30-odd feet at a time John’s ancestor stretched out his surveyor’s chain and measured the land from the already tired eastern edge of Indiana to the sunburned western brow of Nebraska, peering across the prairie toward the peaceful Pacific that must be there, and then as though returning to a passage in a book that … More Whippoorwill Creek Farm
At the end of the week we dragged our various brokenness west on highway 29, across the Mississippi river, through the tangled Cities and landed on a Minnesota lake encircled with plenty. Not quite the wilderness but at night you can still see the stars and the light shines in yellow parallellograms on thick green … More How to Carry Your Broken Bones
But lo here is hot coffee and from the corner Nina Simone croons and there is a snowy slope to the silent white river stopped from its babble by a sliver of flat white sky like a shushing finger against chattering lips – This cabin is already stove through with falling pines or burned to … More The Cup is Already Broken
The ferryman carried me, (married, me), buried me there in the Underworld, he spied me and pried me, (belittled and mocked, me) beat down and rocked, I was round I was ground into hardwood floors, wanting no more; so as I lay dying, as I was lying in that boat’s greasy water, so sorry to … More Charon’s Younger Brother Brings Me Back Across the River Styx
Moon waxing gibbous/ in cotton candy twilight;/ ravenous, my heart/
Early evening sun/ Caught under the arches/ Words stuck in my throat
And they fall to earth in Northern Wisconsin – Pembine, Antigo, Lakewood – I know how they feel, wings coated with ice, heavy, so heavy the loons can’t lift them one more time and, realizing it is out of their hands, or rather, out of their wings, the only thing to do is pick a … More News Item: Loons’ Wings Ice Over
Leafless butler trees/ Serving up platters of sky/ Our bellies growling/
We do not speak of the outside world – we whistle at the sun nosing around the fraying stratus clouds, lifting and dropping golden rays that splash our ankles and the winter-dead grasses – we call out to our dogs sniffing one another in turn, then exuberantly rolling in the dead carp that the bald … More By Tacit Agreement, Sunday at the Sensiba Trail
The heart is a muscle The heart is a fist it’s strong and it’s wary, this beast in my breast. My heart has been sleeping My heart has dreamed dreams – It wakens, now, flexing, it growls and it gleams. My heart is gone hunting, My heart leads me on Through starless dark forests, on … More Heart in Darkness
