The Ride

It’s the squeaking of the machinery

the arms and levers and wheels,

cables flexing while pulleys spin -

Trundling the sounds of metal and axles

and gears, the smell of hot oil and steam

escaping under the pressure of pistons

and pinions. Ideas aren’t as mechanical,

no. They are worse: the whole mess of

them sometimes humming like the 

heart of a steamship, sometimes 

seizing like the ailing organs

of a derelict riverboat.

You never know which you’ll get,

though, until you prime the thing

and fire it up. Then, as if the sum were

more than the parts, a magic explodes

across the page infused with tears and 

laughter and hopes. Once the vessel

Is moving, for good or ill, it takes 

you along for the ride.

A Nasturtium: As often happens

As often happens

in the mid-fire season gloom

of September in southern Oregon,

with smoke obscuring the sun

and stunting the growth of so many

plants, a struggling nasturtium

on the back porch

eked out a few green leaves

and an orange flower.

I'd say it brings hope and joy,

but mostly it brings sadness

about what-could-have-been-if:

Not really a nameless discontent.

More of a wishful, wistful memory

of sunny days past when the roses

bloomed fully, pumpkins plumped,

nasturtiums were full, ferns robust.

More

It’s time's fault
we only scratch the surface
of things we learn.

Only just yesterday I explored
a little more about the
infamous murder hornet.

But I don’t have time
to become a hornet expert,
so my scant research halted,
leaving me somewhere
between Vespa this and
yellow legs that and something
about an invasion along the northern
border of France in 2009.

And that article about maps,
or the one about Viking discoveries
in Newfoundland... forget it. No
time to scratch that surface,

though I long to.

Yes, I do. That’s why
Mr. Sandburg’s Window caught
my attention today. Sometimes
we have to take time to dig more.

I admit - it may turn up little. But
it just may reveal a treasure
that will cast off a voyage
of a lifetime. I’ve got time for that.

The Beginning of Quarantine

Covid-19 teaching 

is like nothing 

before.

And it started 

today without 

fanfare

from me. Just

some things I

know.

That comfort 

brought me

joy.

So did hearing

from my

students

in short messages,

responses and

questions.

Something hopeful 

being connected 

again.

Winter with Ebenezer

A storm loomed and wind stirred
dried twigs of a leftover
summer plant, its withered tendrils
grasping at concrete and a
praying mantis long since deceased.

It reminded me of ol' Marley. He
was dead as a door-nail.

And so are spent my recent successes.

A new chapter beckons, but the pain
of the present and abrupt end
makes me look more to the corrupted
mantis than the coming spring.

I've already been haunted by
the things I've done.

I paused, that morning, the carcass,
staring back at me, more wraith
than gentle spirit, igniting a
condemning symphony in my mind
accompanying the brittle descent
I'd taken from

many joyous years
odd but manageable recent ones.

I'd skipped to the last ghost, really!
That decrepit exoskeleton a hooked
and aged finger slipping from under
the ragged frock of death's angel
pointing to my doom!

It cannot be! No!

Scrooge's cry has become my own.

If only I could sponge away this writing,
and change these shadows by an altered life!

Relief

The rain was softer

today. The wind,

warmer. 

I recalled days when

I thrilled to go for a run

in just such conditions.

Because of them. But 

tonight, instead, I 

wish for the soothing

they once brought.

In a poem, 

a reflection,

a thought.

Swallows

Yesterday swallows
danced above the historic city hall
over pedestrian conversations
over diesel trucks hustling
morning men with Rockstars
and coffee to job sites,

over retired regulars on the sidewalk
sipping their coffees remembering
hustling to their job sites.

I, lost among them to the birds, wanted to
forget those things and longed
to remember simpler things like
which swallows these were
and what hatch brought them out.