Flowers & Arrows

William wore a hair shirt
somewhere around Italy,
shows you what I know about saints.

Little picture cards litter
the chaplain's desk,
flowers and arrows pierce the heart.

A yard and B yard assemblies,
melting pot of hot heads
and maimed spirits.

We gather to pray here,
two or more
the math of heaven.

Just a closer walk;
the forgiven getting up,
time after time, doing time.

We leave one chair open
for who went before,
and who comes after.

Each lost sheep
makes a sound only
the Shepherd can hear.

Silk Inheritance

Cuff links and a wrapped chocolate

lay on my desk like shells

from a sea as long gone

as my Pa.

I wore his tie to prison,

in and out, just visiting.

Guys abandoned to the streets

get a kick out of the fat double Windsor

bouncing on my Adam's Apple

when I sing Amazing Grace.

I used to wonder how

such a noble soul

could have such an atrocious wardrobe.

Now I know, disguise

the limit.

Costa Coconuts

Green, the thing
to save a mountain
from slipping.

Coconuts planted
knee deep in the howling
monkey rain.

A roadside taller
than stars slanting
through trees.

Work crew, machete,
shovel, bag of seeds
the size of bowling balls.

Erosion, a soul disease,
the first day with no kneeling
washes out.

Gloves, peeled wet
from the forest,
stay folded in prayer.

One of the things
equal at the equator is
the root of love holding soil.

Rash Decision

Picking green as vengeance

against a late life strawberry rash.

My backyard crop, a

political substitute for water sucking lawn,

off limits.

The alternative is to wash and bag

each ripe berry as a gift.

Fruitless, or fruitful,

each in my hand.

Knee Stain

Drops swell at branch tip

to catch bubble light and, glass like,

wink to the waiting grass.

Even with scrubbing
the new dirt of the strawberry hill
paves the crease in my finger skin.

Between pig pen, and prodigal proof,
I garden with the angel of Eden,
hoping to keep a foot in the gate.

Put down roots, pull up weeds
hoping for another hand
on the wheelbarrow.

Father and Son team,
such a threat to the devil,
such a joy in the spring wet mud.

temperature tutorial

Lake cold is bluer than veins

snaking up ankles, hoping brain

will hop back to beach hot 

and leave the body surfing to braver souls

with seal thick skins.

There's no boards or language for it,

Great Lake breakers

only waist high, chest cold,

jump just right, swell feeling the sand bar

on belly and loose trunks balloon with water

and flap flag flat like so much

mis-named seaweed.

The shiver delicious in summer,

numb and colored lips smiling in towels

too thin, jawbone creaking as if the ice

set in, and way out in the waves,

without a chance of toe tip on the bottom

Pa swims arm over arm as if last night's stars

could follow him against the tide.

Tag You're It

When license plates expire

every black and white

is a cop or a skunk.

I slow to hug a truck's front

bumper

to hide my tags,

faith and hope

beading beneath the brim

of my baseball cap.

Criminal activity;

ignoring calendars,

fudging checkbooks,

skimping on the cheese

in a work day sandwich.

I insert the receipts for poems

rendered into the ATM,

blank looks from the screen.

C.S. Lewis says other worldly rewards

rhyme with brother, not

bother.

Emberionic

The woodpile come indoors,

all memory of tree cured by chain

saw

and a year's dry stacking.

The orange eye fire

draws the cat close,

closer,

and then back to purring range.

The mid winter night

doesn't quite require heat,

so 

the glow is more for peace of mind.

Away from the hearth,

addicted kids

cut 

into parents sleep.

Stare at the flame from the couch

and hope, like a moth

it

draws their hearts to home.

ANSWER WE

On the day of diagnosis

I looked at my nails, bit past the quick

and the point of stopping,

as a cloud spoke to the sun

and said, "Now we will see

the Hand of God."

From an empty beach bench

I watch low mountains of grey waves 

circle the crab fisher's rocks

in swirls of creamed light.

Any and all un-netted disease cast

far from the glistening shore.

If it were my faith, un-weaved

and un-woven, the sky

would settle on the sea a stranger

and the sparse wind let balloons escape

their strings, but timely mother hurries to the hospital bed

with painted flowers, whispering hope,

un-faded and unfazed.

The wake up call

is not for God never slumbering,

nor for blood cells efficient,

serene, and rightly numerous.

It is for the promise maker,

the singer of songs,

the vigilante stirring home fire,

pressing candles, daring

to smile in the antiseptic mask.

Moccasin Man

Mowed the lawn in moccasins
to make a point about January
being different in the great
and generous Northwest.

My Daddy, frostbit, from chopping ice
off the walk a few decades
and states east of here, would marvel
at anything so green close to his birthday.

Late in life, we might just miss
the things our children notice,
like an upstart of daffodils closer
to the curb than the wild.

Over at the cemetery
the sun shines equal
when it does come out.
Night rain on the graveyard don't
bother residents, however temporary
the stones.

The shut down engine and smell of simple labor
whispers what God thought
when He said, "Well that's enough mountains
for now."

One long string of soft steps,
makes everything we climb, puny.

Bird's Eye View

The wren wonders at outdoor

Christmas lights,

not much there for nesting,

the wires make poor worms,

the bulbs, sharp white on green leaves,

confuse with slight shadows

and heat.

