Last night, I dreamed of beginning ---

A dose of light

on the shortest day

Those we love sustain us---

End of the road, with the light running out

Sometimes, I dream of living on top of a hill

 where the fields open out before me and the sky goes on forever.

My summer-nostalgia

is kicking up again.

We're all just passing through

 

Somewhere to call home

Most days, as my dog and I wander away from the river 

we run into folks going the opposite direction--they're heading back home 

to windswept tents and shelters made of willow and tarps and splintered driftwood.

The shining world

Like the opening of a long novel--

Watching my daughter change as naturally

as the seasons has made me reconsider my own willingness to let go of old habits and be new everyday. We adults sometimes believe that we hold the secret to living gracefully and well, but I can see that it's the teens around me who are modeling courage and showing me how to open to each day, open to new ways of thinking and being and feeling in this world.

Just after dawn the air was sweet

and a warm wind came up along the ridge.

Towards the end of summer,

holding fast.

Glancing back down the path

at one of my home-spots, soon to be lost.

Looking out

to where the river runs into the sea, and I am flying through that opening.

Random beauty

scattered through the summer days.

Cocooned

In the dream

you came out of the water and wind, unannounced.

When the wind blows in from the sea

it brings more than a change in the weather.

The scent of water,

the scent of life on this planet.

Some days,

perfection is close at hand.

Crazy hot :

go jump in the river.

How this story unfolds

Just a sixtieth of a second

Leaning backwards into cool water,

into the summer afternoon.

Close your eyes and recall the arch of your neck backwards, the way water holds you,
the bright opening in the center of your heart.

Portraits are a great mystery to me

and when there are two people it's even more unpredictable, more hypnotic.

Coming up on the solstice

As if it were another time, another country--

and a story half-remembered.

Deshabille

 

Sentimental:

More than I know

Travelling so fast

the hours dissolve into a memory of color, of wind coming over the ridge.

Transformation:

happening daily.

This dream of music

Always more questions

A new road is a wonderful thing

Lush, tender,

ambrosial.

Ghost flowers--

aromatic, many petalled--the last blooms I see as the dark comes on.

It was like this---

a burst of flowers next to a bright river, a handful of days for thinking and writing.

I woke up next to this river

after listening to the water all through my dreaming.

Over time, we grow more dear

 to one another, and our vision of each other becomes subtle and varied, 

at rest in a constellation of days together; we begin to see 

each other through a veil of uncountable hours, unnumbered nights.

In May, I wake to roses

and dream of summer all night long.

Lilacs as reminder,

and remedy.

Another spring sky

and we're all drunk on spaciousness.

Who can measure time

under such a sky?

The real season of joy

The good news is I feel it all; the bad news: exactly the same. In the winter, 

I find myself longing to hibernate, at odds with the demands of the 24/7 world. But in spring 

and summer, the happiness I know is inexpressible--a kind of delirious love overtakes me. 

Unravelling

Nested