What We Circle

 What We Circle

I’ve consulted the Muses

and they tell me the path is circular.

We circle the wagons,

circle the tipis,

circle the fire,

the frightened child,

the stories we tell ourselves.

 

We’d circle the buffalo

if we could—

round them with our bodies,

our hunger,

our prayers,

our ancient need

to make a boundary

between us and the wild.

 

We name ourselves

inside closed, tight circles:

 

family,

tribe,

nation,

faith,

friend,

enemy.

 

Ancient rituals

turn and return.

We walk the same ground

our ancestors walked,

drawing invisible rings

in the dust.

 

Universally,

we practice in circles—

in ironic, toxic,

tangible realms,

flawed to the extreme,

yet infinite as the stars

that seem to wheel above us.

 

The circle forgives no beginning.

The circle promises no end.

 

It is the mouth of the well,

the eye of the storm,

the wheel beneath civilization,

the coin in the hand,

the planet beneath our feet.

 

We worship the sun

and the moon.

 

We raise stones

into circles

and then circle the stones,

dancing around what we cannot explain,

dance beneath an eclipse

of one circle passing

across another.

 

Perhaps this is why

we keep returning:

 

to the fire,

to the wound,

to the altar,

to the argument,

to the person we swore

we would never become.

 

Do not dismiss circles easily.

 

Not in secret.

Not in anger.

Not in some extreme fit of rage.

 

For even rage

has a circumference.

 

Even grief

comes around.

 

Even our complaints—

our grievances,

our midnight theories,

our magnificent human talent

for bitching—

move in circles.

 

Around and round

we go,

 

inventing new roads

that somehow lead us back

to the same old center.

 

And perhaps the profoundest circle

is this:

 

we leave the beginning

believing we are leaving,

 

only to discover

we have been traveling

toward it all along.

Golf, Seriously

 Improvement

I’d been improving

for six consecutive years

at a measured pace.

Sadly, that improvement veered

tracking south towards Oahu. 

…

The Search

I lost my golf ball

somewhere near the tenth fairway

deep in a leafy crevice.

Three women helped me to search,

we found three balls and a cap.

…

Serenity

Golf teaches patience

and restrained humility.

It teaches us much

mostly while standing clueless

beside a ball in a bush.

…

The Good Shot

A perfect ball rolls

straight, clean, and beautifully struck.

Then I watch it disappear 

beyond the small white marker

where apparently joy ends.

…

I Like Golf

 I Like Golf

It is challenging

mentally and physically.

I think when cited

that it was a good walk, spoiled

Well, if you wanted to walk—

…

A Good Walk

Golf is a fine walk

though one carries several clubs

for reasons unknown.

And occasionally strikes

balls into a new county.

…

The Game

I address the ball

With dignity and intent

The ball remains still

This is considered progress

Until my evil twin swings.

…

Nature

I enjoy golf most

When surrounded by green fields

Birdsong, calm breezes.

And the disturbing knowledge

my ball is out there, hiding.

Ready for Love

Ready for Love

 

Is it human nature

to lean toward the cliff’s bright edge

just before the hero arrives—

to stand where stone gives way to sky,

where the hawk circles its patient question,

where the wind lifts the hair from our faces

and whispers, not yet?

To mistake the storm cloud for an ending,

the falling leaf for a farewell,

when perhaps the world is only turning its weather,

asking us to wait for the rain to pass?

 

Every cliffhanger is a trail marker,

a small wooden arrow weathered by seasons,

half-hidden among the pines,

pointing through the green hush of the forest,

suggesting there may be a way through

if we give the path time to appear.

 

Sometimes the trail disappears beneath snow.

Sometimes the river rises

and makes us question the crossing.

Sometimes roots reach across the earth

like old hands reminding us

that even trees must learn

where to place their weight.

 

Yes, it is darkest before dawn,

but dawn is already loosening

its gold ribbon behind the hills.

The eastern sky is paling

like a flower beginning to open.

Good decisions ask for clear eyes,

a little logic, a little math,

and the humility to read the weather—

to know when the clouds are gathering

and when they are only passing.

 

A winter hike needs warm layers,

steady boots, and cleats that bite the ice;

the mountain welcomes wonder,

but asks us to come prepared.

