**Poetry: Blessings

Blessings are everywhere

If you look for them:

eight white tails 

leaping backwards through the forest;

A flutter of blue jays 

from tree to tree ; 

the bovine lowing 

mournful in some distant shed;

It is all here and now- 

like the scent of pine from needles that have dropped

and fall’s startling display transformed to umber

Each snapshot you capture 

is a shadowy film 

of miracle and wonder:

a night sky 

black

      and dripping with stars

the heart’s leap of delight– 

and nothing we will ever, ever possess. 

Poetry: After the End

 Imagine you came to the end of the world. 

And kept on walking. 

What else could you do? 

When you had counted all your pennies,

and allotted each to its own tax. 

The king’s horsemen arrived 

to pick up what was never yours

and carry it away

in golden caskets

that fit in the palm

of a hand

And you are left only 

with your two feet

Steady.

And your breath-

though it is getting harder

to breathe

the air now-

you will continue

after the end

to persevere.

**Poetry: Evergreen

 Evergreen

 Not queen anne’s lace - 

          or baby’s breath-

but evergreen 

 -fir and pine-

rooted

in virgin snow. 

Her needles and branches,

the tall straight spine

this is how you measure time.

White roses in glass vases die, 

but rings

 of the spruce carve 

years into wood.

The tree receives- and gives-

the giving way that is life.

Termites and centipedes

suck the marrow of her pole.

Is this what it means

 to be tethered

 to this earth- 

 the cones of imagination

 bearing our future kin?

Bristles nod in the wind:

breathe out (and in)

 so that all of us- 

entwined like roots-

 may live.