Somehow, I have managed to find the highlights of the last 10-12 days in only six photos. These range from Bushy-tailed Woodrats to phenomenal sunsets, snow-coated trees to Wild Geraniums. These do not encompass all of our experiences of the past few days, just until the 28th. I will be posting the rest soon!
little bang
13 billion years ago
there was almost less than nothing
no time
no space
emptiness so empty
we can’t fathom it
then
the singularity
three minutes later
most of everything that will be was
in a universe flying apart
later lit
by flaming nuclear stars
tiny phosphorescent dots
in a great black sea of vacuum
46.75 years ago
I was in the same empty void
then
two little cells fused
and we’ve all been reacting ever since
today on the deck
in a brief bit of sun
between snow showers
I face Sol
close my eyes
soak in the energy
until my lids are fired
and all my internal screens
have gone burnt-orange-quiet
feeling that heat for a moment
I believe
I’m as undeniably here
as that rascal sun
snowman’s forecast
it’s corn snow
barely packable
more the stuff of shave ice
than snowman
but they’re off
in one of the last drifts
packing their palms with icy white
till their warm blood goes cold
and skin burns red
in the end
he’s pint-sized and perky
stick arms aligned with the poles
pointing the way we’re headed:
a year with no winter
three summer solstices in a row
some things are hard to swallow
thirty years believing
nothing was going down
all that ending
in daily chitchat
about nonsense
my grandfather
after his stroke
begging for ice
me not knowing
which was compassion
giving in or denying him
immune tonic
so vile I shake
each time I take a swig
sitting there on the shelf
through my coughing spell
an open challenge
I’m not ready to meet
the orange pills
that let me run
and keep my sight
but claimed my gut instead
our sweet son
grimacing at an apple
refusing to obey
his need to please
oh as antidote
to all the bitter herbs
stored in my little chest
I’m gonna chew on pine needles
and Old Man’s Beard
swallow big draughts
of sun and snow
wash them all down
with muddy meltwater
and the strong tea of tannin
make my own tincture
of silence and time
wait for the healing to come
meringue mountains
the black peaks sport a smooth white mantle
glossy in afternoon sun
the texture of whipped egg whites
not yet baked to toasty brown
cornices stretch along ridges
like pulled marshmallow cream
from here the slopes seem airbrushed smooth
but put yourself there
stung by angular crystals
blasted by wind with nothing in its way
all sculpted and smoothed
by a chisel and hand
we’re too small to see
the little firs
after the sun
then sleet then hail then rain
snow thinks about moving on
leaving this patch of woods
lighting out for downstream parts
deciding, it transforms
grows supple energetic on the move
flows
buffs and magnifies
each once-mediocre rock
into a semi-precious find
that old stiff snow laughs down the mountain
singing a spring song
and at the margin
of each steep white-walled
cliff of reluctance
peeking out at the very edge of the melt
are the little firs
their small lithe bodies
bent but not broken
shrugging off winter’s frozen weight
straining toward summer
ready to make something green
from nearly nothing again
