Teeth of God

I clipped daffodils,

those little teeth of God,

the day your grandson died.

The rain bent them low

yellow bells heavy

face down.

Like spears in a vase

the cut stems still

take water.

The window light,

filtered by glass,

frames life.

Two weeks on the planet,

we're too weak, to stand

alone.

Mud Pi

Thrill my eyes with mud fresh path,

tree fallen,

daffodil known to slug banana

and branch light golden.

Spear my ears with surf pound, new

creek gargle and cormorant squawk.

Let my feet find mint folds

and flat beach when the rocks spill.

Lungs suck spray gulls play shadow wheels

between fish gulps.

My desk abandoned,

phone face dark,

nearer my God to Thee

not more possible

but still, 

the effort to love, 

easier, with breeze.

Celestial Sandbox

     A stand alone God,
     not alone,
     caws us to sing.

     Music in orbit, 
     heart beats
     the point pounded home.

     Life in light years,
     mothers  
     closer than stars apart.

     Celestial tryouts boom
     behind planets,
     a child in the sand box,
     croons.

Grandma Posts a Picture

Noise is
other than
you singing a
grandson song.

Hands fan, flying
smile joins a new tooth
to the sky
waiting.

Rubber legs jangle.
Half sized slippers
grip the tumble not
beat.

Fascinating fingers
in the mouth 
treasured. The mind opens,
as wide as these eyes.

Hip Hope

I asked the inkster

if Chinese rock stars

get the ABC's

tattooed on their neck. 

Scripture scrawled

on my bicep

set up

preaching to  pierced

hearts and sugar plum dragons.

We had to abbreviate Matthew 10:38

to accomodate my skinny arm.

Should've went for Luke 14:27,

but I don't like to read ahead.

Doe Eyed Decimal System

Flirting in libraries
we thought whispers
handsome.

Just a page, turning slowly,
was enough to unbind
reticence.

A note, folded
close as a boat,
sails the table.

The guardian angel eyes
of comings, and goings,
deep as the marked aisles.

Our love of books
at the ready, in case
romance is only a category.

Sound Reason

The surf trolling,
a foghorn, slight off season
bee.

Children yip across a stone wall
as an engine whipples downhill.

My wife's crisp
pages in the sun. Even a crow.

If that pink cloud,
just before dinner,
is real,
the one next to it, is not.

Stir Sir

In kitchen butterfly,

unusual any season,

but January, the twenty first?

We moved lettuce

and lemon tree inside

to frustrate frost,

the night poet.

I stirred onions from a chair,

book opened to steamed glasses,

yellow tinged wings

opened over the salt bowl.

Happy birthday father,

dead, just short of one hundred years.

Every wish comes true,

when it flits by

unbroken.

Song Bark

Wintered leaves rattle
at apple branch end,
the lone music makers
in the life of the tree.

Delayed rendevous
gives me glimpse
of a natural chorus
ignored.

Jesus said, "The very stones
will cry out..."

Bus stop arbor
doing its best.

Beast of Eden

Quails startle

and fan to the roof,

even without the dog

I'm a terror to the locals.

Defending broccoli

it's me versus the cabbage beetle,

St. George and the dragon.

Any fight I manage is habit 

against prescribed preference,

the stuff of New Year's.

Circumstance and luck,

false Fahrenheits,

the progress of surrender

is light lengthening days.

What God wants,

God gives.

What I take,

is time

to face returning.

Rock Bed

Full marble moon

rolls snow shadows

across high Christmas chaparral.

A million moth fat flakes

fly in the face of a driven man,

wise tomorrow.

Short visit.

Long road ahead,

behind,

and beside the unblinking

lane change.

Family tree, measured

in miles. Our pace,

our place on the King's highway,

eternal.

Apron Strings

The sweet part of an onion

stings. When you won't

call home, I cut slices

under water.

Setting plates around the table

one breaded breast enough for two,

but not enough for Christmas.

Heaven invites us to save

a chair, the number of chairs

to make a party, astronomical.

Old wounds don't need salt.

Grace, a feast for the eyes.

Silver Lining

The closest hawk 

cuts a silhouette against  milk clouds.

The horizon, half sea and half water reflected,

swallows the swell of the ocean at bay.

A kayak arrows to the sun's roll in the waves,

paddle length dripping back

to glide.

Worship is a tidal ventricle

pumping the planet's peace.

Jealous turtles surrender the shore to

muck boots in chorus, a choir of pink whispers

before the set.

Nature trumps the natural way of thinking,

it's the breath taking secret 

of the breath giver.

Vocation

I save nine seconds of light

bulb life leaving the work room

for the kitchen. That much dark

I can handle,

the doorway never moves.

It's a home office,

the dryer dings between cold calls,

work shirts drape the ironing board.

The value I bring, on days I don't

sell well, is this separating peppers from seeds

slicing avocados into smiles.

Thirty years I've nuanced accents over the phone.

Eight to five I remember father

was a salesman, but

it was mother taught me, before

paychecks mattered, 'Think

of eating, before you're hungry.'

Pilgrim

What we learned

can be forgot,

what we know

dismissed.

Who we are

is debatable,

why we're here

the cosmic question.

Whom we love,

and who loves us, is

the suring thing,

the truth we bring to

table.

Election Sure

While you vote,
I trim the driveway rose,
nine foot and then some thorn spindles.

The dew drowns my sleeve
by the quart,
every corner of the day star blinks.

What a plant proposes
blocks another's garden.
Bring light, bring light, bring light.

Task aside, the next door tide
of the polling booth repeats;
bring light, bring light, bring light.

Crisscross

There's one bloom left
on the front yard rose,
being November that's not bad news.

The foreclosure should settle soon
and another round of birthdays
will end the calendar.

The bluff busy bees 
clambor a long lonely lavender,
winter already whispering.

To be useful
I open a book sent in the mail,
something about Jesus in a grocery store
sharing short cake in the storm.

Window Seat

The honeymoon lifts
to a cruising altitude
of eye to eye,
the rings catch light
chipped from tandem stars.

Tide Fool

What I read,

hand shading the gold glint

of the ocean,

is my little pocket book

of lies

and aberration.

My wife trusts God

to know me

better than I know myself.

The small cold rock of

a song I sang Sunday

turns in my hand.

If my brother whispered

something similar I'd throw it

a mile deep, past dolphins, dinghies,

and the wrong side of dawn.

The bench I watch the west from

is a pew to the wide sky and white caps.

What I negotiate here, what I navigate,

what I need is a way to walk on land,

as well as He traversed the waves.

Early Harvest

Hollyhock high as a house,

yapping dog smaller than parson's shoes.

Gray wall of fog mutes

the pink tiles and garden whistler.

To grow things is to know things.

But I've assumed too much

having met my first atheist corn rower.

Not for me to prove seeds swelling to fruit

are for courage as much as cobbler.

Talking to dirt a comfort 

to being born of dust.

Scarecrow's got some sense.

Looking up for rain. It comes

with or without praying,

can't argue that.

Takes a certain talent to ignore

miracles. Imagine the poems

I could write

if this whole world

were up to me.