Pumphouse Poem

A door, veiled in light,
Unlikely refuge
Where reason wakes.
In there, one makes 
Mistakes but, oddly,
Learns from successes
Too --and prefers them.
Dim recesses accept
Things that fit 
And limit how lost
They get --and why
And where --which 
Is  why  I  often 
Find myself in there.

Cognitive Distortion And Tinnitus

We have only this moment
Sparkling in our sudden
Selves, dissolving as a bit
Of frost to lose in autumn sunshine.
Whether mine or yours to use
Or not, it is enough to
See it do that --run under
Our ringing ears, our fears,
Enduring in distorted years
And yet mind drives, eyes see.
Let us, let me, behave wisely.

Meditation Between Past and Future

Life selects
Certain molecules.
Even in this thought
A trail of atoms,
Disrupted, changes
The past.
I hope the forward
Scope of meditation
Is likewise vast.

Enduring Dragon

Your enduring dragon ,
Invisibly yoked, led 
Thunderheads over
Here in the night.
At first light he flicked
His mighty tail and
Snapped his traces,
Kicked away and sailed
On to other places.

Ratio Soliloquy

Paradise is 
A garden walled
In dream, hopes,
Secrets yet to be
Revealed where absence
Only means something
Concealed awaits and
Hell --a truth learned
Too late-- waits too.
To think, feel, love what is
Succinct and ampliative,
Our instincts must be
Creative, not destructive.
Yes, but we live our days in
A world alive --not thin or
Brittle-- within us, in us,
Each a world done in little.
We have only to reach
Out to its onward sphere
And help, help others
Find happiness here.

Musee Mecanique

[musee mecanique]

Behind beveled glass,
And oak veneer,
She is sad sometimes--
An orchestrion
Rattled, buzzing inside:
Something in dark where
Whippens work; something
In dark over pinblock and bridge,
Ridges, racks of
Brass and ash --spruce
Shim slipped from
A soundboard crack,
Levers lost in
Danger and promise.
What dark entails:
A derailed track
Searching after a
Spring fails. I press.
A little felted hammer
Strikes no reply.
Sometimes she is sad
And can't remember why.

Kitchen Porch Repairs

Replacing purlin, post,
Where rot most appears,
One climbs a house's
Heart from here, alone--
With tools and tapes,
Embraced by redwood bones
Where weather chews--
To review foxing soffits
And incursions upon
A porch's purpose
To protect-- protect
Where life goes on.
It holds onto one
Until the job is done.