She was a sage
So he kept her
In a cage.
Then one day
Whilst fool was sleeping
At her feet while
She was weeping
She spied a weapon
He was keeping
He had sowed...
... now he was reaping!
A candlestick
Of leaded weight
She reached out
Of the cage's gate
Though she was
In prisoner's state
She knocked it off
And sealed his fate!
This was not wisdom
To break his bone.
For she was then
Quite well alone
Yes... she'd put him
In his tomb
But, caged, she had then
Sealed her own
.
Jul 6, 2019
Jul 6, 2019 at 7:35 PM UTC
Stone cairn
Not too moderne
Sedimentary rock
Years of process
Around the clock
Sunlight, wind, cold
Bringing colored layers of bold
Stones that provide heat
On a dreary day where you set your feet
Shelter and protection
Beauty in its collection
Double meanings surround
These stones that are abound
Appealing rock garden
A visionary cycle of carbon
On a planet that is well known
Of abundant natural stone
Sep 18, 2018
Sep 18, 2018 at 12:58 PM UTC
Forever alone
But never lonely
The cairn points the way
A tattered trail
In intemperate weather I endeavor
The gale winds of ignorance causes me to pause
And take account of my story
The path to oblivion has its detours
I walk it alone, confident that the end is near
Apr 23, 2014
Apr 23, 2014 at 1:43 PM UTC
If I truly loved this poem
I would stay up all night
weeping over it
I would dig it a good grave
build it a tomb
I wouldn't give it to fire
or set a pitiful cairn over it
I would send it off with all
the honors it deserves
not nothing,
which is what I planed
for maybe dreams will
be better than this poem
(that's probably true
I wouldn't want to waste
more time than necessary)
what it needs is violence
or knights or faery
but plenty of blood
sacrifice egoless
epic story of gods and men
not another one about me
or my father or mother or wife
or death (well maybe that)
or the doom of the world
here is what I want from you, poem
something to make me respect you
I want a dozen good men
to take over the the country
with wit and sword, blood and smoke
guitar and song, gun and blade
new heros for a new age
and new poems to pronounce them
maybe that's to much to ask
it probably is
I guess i'll just go to bed
and dream
Apr 1, 2015
Apr 1, 2015 at 9:29 PM UTC
lost, one rung out through the scrub.
nothing i didn't need
anymore. matagouri beneath
heavy soles, the speargrass gave
me new skin. evenings
glazed over quick. dreams
curled up in my sleeping bag,
never touching me, dragged
'em to the tops, shook
'em out. i can sleep fine, now.
even in retreat, bathed in city
lights, foraging without snow,
gulping down the same old
chlorine i had lived with. oh,
antiquated i, now so deep in the
murk of this tunnel passed. i'll
make sure to miss you, albeit
minimally.
the cairn crop will spread out,
encompass frivolous dust-clouds;
from lowlands i shall stamp up
out of this trench i've so
meticulously hollowed. taste of
new victory fresh on tongue,
knuckles torn, eyes bright.
oh, new skeleton. nothing will
halt these unfurling wings.
Jul 1, 2014
Jul 1, 2014 at 2:51 AM UTC
I am a cairn.
Built up out of stones
Each cobble a manifestation
of some idiosyncrasy
no one stone describing completely but
the sum total of comprising mine entity
Dec 15, 2015
Dec 15, 2015 at 7:25 PM UTC
The stones I choose were
smooth and grey
to build a cairn
that marked the end.
So cold were they
I thought them wet
Laden with my dark regret.
As for all I could not keep,
I placed them gently, buried deep .
Frigid I
I could not thaw-
The fault was mine,
in the after all.
Sahn
01/15/17
Apr 17, 2017
Apr 17, 2017 at 10:25 PM UTC
O' Jerusalem tree,
were we as perfect
we would have no voice,
nor raise a phantom limb
to strike at the desolate heart
of such
wild beauty.
No, we must
cairn usage words,
like yellow gold combs
to hold your wanton hair.
So we might mark our place
among this desolate face,
to weep with grace
in this land of stone,
should there be no thirst
for veracious words
nor the sound
of human
timber.
Jun 10, 2015
Jun 10, 2015 at 11:57 PM UTC
London, 1999
Oh the fences they hold true,
wandering through heavy woven forests of tree roots
to pastures of sunken vegetation
along dirt roads nestled in overcast shadows,
as a family picnics, or so it would appear.
A rejoice of sorts if only you were still here.
I see your silhouette appear and reappear,
the wind etching your likeness
upon each cairn that dots pastoral.
The walking path becomes overwhelmed by sunlight.
Perhaps you are still working in the fields,
Your wind-burned and calloused exterior
holding rough rooted abhorrence in your lowered brow.
You remain sanctified and unpolluted,
piling sun bleached stone upon sunken roots,
the dark shadows solidified in foreground fate.
Oh how your canvas womb gives heartless birth.
Thrice mangled memories,
of dark French roast in an earth tone demitasse
and crumpets served slightly charred on the veranda
on a chipped porcelain Victorian saucer
with only a faint shade of lavender along its edge.
As the dark brown stain in the once white silk tablecloth
glowers through the prongs of your tarnished silver fork,
You stare across the table
at the emptiness of the once filled bookcases.
I realize that your only genuine notion of remorse
is in the severed piece of an antique plate.
Apr 7, 2016
Apr 7, 2016 at 5:44 PM UTC