a little boy sits on
the top of a staircase

his laden, waterlogged
eyelashes droop

his vision fogs
with salt

his heart pulses hot/cool
snowmelt

throughout the body

there are missing
people

no mother
no father

no brother
only boy

locked in house
too scared to sleep

while snowflakes
fall in unfettered

air
there is joy in storm

if one can see it
through the tears

there is comfort
to be had once

the emotion cools
and tree branches are

unburdened from the
weight of ice

movement happens
up the stairs

dear sister
who the boy forgot

was there
places her hand

upon the boy’s
quivering back

"We call it snow
when the parts of God,

too small to bear, contest our bodies"

and angels tell us
to taste the tears

before they freeze
on our red-rubbed

noses
here, taste your tears

says sister.
*they’re salty, aren’t they?

The world around us gets bigger when the snow melts. Suddenly there are new plains of the earth that our life has been deprived of. It’s not necessarily a happy thing. At least not at night when the spring winds are blowing strong and my mind is wandering to places darker than the retreating winter.

I had forgotten the way to the hut that I had traveled to so many times,
so many days. So many moons, I would say. But no one marks moons anymore, except hunters. And I am not one of them. Nor a gatherer.
I listen to old men tell how they felled the stags. I do not believe them.

I am a wayfarer, to use the archaic words I used to love, the words
I had forgotten, the words of time in eternity, the words of orange leaves
on towering pin oaks, the words of circles of shadows settling on Gavarnie, of snowfall in the Pyrénées. Sever Spain from the Continent.

I had lost the language of the *****, spray-painted sheep scampering
over gray-bouldered cirques on mountaintops, boulders turning into mountains in the shadows, in the fog, in drifts of snow. There are no words for this now. Bleating sheep drown them out, and yapping dogs.

There are no words for the radiance of transcendence. “Climb higher,”
I hear them say. Higher into the haze of clouds. Cirque: circle, circus. Acrobatics on hillsides, balancing acts on rockslides, skimming streams in hard-toed boots. I had forgotten the way to the words, far behind me.

I have come to a gate, a steep stile in shadow. No sheep can pass. Nothing looks familiar; nothing looks strange. I saunter in a cloud
of unknowing. I had known the words: worn, smooth as stone unscuffed by hard-toed boots, slick as snowmelt. Slide from France into Spain.

This is the path of Santiago de Compostela, the route of St. James, who said, “Do not be double-minded, brethren.” I cannot remember if I have been double-minded in my travels. I had forgotten the way. If the words do not come, which mind sees the threshold; which mind circles the fog?

What passes, what begins when we travel? I do not look backward.
The way lies ahead, waiting, wandering away from the words. Splotches
of lichen sprout orange and green. “Go no higher for safety.” No higher.
They do not mention exile or ecstasy or the straight path of radiance.

The cirque circles my words in mountain shadows. I must unlearn
the art of travel, adrift in broken fields of stone. I had forgotten the way to the hut. Rocks obscure the path. Light ensures the path leads upward. Nothing is lost. Words hold their weight. Stags dance above me in fog.

No poem came to me this morning
as I walked for an hour
in the snowmelt mist
threading my boots through
the brown salt muck and flotsam
winter's junk food wrappers
the city just stared
at its own face in the ice
as uninspired as me

Although I hardly gave it a thought
I didn't really doubt
our miniature juniper, a bonsai,
would survive our desert vacation.
                                                       ­   It likes the dry
air of our home, needs water
once a week at most and seems
meditative and active, both. While away
I rediscovered my love of agaves -
                                                          sotol­ and century
plant - met Mortonia and became
reacquainted with squawbush, its citrus
drupe which makes traveling the long horizon
of the desert uplands endurable.
                                                      ­    Live oaks - emory,
wavyleaf - dominant and regally spaced
giving ground to mesquite only on the sere
sand flats. I counted and drew inflorescenses,
spikelets, florets, awns but grasses
                                                         ­  remain a mystery
their microscopic parts. This year
I'll study, give them serious thought before
our Spring starts. The cactus wren was the one
bird I could be certain about. Sunsets
                                                         ­  made me sorry
the desert is not my home. But the ocotilloes
flowered before we left and that made up
for the vicious attack of a hedgehog cactus.
Impressive, ponderosa pine and Arizona cypress
                                                         ­  the canyon canopy
watered with snowmelt and along the high cliffs
limestone formations predating our arrival by
ten million years of weather. Newspapers
kept us aware humanity had not accomplished yet
                                                           the end of history
and that was fair. The planes were full of citizens
who no longer applaud upon landing. Snow flew,
not a pinyon pine or manzanita within two moons
walking. On the dining room sideboard, waiting,
                                                        ­   our miniature juniper.

