Postcard from Mars

To Whom,

That air you have about you! Such immeasurable glow. You carry it well, a blush, a fresh coif. And your body—so inhabited? I call out from my desert(ed!) soul, warred by wind and sand. Oh, the memories, thinned, erased!

If I could tell you what I once knew—

If my grief could save you—

M.

NASA image of Earth from Mars. From site: This is the first image ever taken of Earth from the surface of a planet beyond the Moon. It was taken by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit one hour before sunrise on the 63rd martian day, or sol, of its mission. Earth is the tiny white dot in the center. The image is a mosaic of images taken by the rover's navigation camera showing a broad view of the sky, and an image taken by the rover's panoramic camera of Earth. The contrast in the panoramic camera image was increased two times to make Earth easier to see. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA05560     Photo Credit:NASA/JPL/Cornell

Source: NASA Earth Observatory image by Robert Simmon, using Suomi NPP VIIRS imagery from NOAA's Environmental Visualization Laboratory.

I've had this sitting in my "drafts" file for years. Never published it, I guess because the photos weren't mine...

The Garden Path

My yard—so fully there, so walked over. This willow, this view, every day in every light. Tree weeping, garden tarped, still bare—but nothing about it disappoints.

Stopping by

A long time gone, the past vaguer. Suites of seasons, rivers, poems, skies, quiet rooms. Upheavals, of earth and lives. A lost earring. A trail of decay. Then something new happens.

                                

Morning after storm

A tiny gust shakes raindrops loose from the platter leaves
of maple—high and local, just there, and then, over there, too.

Nothing to do

Oh, Friends! 

Might we too sprawl into being

like a place or a moment?

Photo: Howard Street, May 2013

Refuge

To it, my mere line, so rarely an avenue. 

Always ahead, the door.

Never entirely closed.

Paused

I will be going, says the chill rain. When the light turns, it will be Spring. 

This entry is from April 11 2016. I forgot to post it. But please note, the light did turn!

Lot's wife

I've looked back so many times. Into a blur of photographs, into an old house. Crowds of loves and selves I have not been able to bring along! How many more times will I have to leave? The present is a shore for refugees.

The articulate,

the wordless evening, 

when the far comes near 

and time walks over the earth 

like a large bright animal

This post originally titled Everything under the sun

Shall be released

I am saved by it each spring anew. A mighty power opens the earth to become Scilla, my asterisk,

whose footnote says, True blue.*

*It means: I will always return to you.

(Easter Sunday, 4:08 pm DST)

Box of dreams

She circled it until it erupted.

The fresh world

received by the mirror of art.

A mutual love

always in exchange.

This post originally titled, Love always pouring forth.

If you would write a letter to the moon

There have always been the two of you. The light inside

is the shy friend who tries on the cape of sky. The other
is the mirror. Every word spoken between you is a loop.

Strange land

In this state, the seasons are loosely translated.

Just so

A particular morning. 

Like the first morning, plus a house. 

Oh morning, you have never failed 

the world. And today 

you are looked at from a window.

Epiphany

Mist, wind, and rain have travelled to these hills from distant places. The line that separates the heavens from the earth has almost disappeared. The firs keep pointing to the sky though there is no star.

Memorial

The end of the year challenges with its weight. How much of what's gone can a person shoulder? Whether carried openly or concealed?

But here comes the future sparkling.

Let nothing you dismay

The cat loped home from the far-away when I struck the bell of his name, and love bounded out to meet him. A memory arrived in the same way, as did the day.

The tiny many

In my cabinet of earth's weathers, shelves of leaf and dew uncatalogued. The label would say, I do not forget you.

A yellow flower's view

Wan sun. Still, it's something to follow in the blank skies of winter. Unless it snows. Those flakes and the night's stars don't mean as much to me.