There are few but ‘beautiful’ leaves yet in this quantum year.
Whether a coincidence of global warming
The Alcubierre news cycle, foreign and domestic,
or the ever-increasing social distancing.
That brings our masked faces closer to the fire next time.
Nothing I’ve found
when I take the time to look
Would survive the this rising ocean.
This ridge of wildfires.

So at the risk of
Tipping off the authorities
To recently outlawed traditions.
Please consider the Longleaf Pine
A stateside substitution for my affection
And admiration of our friendship with each on this blue jewel
A token akin to the Syrian Ironwood tree

All is well,
All is terrible,
As usual.
The poor in spirit sow seeds,
The radicals transplant roots
And the reactionaries begin again.
Breaking and building wheels in the sky.
Those of us in the middle move through these shallow doors.

We settle into...

Bruce Mulkey asked me to share a report on the board retreat at Taylor Ranch with our beautiful community.
Humbly, I will begin with the poem the Lord of dreams offered as I awoke this Sunday. Inspired by Laura Collins’ observation that in the Gaelic tradition, the wild goose is considered an avatar of the Holy Spirit:

Trí Ghé Fhiáine
three wild geese (Gaelic)

As the first frost comes
I find myself familiarly waking in a new house too early
Full of friends and strangers
Confusing my right and left, over-trusting GPS,
Underscored by memory.
Surrounded by strong, wise women.

And so it was as I crested the hill
One already brought the Word.
One brought the wood.
Three wild geese moved over the waters.

Later, down to shirtsleeves, a calico albino and braided donkey
Observed our full company
A circle in the Sun
21st-century apostles, iPhones connecting the one in Zion
We...

Lord, thank You for every little thing,
For every big thing we think we can do today.
Gift us to do it for You and Through you
that You may be goofily, groggily, glorified.
Your World made perfect through this clumsiness

Plant a new Eden in my fallow field
Fill my heart with new water that I may share the harvest with
Every radiant facet of your Presence.
One legged.
Dyads
And Four-Legged,
Let the stones sing with the water of my Heart as I pass
On my way home to You.

I didn’t have to go outside to pee.
Instead I pushed a button and cold, pure, filtered water came to me.
Another button brought me coffee.
Cream from the icebox.
I took up a Japanese milled pen, an artifact of the previous century,
And thought of a friend
Who saw me clearly, and loved me anyway,
(who, yes, I may be gently falling in love with)
And so my watch begins.

A certain risk of violence.
the child of my first marriage
misses the reference
i’ve yet to meet my second wife
Yet to lay my horned head in her lap
though with you
I may have come close.

One thinks one is well enough. But how can we be sure?
Being sober.
For now, that must be enough, to be considered a good day.
All else is gravy.
A sober day, whatever maintenance that requires, must be considered
A good day.

One is grateful, and says so.
One knows one must eat.
Fats, Proteins and Carbs- the source doesn’t much matter.
One doesn’t need sugar, caffeine, or nicotine,
but one makes allowances for small harms, silver linings.

One needs a meeting, that is clear enough.
We are not interested in the past but what One wants to do about it.
One needs to sleep in the knowledge 5am will come everyday awake.
One needs to move this temple- ideally through nature
The purpose doesn’t much matter. And some days there will be rain.
One needs money, not too much, if One is wise.
One feels the lack of of a women, that lack of poetry.
That exchange of fluids.
Mine are...

The question of your place or mine is problematic when you live in a house full of ex-junkies.
It’s a nice house, perfect for entertaining, on a quiet street,
surrounded by tall trees.
It’s hardwood floors polished clean.
My queen bed is warm and well made.
As are the men who live here, but still.
There is too the question of time and money.
I have little enough of either, though I put both to good use.
As example, see above.
Yet, in fairness, we’ll list these in the liabilities column.

As to assets,
I know myself well enough for classification:
A full life in swing with many friends,
1,809 if Facebook is to be believed.
I make good honest food, and rich coffee.
I do fumbling good work in my community.
Fitting to my Scots-Irish upbringing.
I clean bathrooms, answer the crisis line.
I have a car, a phone that rings, a frame for aforementioned bed.
I write better than some...

May this cup crafted in mud and laurel
Nicked by wood-handled tool marks
Seasoned with suey and ramps
Filled with chattering waters
Overflow
To water whom it pleases You.

And may that please
Silly old selfish
Me.

Now comes one of three seasons of the year
When blood runs lustily to loins
And I, having no immediate vessel,
Dab impotently on the page.
Offering ursine grunts towards the
Early morning dream of you.
Last night, over falafel, I showed a friend your picture
In answer to his questioning distress:
“Yeah brah, you should do something about that. I would.”
But what, I wonder, would be said
Between us.
Between you and your sisters,
Should I arrive unannounced at your doorstep?
And what should it matter if ever, or still,
You are feeling the same way.

I bring the broken flowers
Picked from the side of the neighbors road.
For the altar of my hippie church.
Where we pray to the God of our own misunderstanding.
Before I make an Irish exit
In French.
The glass against the album lyric you framed
Is appropriately cracked right down the middle.
I like it better this way.
And I don’t visit the houses we shared
Without first calling ahead.
Without first crossing my heathen heart twice.
Without wiping the mud of Hellbenders passing from my feet.
Such are the precautions I take
Against offences of the soul.
As I go I recognize these statements should tell a story.
But I am not done rewriting the past just yet.