why hadn't i thought of this before?
why are children hidden in the floor?
why is our mother missing and
why is carbon four hundred parts per

human? historical doubts, unusual droughts, i thought
i'd never say it but **** canada. **** budweiser, ****
saint valentine and his pagan oppression, bless my blood
for being dark. there is consciousness in the pores of corals,
a strong mind in the **** at the polar regions of this table.

i am not an arctic hare, i am not a vector
for your raging codependence, four meters
into the thermosphere i am not vulnerable to
methane, early snowmelt, or severe wildfires

but you are.

(for Glynn)*

Singing breeze
Singing breeze
Carrying nothing
Kissed by sunlight
Carry my wishes
Scatter my troubles

Leave the grey highway
Slip through the forest
Birch and pine
Needle and catkin
Shutting the sky out
Speckles of sunlight

Evening sky
How many colours
How many colours
Woodsmoke and silence
Unsleeping river
Silence and river

Wanting to share this
Beautifully lonely
Only I saw it
Only I held it
Stop this stone rolling
Let the moss gather

Living as leaf-fall
Living as boulder
Keener than snowmelt
Fuller than August
Cradle of tree roots
Mantle of mountain

Granite horizon
Breezes will soothe you
Whispering breezes
Will you be listening
Do you hear singing
Do you hear forests

Aspen, ponderosa pine, blue spruce
pink glacier-cut rock, scree, ravens
gray jay, peregrine falcon, hawk.

We climb to 11,000 feet in three days,
camp at Lawn Lake for three days. Alpine
tundra. Elk, bighorn sheep, marmot.

Tileston Meadows, ticks in grass,
rock face of Mummy Mountain.
Binoculars show pink cracks in gray rock.

Stoke gas stoves, play cards.
Boil water, set up tarps, lay out
sleeping bags, hang bear bag.

Watch crescent moon slice into
Fairchild Mountain. Moonlight
makes a mosque of the rocks.

Yellow aspen splash in dark green
spruce and pine. Gullies where streams
slash during spring snowmelt.

One rock, feather or flower worth
more than money. Need no wallet,
keys. Just clothes for fur.

All day climb toward saddle to see
what's on other side. One hawk floating
among bare peaks and over valleys.

Wind at 13,000 feet
turns to sleet. Turn back from peak,
take boulders two at a time down.

Winter moves into mountains.
Then we fly from Denver to New York
where it's still summer.

Gimme the dregs
the sludge
at the bottom of the coffee ***
in a twelve-ounce paper cup
Give me snowmelt
Give me the bile in the belly of the earth
Give me good, clean american dirt
and half-remembered dreams
and I'll show you what it means
to live honestly.

Gimme the sun
up on high
on the other side of nightfall
to tighten the bags under my eyes
Give me dandelions
Give me a candle for warmth and light
Give me the mist in the sky
and a spoonful of rice
and I'll show you what it feels like
to move a molehill.

I can't see.
There is nothing to see
behind the blackness of my eyes.
I can hear...
hear the sound of the faraway sea...
the twitter of a bird
somewhere overhead
and a voice...
rumbling gently, soothingly beside me.
I can touch...
your hands, rough with callouses,
scarred with work;
the fabric of your cotton shirt
as it loosely hangs on your strong frame.
I can smell...
the rugged nearness of you,
the sweetness of the trees
and the coolness of the air.
I can taste...
the snowmelt on my tongue,
the remnants of honey from your lips.
Your hands touch my tired eyes...
and of a sudden
I can see.