The pines do not hurry toward spring.

The river does not apologize for changing course.

The glacier moves almost invisibly,

and still it shapes the valley.

 

Even a green fairway has its lessons:

practice, patience, the hush before a swing,

the small white ball lifted briefly into sunlight

before gravity calls it home.

The meadow does not demand perfection

from every blade of grass.

It simply keeps growing.

 

Willy-nilly will not carry us home—

yet joy is no less necessary.

Let laughter lift like birds from the grass;

let wonder move through us like warm rain.

Let presence be our compass,

hope our north star,

and love the fire we carry

when the trail grows cold.

 

One careful step, then another:

this is how the trail becomes a life.

This is how roots find their way through stone,

how rivers carve their names into canyons,

how seeds split themselves open

in the dark because something in them

trusts the light.

 

Outside, the earth opens its green book:

fresh-cut grass is a bright new page,

sunlight lays a warm hand on the face,

and soil beneath our palms reminds us

we belong to something patient and alive.

 

The garden teaches its quiet mathematics:

what is buried is not necessarily lost.

A bulb sleeps underground

while winter passes overhead.

Rain gathers in the hollow places.

Roots drink what the surface cannot see.

 

This is not cliché; it is elemental—

the honest arithmetic of breath and sky,

the science of roots reaching for rain,

the tide returning to the shore,

the moon pulling silver from the water,

the heart remembering it was made to grow.

 

So I will not leap from the story too soon.

I will not confuse the precipice with destiny

or mistake one dark season for the whole climate.

 

I will walk on—toward the clearing,

past the last stand of trees,

where the path widens beneath my feet,

where the meadow opens like a held breath,

where birds rise from the tall grass

and sunlight spills over everything.

 

There, beyond the bend,

the whole wide world is waiting—

green, sunlit, breathing,

open as sky after rain,

 

ready for love. 

Read the Weather

 Read the Weather

 

When every wind begins to smell of spring,

remember: thawing rivers still run deep.

A path may flower brightly at its mouth,

then lose its name beneath the tangled vines.

Now is no time to leave the compass home

or drift wherever easy currents lean.

Keep patience like a map within your coat;

read every bend before you choose the road.

Let questions be the stakes around young trees,

so roots grow straight when restless weather turns.

Test offered fruit by seed and season both;

not every orchard keeps the sign it wears.

And when the rain has spoiled the planned-out day,

set jars beneath the eaves and save the storm.

Plant what can flourish in the softened ground;

let loss become the water roots can use.

Hope is the seed that waits beneath the frost,

unseen, but holding April in its heart.

It drinks the dark and gathers quiet strength,

then lifts a green reply toward the light.

For morning comes to those who tend the dark,

who keep one window open to the east,

and greet the sun with hands already sown.

What Grows Between Us

 What Grows Between Us

 

It is great to have friends
people of the same tribe
a community of like minds
banding together
week after week
enjoying each other’s company

sharing politics
religion
meditation practice
shopping
food
music

while the landscape changes around us—

mosquitoes biting
leaving welts
spiders dancing in the light
weaving their delicate webs
mushrooms capitalizing on damp ground
creating whole villages of their own

and beneath us
what we cannot see
is happening too—

roots reaching
mycelium threading through soil
one tree touching another
water moving
nutrients passing
life giving itself to life

nothing truly alone
nothing entirely separate

the patterns intertwining

forming their own economies
their own communities
their own small worlds

and when I step back
I see the larger picture—

not just a quilt
but a living fabric
where every thread
holds another

where the circle needs the square
the soil needs the rain
the mushroom needs the tree
and the tree, perhaps, needs
what grows unseen beneath it

And maybe this is what we are:

not only great

to have one another

but critical.

Inside the circle,
within the square,
beneath the surface,
we hold each other up.

We are whole.
We are one.

A small group of friends—
and a much larger
living thing.

 

Rain

 Rain

wrings the planet out,
storms strip the compass bare—
east,
north, west, and south.

A would-be dictator

lectures the wildfire
on restraint,
warning an indifferent enemy
it would be wise
to stop fighting.

What a ridiculous man,
arguing with the tide,
as if facts
could be voted away.

We are all drowning.
Them too.

Don't look up.