To a bird's eye, this

seven dollar string of electric

adornment, is supernatural, and to us,

on this holiday of heaven come to earth,

the Light of the World hanging from eaves

and roof gutters, sparkles in the eyes

of the children His birth makes us all.

Angels and doves top

the indoor trees, visitors

and families, all wise,

bask in glowing hearts, the Gift

of never ending love swaddle wrapped,

waiting,

like Santa's cookies on a plate, to be shared.

Bluster

The wind isn't bluffing.

Gulls dart down

like folded arrows

to secret rock grips,

the buoys tip top

side to side in the whipped

wash slamming the harbor.

Over an inch an hour

for the best part of dark noon

drench, the bluster

might dent the drought

as it floods the valley bottom.

Reeling rivers poised for headlines

and photos of roof top boats.

The tent and tarp folks,

tucked tight in the gullies, got to climb

socially. A sheltered promise

of soup and a cot bring Bethlehem

to bear wet witness. The Child is borne,

by a Samaritan's smile,

in the storm.

Repent House Suite

Pick basil over battles,
lowing the blood, Sugar, gives rise
to offense; good fences test
flying horses, flying handles
dull the blade.

Hush, not shush,
listening has the in road.
The high road, grown green,
sways arm in arm out of harm's
wayward words.

Under a microscope,
over a cup of coffee,
study the steady answer,
bones hear in a heart beat
what lips conceal.

Step toeing hold, old
opinions fold
in the reveal:
Apology, is the apogee
of heal.

   

The Palm Before the Storm

Open hope in your hand

like ripe pomegranate

juice jewels,

open hope in your hand

like a cloth bound edition

with crisp dollars

between each ancient page.

Open hope in your hand

like the first bird's twitter

after a long night's rain,

open hope in your hand

like burst bean coffee scent, freshly ground

on a Saturday with no chores.

Open hope in your hand

like the buttons on a work shirt

after your shift,

open hope in your hand

like a door that takes both arms

against the wind.

Hope, is always in our hands.

Fists can't feel it.           

Stick Stuck

The walking stick, my brother

carved, fits my palm

and thumb.

The hole, in the sole

of my cowboy boot,

is the size of the silver dollar

I sent my grandson.

The bathroom door, after

three years of shaves and showers,

locked from the inside.

I have a prison date.

The gate is one thing,

the heart quiet,

quite another.

Hydro Low

Water and worry leak
to the lowest level,
a fool's pool
spiraling the spirit
to depths
beneath the necessary steps.

It takes hydro-logic
to lift water
higher than clouded despair.
To rise as steam,
we admit wet
as requisite.

Our Engineer's faith;
part bending knee,
part pouring cups
to the least of these,
cuts across current fashion,
chiding the waves to be still.

There is a Living Water
and there is a stagnant well.
One can't flow forward
by going back.
The well worn path is reasonable,
but making sense of resistance, is mist.

Groan

Dawn at the Klamath,

a twelve point elk struts among deer mossed stumps

as the Yurok's golden bear guards the new bridge,

already under repair.

After practicing my chaplain ID smile

in the rearview mirror,

I  receive the nod of the flagmen 

and renew my drive to prison.

In a few miles, the forest,

and the mountains too,

will give way to thousands

of cement blocks,

and light, not the yellow sun streaming through

redwoods and firs, will blink

florescent as the state budget allows.

Its the most natural thing in the world, poetically,

politically, to ignore caged humans in these parts

and laud wild animals,

but quit the ignition, and listen at the gate;

all creation groans

for the re-birth of our sons doing time.

Lend an ear to the wilderness crying

from a housing unit

never meant to be called home.

Thumbs Up

Angels hitchhike

on the truck side of lonely.

Lovely weeds bend in the flying dust

of wheels stopping to start again.

The driver might chatter football,

the radio Gospel, or tripe.

This part of the Damascus road

is between homes, jobs, baths.

The Son of Man

has no where the lay His head.

Transients, the easy victims

of innocence and dumpster diseases.

The next Samaritan binds

the next wounds.

Our daily bread buttered,

one side at a time.

Milk Case

A Saturday sun wastes hours on
on car hoods and roofs.Thistles
finger up the wire fence,
Ginsberg's sunflower long harvested
for a milk case vase. Dogs
and cardboard circle the alley, house
numbers a cramped checklist
of sideways bicycles and smokers
drifting from the tilted mailbox
to the porch divan.

Repainted recycling sign, open
and old as Jesus when He went,
gives preference to metal;
artists welcome.  Hub caps and hip cats
still cranking lawn sculptures
to connect the wealthier
to hand me down living, the free box not
being without cost.

When the tumble comes,
and all is inverted,
the wall of old Maytags
and Wurlitzers in the barn
will speak of the trouble we took
to separate colors and dance
to age appropriate genres,
everything in common
held at arm's length, lest, like crickets, we
rub elbows the wrong way
at temperature's change.

The Sept. Set

September;
slow house flies getting dumber,
window box peas just a brown
string strung along an open door with no screen.

Beyond the fence
a foghorn taunts the end
of summer, last squeals before school
trill the beach.

Our bluff curls the blue bay, harbor town houses
honeycomb the cliff, the slightly northern sunset
a gem for their windows, the reflection,
an odd gold for the just passing by.

Tourists and townies,
gulls and cormorants,
at night buoys, boats, and God
the only ones catching the breaking
waves.

What you find in the sand
comes home in pant cuffs,
what you leave on the beach,
makes for loon tunes.