Eros
Someone who tastes like
Ramune and Faygo, smells
Like Shenandoah

Mania
Waiting for six months
Only to find that you are
Eighteen and fourteen

Philia
Eyes just like snowmelt
Soft, cool, and fresh in the spring
Small signs of some hope

Ludus
A homecoming dance
Bumping bodies in a crowd
When your date ditches

Agape
The news surrounds us
Against suburban ap'thy
We are fighting back

Storge
Speaking of the sea
Advanced chemistry, and of
Secrets kept from mom

Pragma
One year of dating
But the sun and earth go back
Farther than we do

Philautia
Maybe we'll see it
Like a rose blooming forth from
Torrential blizzards

Her skin pale ice
Her body, winter.

My hands smooth
Across her flesh,
Warmth blooms,
Spring blossoms.

My kiss is heat,
I taste her snowmelt.

ice cracks floes turn back
belt loosed, beltway free
pavement hit by ten-ton trucks
storming past swiftly-growing seed

snowmelt sinks
into brittle cement
iron bars, deep years rusted
the bridge might hold another year
if weeds don't grow between the cracks

a crash of thunder
lightning-licked hunger
the earth devours cold hard rain
slapping the ground
like a newly-scorned lover
the warmth of her blushed cheeks bright

like a hesitating twilight

Pavement at sundown
wears snowmelt sand..
Quiet and empty
until one vehicle
tires and sand
their special crunch
cut a crevice
in Quiet space..
Then in passing
fading in distance
Quiet once more
swallowed the crunch
healed the crevice…

with their great drooping wings
the ospreys returned yesterday
to scan the raging snowmelt for churned up meals
to set up nest in order to begin the process
of egg to chick to selfish fledgling to conspicuous adult
it is tempting to apply human traits to the natural world
[especially for a poet]
but in this case we will work on an unnatural premise
reaching the small point of contentment
in the form of a fish hawk being
putting aside our never ending need for understanding
and stop measuring beauty and form

lights precesses against smoothing-out
concrete, dawns like these. red runs
down and out my twitching strings,
puddles on the brickwork gathering
about every footstep. trying to make
myself a little more like you. a little
further away. a little less dizzy.
a small crown of wilted lilies.
woke up feelin' somethin' similar, taking
a collection of successive moments
erasing all wishes my lips could ever
graze pastures you stitch between
snowmelt watercolour blinks and the
sugar in your navel and (well, you
get the idea). glacially, i converge to
some semblance of divergence. stop
wishing a second to next. what good
are wishes? what good am i to you,
at least yet? with heavy linen, i'll
mend. i hope you see me, beautiful
as dawn, wide-eyed, mauled by
no icicle; and increasingly lament what
you could
have had, honey

To California:
You are a land of gold and opportunity
the manifest destiny grasped
the cradle of many too-distant friends.

To Ohio:
You are halfway across the country
the destination of a poignantly-missed friend
the cradle of a new beginning for her
the end of our era.

To Oregon:
Rivers between us, pumping blue blood to the sea
in you, I stumbled from girl into woman
in you, I woke up and stood up, and
made the first memories I treasure.

To Canada:
You are my parent as much as America
a cleaner, calmer shadow of your sister
more vast than words can encapsulate,
an undiscovered prairie of 100-person towns
beautiful and insulated, insects drowning in amber.
Oil pumps in canola fields
twisted pines from the Dark Ages
atop mountains green with August snowmelt
impossibly broad skies and midnight suns
dancing under the northern lights in my cousin's wedding.
You gave me a
plastic bag with two passports, cracking open
the world.

To Washington:
You are the ever-green land
vibrant and beautiful in my memory and before my eyes
the thrumming of Seattle music,
the steam of fresh coffee on perfect grey skies
warm sweatshirts and jeans that fit just right
copper hair curling perfectly on my shoulders
poetry reading in cafe basements
excitement at discovering my voice.
You are the cradle of my closest friends
my bitterest regrets sweetening my
hang-over coffee.
You were my first start
and every new beginning after that.
You were my first home
and you will be my last.