The lucky Linseys
have already slipped
through the exit door.

The runaway train
has frozen
inside the Rockies,
while Dumb and Dumber
shop the clearance aisles,
packing closets
already swollen

with tomorrows
no one will wear.

Meanwhile,
the mother ship
warms its engines,
ready
for the last departure.

Still,

I wait
for the sun
to find a seam

in the clouds.

I pull on my rain poncho,
walk the trail,
splash through the puddles,
and listen
for birds reckless enough
to sing anyway.

The storm
is not forever.

Neither,
I remind myself,
is despair.

…

Remembrance in a Garden

 Remembrance in a Garden

Groundhogs
eat the daylilies,
and usually leave the dahlias.
It is a small lesson,
but important
when you're trying to grow something beautiful.

So I plant dill.
I plant basil.
I plant mint
around the edges,
a fragrant promise.

Why dill?
Why not?

We're German.
We love pickles,
the sharp comfort of memory,
the taste of summer preserved.

The heat settles in,
a heavy quilt of July,
thick with humidity—

the kind of afternoon
when they say you could fry an egg
on a country road.

Maybe bacon, too.

Happy Birthday, America.

Two hundred fifty years,
still learning,
still forgetting,
still beginning again.

I remember another anniversary—
the Bicentennial.

I was almost twenty,
certain I understood the world.
I wore my red, white, and blue dress,
danced beneath fireworks,

believing tomorrow
would keep its promises.

It was just after Watergate.
The country was bruised,
but still breathing.

Gerald Ford stood quietly
where history had left him
and offered no victory,
only healing.

"Our long national nightmare is over."

Not a boast.
A hope.

He served,
then stepped aside,
accepting both office and defeat

with uncommon grace.

His farewell was not about himself.

It was a prayer:

May God guide this wonderful country,
its people,
and those who choose to serve them.

Amen.

Now, fifty years later,
the groundhog returns,
testing the garden once again.

Still, I plant.

I tuck hope beneath the soil,
ring the borders with herbs,
believe that what survives

can bloom.

Because remembrance
is not longing for a perfect past.

It is choosing,
season after season,
to tend what is worth saving,
to gather what is good,
and to leave behind
a garden of faith
for those who come after us.

 

The Saturday Cat Council

 The Saturday Cat Council

There is a village, tucked out of sight,
Where cool cats gather every Saturday night.
At dusk, they assemble with regal flair,
To gossip and plot with a judgmental stare.

Wise cats.
Fat cats.
Chatty cats.
Brat cats.
Purring cats.
Trilling cats.
Murmuring, mewing, and "Feed me!" cats.

Their fearless leader? Felis catus, of course—
Tiny in size yet commanding the force.
If one gives a slow blink, don't panic or hiss;
Congratulations—you've received a cat kiss.

But don't get too smug. Don't get too bold.
Their trust has a warranty of twelve seconds, I'm told.
One mighty MEOW! and you'll instantly see
They've promoted themselves to your royalty.

Descended from Felidae, Order Carnivora,
Masters of zoomies, chaos, and flora.
With night vision sharp and hearing supreme,
They detect snack wrappers for miles, it would seem.

Their noses are flawless, their instincts refined;
Your hidden tuna? Already they'll find.
They speak in a language no human can crack—
Part Shakespeare, part opera, part demanding a snack.

Some scholars insist, with remarkable passion,
Their dialect comes from Old High Valyrian.
Sadly, the translators all disappeared...
Probably because they ignored a cat and got weird.

And if, late at night, in a shadowy alley,
A chorus of growls begins to rally—
With snarls and spits and chattering teeth...

Do not run,

 or they'll chase.

Walk backward slowly with dignity intact,
Then toss them a treat as a diplomatic act.

For every cat knows, beyond all debate,
The universe spins because they are great.
You're not their owner—you never were that.
You were merely employed...by a high-born cat.

Nothing is Wasted

 Nothing Is Wasted

“We work in the dark—we do what we can—we give what we have.”
—Henry James

The first sentence
is a worn trail marker,
leaning where two paths divide.
I follow it.

Miles later,
it leads me across a stream
inside a story
I didn't know I was walking.

A trail map fades.
Rain freckles its pages.
A route I crossed out
waits beneath the pencil's ghost,
still pointing.

