From 2015 through 2022, I composed my poetry. I was fulfilled to regularly add a poem of mine to this site. Then, in September 2022, my wife of 31 years passed away after a long dance with cancer. Among so many other things, while I wrote a few things after that, I felt like the wind had left my sails and I’ve not been able to get back into the practice.

Most of my adult life I’ve known that writing is a gift I have and one that I’ve rarely been able to sustain for long. It is the creative part of me has too long languished. I believe that to not participate in the creative life is something one does at one’s peril! I don’t know why this is true, but I am sure that it is true.

I’ve tried putting together other kinds of writing sites, but I cannot seem to stick with any of them. I should listen to this. I do not need to figure out why it is, just that it is. It is as if I’m trying to force something into words that just isn’t true for me. Writing other than poetry doesn’t engage or energize me for long.

Poetry is the one thing that I’ve long felt to be my home for writing. Ever since my high school senior English class (Mrs. Evans) I knew this. She made us read poetry and even to write some. I found that poetry was something I enjoyed. That was over fifty years ago. The feeling has not left me.

I wish to begin again. I expect that my poetry will be somewhat different from the things I’ve written before because many things have changed for me. However, this too is part of the creative process, to change when life changes, to grow when, to not do so, means a slow death.

Because she went away 
my world slowed, stilled,
waiting for me to catch up,
prodding me along, taking my hand.

There are no lessons for grief.
We are all on our own path,
one no one else has ever trod
and no one ever will again.

The days teach me how to live,
the nights speak to me in silence.
I find solace in the greens of Spring
in the bright moon of Autumn eves.
______________________________________
Seattle, Washington - May 25, 2024

Under lamplight on this winter night -
too early for bed - I fall asleep in my chair
without another to say good night
or, when waking, good morning, Dear.

Can I make you breakfast, Love -
do you feel up for eggs and toast?
Or shall I leave you to read,
and nap, or walk when you can?

None of this now. She is gone.
The air is empty and I've little to do.
I'll be off to bed with the moon and stars
to sleep with me on this winter night.
______________________________________

Portland, Oregon - January 15, 2023

O God - Life has come for me.
You gave me it's promise, set it
on a hill far away that I might 
chase it through the dim lights of day
and into the chill dark of holy nights.

I thought it was sanctuary I would find
in the green groves or the wild rivers, 
in the golden fields of tall grass swept 
by summer's warm air. Yet winter has come
and the grass is blowing brown and cold.

Now another night has come -
enchanted, quiet, dark, and still.
Is this the sanctuary I sought all the years
in this house, rain on the windows
trickling in the gutters, puddling in the drive?

Let it be. I have been called to life
in its many broken and raggedy forms.
I will try to live them all as they come
and chase them to the very end
and pray I may find my way at last.
__________________________________________

Portland, Oregon - December 26, 2022

The leaves have all fallen now, 
feathered moon is on the wane.
Gray skies are cold, gloom cold
waiting for rain, for snow, for wind.

To spite all the colored lights
the sky's gray withering stare
beats down on the day in silence
thinking that, at last, it has won.

Hardly! The lights I hung on a lovely tree
glow in color determined to reveal
what the gray and dark try to conceal -
the hidden life of the mysterious world.

Trees with fallen leaves have not died.
Birds in the shrubberies have not lost their way.
We sit in our silent homes and watch
as night unfolds into its flower of day.
__________________________________________
Portland, Oregon - December 13, 2022

Each day I look for signs
to know which way to go.
I believe they are all around me, yet,
they are written in letters I cannot read
like curious scripts from foreign lands.

How do I learn the language of signs
when I've missed so many before?
What stumbling steps have I taken
on weedy paths into frightening woods
when all I wanted was a simple life?

There is a child I once knew
who laid on the summer grass
looking up into the clouds above
wondering that they could be so far away -
unreachable, forever floating as in dreams.

I have thought, in all the years since,
that I could catch those clouds
and they would show me the way.
But I did not know the clouds at all
and still I lie, and still I lie.
__________________________________________
Portland, Oregon - December 7, 2022

Being alone means something different
now that I am alone.
Time, there is no such thing,
moves more slowly than it ever did 
or the sun shines and the moon less often
when there is no voice to greet me
when morning comes or night falls.

Is this grieving, this silent
dark movement into Winter?
Will there be another side to this absence
where once was a love -
that everyday normal way of being
with another and I thought
nothing of it the way it was?

I have time now, that thing
that isn't but we make so much of.
I've taken down the clocks
even the ones for sleeping and waking
for I do not need to know
what time I wake when the night,
not so far spent, calls my name.

Of the night I am learning to make a friend,
that dark and silent being that surrounds me.
She is warm and tender, like a blanket of wool
that keeps me from getting too cold.
It's not the same as having someone close
breathing beside me in the bed,
still, I will accept even her embrace.

_____________________________________________
Portland, Oregon - November 30, 2022

Through the green and golden maze out my window
wends the serpentine river of abundant life.
It is not, as I have thought, only sidewalk and street -
but the burgeoning of life itself passing before me.

Floating downstream walk couples hand in hand
while upstream a woman makes her way 
through autumn's wind and spitting rain
against the bubbling currents of chilled air.

Pine needles drop and cherry leaves fall
over all the crows, chickadees, and sparrows
who scrabble about through the sodden ground
while neighbors pack up kids in the car.

Such is the scenery to sustain me
through the dark months of winter.
Comfort, stillness, and healing I will pluck
from this lively river flowing on its endless way.
___________________________________________________
Portland, Oregon - November 6, 2022

Since she is no longer here
the days must teach me how to live
and lead me on the ways I should go.

I will befriend these autumn nights -
they know darkness well and are kind
to souls adrift during the lights of day.

Since now I have no star to steer by
I will welcome strangers who come
since she has gone, too early, away.
____________________________________________________
Portland, Oregon - October 23, 2022

My beloved wife of over 31 years passed away on a lovely autumn evening just weeks ago - Far too soon and too young. Bon voyage, dear!

Words emerge unbidden from the past:
Harmartia - to miss the mark.
I lift my bow and notch the arrow
seeing the target just in front of me.
I pull the string, bend the curved bow
breathing until I am ready to release.
The arrow flies - the target disappears
and I, unsure of target or its mark,
question where it was my arrow flew.

I aim at what I do not understand.
Quiver, arrow, and bow defenseless
until the day I begin to fathom
where I am going and the mark
I am meant to see and hit.
Until then, I will practice the art of life
as if it were quiver, arrow, and bow.
I will shoot my arrows into the air
not knowing how they'll fly or where.

The practice is enough it seems -
empty quiver, lost arrows, dropped bow.
Perhaps my search for the target's mark
will be all my life was searching for
and a day will come when I may be
what will not flee from in front of me.
When then I raise the bow I'll breathe
and breathing will let arrow will fly
into the mark that had long eluded me.
_________________________________________________
Portland, Oregon - August 18, 2022

Harmartia, from the Greek, essentially means, "to miss the mark or, to err." In literature it has come to mean the "fatal flaw" of a principle character leading to his/her downfall. I find these two interpretations a bit contradictory.  We all may miss the mark or make difficult and sometimes tragic mistakes. In another sense, our mistakes can lead us to make the changes needed to make our lives worthy of the gift of life.