When snowmelt
from the highest peaks
cascades into valleys
below, it rushes down
arroyos, leaping over
boulders, circling
round eddies,
and settles into
lakes and pools
that echo
the azure sky

Along the way,
it finds itself
in blades of rising
grass, on barren
meadow floors

and in the roots
of ancient trees, that
sip no more than
they need to fill
their budding leaves

They emerge slowly,
from dormant slumber
stretching, like monarch
wings unfolding, giving
homage to the sun

And then they bloom,
in vibrant multicolored
celebration of the
renaissance declaring,
the arrival of a new day

And they give sustenance
to the twigs and branches
and the trunks, whose
toes reach deep into
the soil, and they
give themselves
to winter's spring

And they give themselves
to the fleeting wind

in theory
warmth on a warm day
shouldn't be what i want

but locked into you
holding on for dear life
while my toes barely
touch the floor
sweat is sweet

i hold the heat
my hands damp
my eyes wide for lack of light

if you are summer
melt the ice that lingers on my riverbed
guide the snowmelt down between my banks
i don't want to be cold anymore

Lately I've been stating the obvious
Textbook cop outs of conversation
Clearly "it is what it is," but if I asked "how are you?"
And you say that you've had better days
"It is what it is," is not valuable input
"Brilliant observation, Mr. Holmes"
Or as I prefer to say, no ****, sherlock
You'll either stand there or walk away
And in near perfect silence the clock will tick tock
Time and regret moving in rivulets that make up the day
Words flow from my mouth and into the bay of awkward
Silences and "keep your chin up"s
Let me you ask you, when was that ever enough?
Clearly I'm still above water, trying not to sink
But I can't even use my brain hard enough to think of a response other than
"It is what it is"

Because I wish it was what it isn't
And that I didn't have this dirt in my eyes
Cause it rolls down my nose and it's grown quite annoying
See, we were on a journey to the ocean
But devotion also drips down, down
Like condensation on the side of a glass of water left out in the sun
I kept on toying with this sharp tongue just to end up slashing our tires and sails
I never cease nor fail to amaze myself with my expertise on sabotage
This feeling can be no mere mirage considering how much it hurts
I made this bed out of dirt and also have nothing else to eat
Stranded in this desert heat of my own insecurity
I ****** up so thoroughly you'd think I did this on purpose
There's no such thing as above while you're under the surface
It is what it is? No, it's not what it's not
I used to mean a lot to her, till one day I just didn't
Now the better days are hidden over mountains that are seeming farther away than they ever have before
Because no more can I look in her eyes and call those deep oceans mine, full of treasures I will never know
I couldn't hold on, and that's how she goes

Honestly, it's strange how serene I've been lately
And something seems gravely odd about this scene
I see this canyon in dreams and think it's amazing
The relativity of it all, it takes rivers and glaciers eons
To carve out their existence on nature, but I built something even more beautiful inside of my mind in the blink of an eye
A mere hiccup compared to the amount of time that it takes in order to create and behold the majesty of something so grand
And yet it's so hard to believe that what I tried to make last was so utterly temporary
Honestly, it's pretty scary when you lose someone so quickly you feel like you never had a place or even mean anything
I still want forever, but can't even make it till spring
So I watch as better times chase their head spaces flowing down
Down
Down
Down the ravines between us, carved out by my jealousy
Yet I still see you and we can only watch the same stars
That must have given us incompatible charts, no we can't navigate like this
So I waste my time and miss you as I lie back and start
Accepting what is, connecting the dots with bored eyes
Trying to trace out some image of god with the sky
Hiding somewhere up there in the unforgiving dark
The one that gave us these incompatible hearts