Nothing is wasted.

The dust of the trail
settles into my boots
with yesterday's miles.

The ridge ahead
imagines tomorrow's weather.
Both leave a mark
no stream of consciousness can fully wash away.

Inside the data centers,
machines map every switchback
without ever feeling thin air,
without the weight
of a tired friend
leaning on your shoulder.

Meanwhile,
we climb one more rise
though daylight is thinning.

The summit is still ahead—
a small ambition
lifting its face
against a crag of silence.

Still,
the peak borrows our footsteps
to reveal its paths.

The trails we abandoned,
the wrong turn,
the loose stone,
the single weary step,
becomes the way forward.

We wander.
We blister.
We wait for one another,

exploring new twists and turns

in our boundless quest

to rewrite the world.

 

 

X-Ray Prophets

 X-Ray Prophets

 

These days, you need a machete—

Crocodile Dundee big—

to hack a vein through this jungle of dark.

How does anyone sleep?

Once, young and feral,

I could sleep through thunder,

through houses collapsing in dreams.

Now arthritis tolls its iron bell;

pain sits on the porch with a shotgun.

I turn and turn,

a stranded animal nosing the brush

for one patch of moss,

one warm stone of bliss

inside the swamp-thick doubt

that anything changes.

Maybe it does.

But when strangers climb into my skull

with flashlights and weather maps,

I leave.

No shelter from X-ray prophets

mistaking roots for bones,

blind to the green fire

rising beneath the soil.

The phone hums in my hand

like a tagged hornet.

The zombies know our names,

know the shape of our hunger.

Still, sight is a prescription bottle

with half the label scratched away;

speech, a window breathing itself opaque.

Trust half of seeing,

none of the static.

Believe in a cracked lantern

swinging through rain.

The crow, stitched to the power line.

The thorn, working deeper under the skin.

Pennies dissolving on the tongue

like blood and electricity.

Or the smoke of

black orchids opening

where the dark learns to flower.

 

The Evolution of a Few Words

 The Evolution of a Few Words

Words are slippery little things;
They change their coats and grow new wings.
What once was true may now sound odd—
A prank by language? A gift from God?

Nice once meant a foolish fool,
not someone charming, calm, or cool.
To call you nice in days of yore
was not a compliment at all, for sure.

Explode meant clapping, loud and grand,
a thunderous roar throughout the land.
And loud applause? Well, strangely enough,
meant, “Hook that actor—the show's too rough!”

If something seemed plausible, they'd say,
“It deserves applause!” Hip hip hooray!
Not likely, sensible, or probable—
just clap-worthy and laudable.

A bully once was a darling dear,
a sweetheart you'd hold forever near.
“I love that lovely bully,” they'd coo—
Quite different from what bullies do.

And buxom? Here's a twist to note:
it once meant obedient, not low-cut coats.
A dutiful soul who'd do as told,
before curves and glamour entered the fold.

To disappoint was not heartbreak's sting,
but removing someone from a lofty thing.
To appoint or disappoint—that was the game;

Shakespeare would surely approve the claim.

A fizzle was a modest breeze,
a quiet escape, if you please.
A gentle puff, discreetly sent—
Though sadly, not always odorless in intent.

And luxury? Believe it or not,
it wasn't yachts or a fancy yacht spot.
It meant lust and lechery run amok—
“Foul luxurie!” cried the scandalized flock.

As for popularity, here's the twist:
it wasn't liked on a social list.
It meant democracy's weighty decree—
A political matter in 1546, you see.

So words march onward, year by year,
growing stranger, shifting gear.
Meanings wander, drift, and roam—
No word stays forever at home.

And if you think language should stay one way,
history laughs and says, “No chance today.”

Time To Take Off The Blinders

Yesterday, I watched
Substack news podcasts
and learned why ignorance feels like bliss.

I learned more about Trump
and the corruption
spilling from the Oval Office.
The scale of it—
the offenses,
the grift,
the deception—
stretched farther than I'd imagined.

Independent journalists
did the brutal work,
dragging truth from the shadows
and forcing it into the light.

For hours, I tried to make sense
of what I was seeing:
enough to send followers reeling,
enough to make the end of days
feel close at hand.

