Eating

When Caleb, my two year old, eats something he likes, he hums and closes his eyes.  I wish that I could share that moment with him--pure bliss and one-mindedness.  It is as though he is completely at peace with the universe.  I rarely, if ever, feel that way at all.

Forgetfulness

About a month ago I decided to see if I could make it through a day without forgetting something.  I'm not surehow I'm doing, because I keep forgetting to remember if I forgot. I wish I wasn't joking, but it has taken me over a week just to remember to write this thought down.

Chuckanut Drive

Looking down at the tops of trees to the water, my

toes edge the boulder that crests, then slides down the cliff. 

I hear the sucking sound of waves on rocks. The tide line

curves muck around the shore. It is raining.

I pace the edge of the cliff, starting left, moving right,

feet stepping on clay, dirt, grass, rock, puddles of rainwater.

I didn't expect tulips, half unseen, wedged

between two stones and wrapped in plastic, a flashlight

next to them, water spotted. The rock is marked with a white dove,

thirty-nine year old woman dead. An unusual sight for a scenic

vista, odd to see edging a cliff between the scattered beer cans,

someone dead less than two years, whose ashes stick to the bottom

of my shoes.

Rain hits my glasses. Emotions come back, the familiar knife-twist.

I stand next to her and look out to the water, seeing

a denuded larch or dead douglas fir, I cannot tell.  It is hard to see,

the water on my glasses blending objects, tulips and flashlight. 

I am cold, and have nothing to give her.

How to Tickle Yourself

Last night while at home, Clare passed gas, then said, "That tickles." It gave me a new perspective on indigestion.

Overheard Conversation

In a store parking lot:

"I got you what you wanted.  Now get in the damn car."

Disobedience

Something I heard on the radio today:  "The greatest disobedience is to go somewhere and do nothing."

Overheard Conversation

Two men talking at a wedding:

"So, what have you been up to lately?"

"Well, when I'm not drunk, I'm stoned."

How to Help a Stomachache

Rees, my seven year old son, recently came up to me holding his stomach.  "Dad," he says, "my tummy hurts." Before I could answer him, he belched loudly.  "Now I feel better," he smiled, and ran away.

Blandness

I dislike people who mistake blandness for holiness.  I see it often in very conservative religious people--Mormons, Fundamentalists, Seventh Day Adventists.  The absence of visible vice in someone's life does not necessarily create virtue.

Haiku

The man--
wearing scars of poems
on his face.

4-8-04

The sky has fallen, lying about in piles

of white that clump on the ground,

recline on the water, dim the horizon.

Clouds are in pieces,

save for one stacked upright, half-white in the dawn,

spiraling upward, pillaring the last section of sky.

Overheard Conversation

Two women getting into a car:

"You say Michael had a hard life.  Michael didn't have a hard life. Michael was stupid."

Television

It's hard to explain the amount of anxiety that I felt when, while sick today, found that the power to the television wouldn't work.

Poetic Cliches

I've been starting a collection of poetic phrases that have become cliches.  Here's a few so far:

Bitterly cold
Fiercely loyal
Ice Queen
Nerves of steel


I'll add more soon.

Skiing

Earlier this year I went cross country skiing with Sean.  It was dark on the top of Mt. Spokane, and all I could hear was the whine of my skis and the huffing of my breath.  The stars were breathtaking. It was the first time I have had the experience of looking up and feeling as if I were standing on the bottom of the world, about to fall into space. 

Image

Clouds dive and dolphin between the hills.