See, we were once like a river, of course I already forgive her
Though it was my fault we got stranded here, that she doesn't want to be near the wrath of my landslides
Water flows and divides along the path of least resistance after all
As it should, if only I could be as fluid as her
But I am the distance of earth and the meters per second
The matter that beckons every object to fall with its gravity
The bricks in each wall that people build to ignore whatever it is that they can't stand to see
But unlike geological ages, I turn the pages and it saddens me how short our time was and how much you are missed
Like some kind of freak continental drift separated our currents, the very face of this world will never be the same as long as you walk upon it
And trying to carve out your name on my side of this canyon is proving to be impossibly difficult
The very earth shook each time that I smiled and you wouldn't look
I tapped out Morse code with boulders, but too forcefully the wind vibrated her shoulders and hair
My smoke signals were lost in the cold morning air where your absence is most definitely noted
There is no glare on your binoculars, you're not looking my way, but in between the spaces where night turns into day
You're more focused on horizons that I can't see from where I stand
I'm stuck on this side with no feasible plan to escape
Guess I'll just wait in this land that time seems to have lost
To become one more man that you simply forgot
And how could I forget that I know you've got many more things still to do, more important people to love
It is what it is, and it was what it was
But I still see your fire sometimes across the gap that's eroding
The silence between us swells as the ice cap is going from up north and down
Down
Down
Down to the ocean that we were supposed to become
So I'll watch you underneath the indifferent sun as you move along with the current, farther away from where I stay slumped
While I'm aging one million years in a month because I'm like the earth and you're more like the sea
And you should know that even if you never miss me, your motions through space, my hands on your waist, that heartbreaking face
Whatever it was that we were is imprinted in the sediment of my very being, I hope you are happy with the world you're out there seeing
And if you even sometimes think of me then maybe sometimes I'll also be able to sleep through the eons and try to figure this out
But I reserve doubts because nothing will ever hurt more than the truth
I'd rather take a dinosaur tooth to the chest, I'm way too depressed to do anything but survive, yeah I'm still alive
Still stuck here, still useless, tears keep pathetically leaking down
When I think of you, but prophetically speaking
Maybe someday there'll exist a new age, intrepid paleontologist that will be able to sift through and find
On the floor of our ocean, in the muck and the grime
These fossils the snowmelt carried down to the sea
Proof that I love you... and you once loved me

You have to spell it out.
Where the sun sets
in shifting sands?
Picking up the heart rocks―
I was learning to
walk away from undying.
Who would confuse the
infinite falls. There was no conclusion.
Again you come howling,
waiting for the snowmelt from
the face.
The lips become the stones.
You will not count the peaks.
Overnight, it has
turned grey, my red moon.
I will take hold of the night.
There was no referral
of lying truth.

Shadows Deep on the pine straw
the smell of turpentine with every step
summers full moon glow lights the way
the sound of feet scurry just out of sight

Uphill now, heart is thumping chest is tight
breaths come in deep gasps
straps dig into my shoulders
as I top the summit

Flickering light visible through underbrush
a soft vibrant humming, in the distance,
the outline of a small cabin emerges
a campfire burns, the smell of oak smoke

Dancing in a ring and still humming
porcelain white skin, glowing from the moon
orange hair, made more so by the fire, tossed
naked ******* bounce in time to each step

Sweat flows from the summer and the fires heat
and the exertion of her dance
I sit watching, trying to catch my breath
but it is taken away by her beauty

I pick up a stick and snap it
her head comes up in my direction
a wicked smile upon her face
as she attempts to pick me out of the shadows

Her dance and song change pace
slow and sensual now
as her hands explore her body
and attempt to tease me out of hiding

I slowly and silently creep around
to the other side of the cabin
all the while her dance is focused
becoming more suggestive in the other direction

With a disappointed smile, she stops
and thinks, maybe it was just a deer
she slinks towards the outdoor tub
full of ice cold, snowmelt stream water

I am already there, naked, laying behind
I watch her feet approach
through the clawfeet of the tub
and wait, silent and breathless

She slips into the water with a gasp
skin tightens and ******* *****
I reach up and stroke her skin
she startles and smiles, as I slip in with her.

The water boils with our heat

The universe can best be heard
Through ears that hug tired grins
In an alpine trek’s midday doze
Drenching deep gratified skin
Here whispered wares can wish for loss
Echoing down snowmelt creeks
With mouse, rock and wildest flower
Sound the ethers, stars and peaks

the cars on the road
and descends past naked trees
into the field still
dry despite snowmelt water
where she alights and
closes her wings, ruffles her
feathers, and dunks her
head. She drinks. The
wind stirs ripples on the pond.
Then she comes up, bobs,
floats, and dunks her head again
and again with wild
thirst that will not be sated.

cracked fog moss
garden blacktails sing
snowmelt pool

Ancient memories
transport me
to another place, different time,
alternate existence, simply sublime.

Through the winter's mist,
darkened by fires smoke,
emergence by grace,
the green of spring in my heart.

Crested blue jay,
perched upon the branch,
above the crystal snow,
feathers ruffled in the wind.

Longing for the new shoots of spring,
pushing up through the melting snow,
and announcing that life shall go on.

The wind and rain begin,
beware of flash floods,
snowmelt from above, dangerous,
brings needed moisture.

Colors spread on horizons,
like flavors of jam,
depending on the day and clouds,
determines sunset's taste.