Fresh out of pardons,
no one seems untouchable,
and even silence feels complicit.

Interview after interview,
the lies piled higher,
the distractions grew louder,
and the cost of ignorance
became impossible to ignore.

The blinders are off now.
Like a horse seeing beyond
the narrow path for the first time,
I can't unsee the widening horizon—
or the cliff edge ahead.

 

Betrayal

 Betrayal

Betrayal by a mate is wound enough,

but betrayal by elected leaders is another wound entirely.

We place in their hands the keys to atomic annihilation,

and still they turn against us.

Once trust is broken, the ground falls out.

Let them trumpet, bellow, and groan—

there is nowhere left for them to hide.

Silence does not mend it.

The realization strikes the survival instinct like a warning light in a long, dark tunnel.

It asks for adjustment, for healing, for rebirth into a new world.

The question is simple: can you?

Can we grow stronger, restore self-care, set firm boundaries, and learn to trust again?

 

Yes—

but healing keeps its own time.

Today We Pause

 Today We Pause

 

Today, we remember those who laid down their lives for our democracy

our way of life, and Eleanor Roosevelt comes to mind.

She said, “You Must Do The Things That You Think You Cannot Do.”

I’m wearing the shirt with that statement, in my mind, and looking out my window on this rainy morning, thinking about how the garden was a huge sacrifice

Much of my youth was spent pulling weeds, back-breaking work with little yield and much cost.

Now I appreciate the wildflowers fending for themselves with their steely determination.

The way they endure, while vicious and self-serving predators

concerned only with enriching themselves,

bark at and devour what they conceive as low-hanging fruit.

Anyone or anything that refuses to bend to their will.

Lives that mean nothing to them or their cronies.

Lives that sacrificed everything for liberty, GOD, and country

Honorable men and women who served

so that they could climb the ladder of success without so much as a turn of the head or a thank-you. The craven who claims his own orbit.

As if they deserved it. And we didn’t. 

Predators who trample the garden amidst those who continue to tend it, as if all that destruction never happened. The sustaining survivors, rebuilding, sacrificing, sowing hope from tiny seeds. So that we may bring a measure of joy to those who cannot.  The ones who paid and continue to pay, slaving and bowing, and hoping for reason, justice, and sanity. 

 

Can I Get A Pass?

 Can I Get A Pass?

 

or a little mercy—

the kind that hushes even the shiver in the leaves.

I’ve been laboring since dawn—

the kind of labor counted in acorns, wind, and worry—

said the squirrel, still a quick brown spark in the branches,

flitting from limb to limb like a thought that would not settle,

and the forest answered him with laughter.

The birds, being birds, turned mockery into song—

a bright unruly weather of chirps and shining eyes,

as though all spring had been a rehearsal

for the sweet small privilege of teasing a squirrel.

Hershel sighed for a holiday.

Sally, meanwhile, wanted one as well—

preferably with cake and a patch of afternoon sun,

which seemed, for squirrel ambition, almost courtly.

You’re nuts,

said one voice, and not with kindness enough to make it praise.

Ask again in five minutes, when hunger comes back wearing its old crown.

We all have a stake in this—

if not in heart, then surely in bark and timber.

Then even the deer and mountain lions lost their solemn manners

and laughed as though some ancient burden had skipped them for a day,

and even the trees leaned softly into the joke,

bending in the breeze with that old wooden laughter

that begins in the leaves and ends in the smallest wheeze.

So there it was—

a brief and shining mercy, dressed up as a punchline.

 

 

 

The Power of Story

 The Power of Story

 

We each have one.

It defines who we are,

shaping our day-to-day

in a profound way.

Our stories travel with us.

They thread their way

through our lives,

follow us down paths,

to the right and left,

guide our steps,

while our dreams lean ahead.

Our stories are fledglings,

small birds learning the air,

on their own

into the great wide world

to be interpreted by people

who will add, subtract

and make them their own. 

 

Stories stitched into patterns

of color, history, and skin

changing faces

leaving traces

of greatness from above.

They will explore the vastness

of space

travel to other worlds

throw stones at what they fear

take what is not theirs to study,

then form conclusions,

acting on limited knowledge,

from fragments they mistake for truth,

and then retell the story.