poetry

migrating snow geese

migrating snow geese

some days joy hides
easy to forget the contours of its cheek
or the scent of its shirt in the closet

some days awe is a memory
stored under basement boxes
at risk of disappearing into a cobwebbed corner

but today
the snow geese stream by
loose white black-studded Vs against
clear blue sky

and we gasp over and over
at the spectacle of black/white/blue
at the never-endingness of the drifts of white
coming in on the wind

it’s an unfamiliar abundance
that we in this time of diminishment
imperilment risk extinction decline
fragmentation extirpation catastrophe
have little acquaintance with

and the rush of wings and bodies and joy
all these beings requiring essentially nothing of us
no intervention no advocacy no sacrifice
is so welcome we blink back tears

my son says if the sky had a necklace
it would be made of snow geese

we sit in wonder
not just listening to their cacophony
but feeling it inside our skins
the collective vibration of their thousands
of hearts and synapses
the air itself trembling
at holding such tenderness

poetry

the penny dish: a dream I hope to awake to

the penny dish: a dream I hope to awake to

Based on a prompt by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.

back in the days of cash money
greenbacks soft as cotton
or crisp as pressed trousers
coins that made your palms smell of ore
and that ever-present jingle in my father’s restless pocket

often at the register you’d find
a small shallow dish
sometimes with an invitation:
need a penny? take one
have a penny? leave one

or something along those straightforward lines

never did I see someone
dump the whole plate into their handbag
or rake their fist through the copper discs
and clench them all triumphantly

worth next-to-nothing, no one coveted them
and no one stockpiled them
no one tried to shovel their
leaky bucket full of cents

no, people stuck to being reasonable.
they showed restraint
and took only what they needed.
they had sense.

poetry

mass migration

Owen took these photos.

mass migration

a river of frigatebirds
overhead
all afternoon

we crane our necks
barely believing
such abundance still exists
in this beat-up old world

their angular bodies
hardly beat a wing
merely stream like
living contrails

on target
on task
their every gesture says
certain