Comedy

I took a stick

and wrote a story

upon a softly rolling creek

Then laughed and laughed and laughed

like a woodpecker in love

It was a comedy

No Time for Nonsense

She came ashore

from the wild ocean

glistening with sea salt

"She looks so pretty,"

they all said

"her outfit is just so cute!"

And they missed the point entirely

Cute? Pretty?

She is an ocean warrior

a fierce guardian of life and the briny deep

she is half-wild and fearless

determined

bad-ass

bruised-knuckled

scarred and indomitable

she has written books in blood

and taught classes in caves

she has mentored students

and saved lives

she has plunged her feet

thigh deep into muck and mire

and dug into the bottom of the ocean

with a shovel and her bare hands

She is a sweat-stained stone bearer 

and a work-hardened master of her own destiny

she has wrestled with tentacles and grabbers

and not all of them in the wildern waters

She is strong and storied

undaunted and shark-dangerous

bold

wise

savage

strange

barbaric

heavy with rage and rebellion

and dangerous as a rip tide

and so

when she swims to shore

from months of world-changing work

don't you dare 

don't you DARE

lead with

"she looks pretty"

and

"what a cute outfit"

She is a spear bearer 

with no time for nonsense

The Original Midnight Ramblers

They were the original midnight ramblers

kooks and witches and sometime-gamblers

playing 'neath that old Wolf Moon

for the rabbits and foxes and perhaps a wild-eyed loon

yeah, those midnight ramblers

singing a freedom tune

Plot of the Fungi

 There was a confederacy of conspiracies

and mysteries, untaught

that led to a hidden wasteland

where a cabal did plot

proposing a ruse, a dalliance, a scheme

planned to uproot and

destroy and

to stream

rot, glorious rot

and wholesome, hollow decay

a warning, a threat: 

"Do not enter this fray"

It was treason! 

they knew

a treason to safety and similitude

nonetheless

Let the resistance arise
the Rebellion of the Fungis

The Freeing Nature of Winter Hikes

A winter forest is welcoming

in spite of - 

and precisely because of - 

her bitter barrenness

The freeing grace of winter hikes 

is found in their openness 

where every direction

is a new and possible path

Leave Her Mark

The vine that wraps around the tree

is tender, soft and thin

but given time and tenacity

she'll mark the tree's tough skin