What Speaks

 2/22/2026 (c)

“What speaks to us, seemingly, is always the big event, the untoward, the extra-ordinary: the front-page splash, the banner headlines.” Stephen Harrod Buhner

 

I aim to look at the small. The ordinary.

The moments I interact with a bird on the sidewalk—

 

hello Robin,

hello Crow,

 

a chickadee that would fit in one hand—

if it would trust me, and better that it doesn’t—

 

or to watch my cat eat, a beast tamed

with bowls and catnip;

who stalks me room to room

and sleeps on my keyboard

while I try to type—

 

the sudden surprise of scent

passing by an Aphrodite Sweet shrub,

or Lilac, Honeysuckle—

 

hello Perfume

 

I choose to walk by them on my way to work

rather than the more efficient concrete

sidewalk a block over—

 

Moments I don’t tell anyone about.

They are not big enough—

 

I miss and see less often slugs and worms

that rise and writhe across the sidewalk—

I read that they are trying to escape drowning,

but stranded, they starve.

 

Perhaps my longing to see them is misplaced,

how rare to see the underworld

expose itself to the sun—

 

I always feel like I can smell them—

it’s petrichor—

rain on dry soil, geosmin spores, earthy aerosols—

 

I want to carry all these intimacies,

like suggestions, like small moments within dreams

blurring into the day. I want to wear them

like a film over my skin—

 

Last month I saw the crocus in a neighbor’s yard.

Frequently they arrive in late February,

just before the final frost. But this was January,

And somehow I felt grateful for their hope.

Tarot: 8 of Wands

 (c) 2/2026

Eight wooden staves, with spring growth nodes—

none whittled into spear points—

fly across your path, quick and chaotic,

an imprecise mirror of your thoughts. Who knows

whether you have the discernment to catch

any, if not all?

 

Some may think they will form a fence

or be used to strike a foe—

but each staff is utility itself.

 

I once took four, along with burlap and rope

and made a message board at summer camp.

We posted gratitude, gossip, and duties.

I once peeled the bark and carved figures into it

like love letters swapped with my friends.

I used one for a macrame wall-hanging.

 

With good soil and water, the staves

could be replanted, grown into a grove.

With kindling and matches they will warm us for a night.

 

Don’t believe the staves may only be used as weapons.

 

Tarot: 7 of Swords

 (2025) 

So many ideas still swarm in my Aries head,

but now like a dust cloud.

I haven’t enough discrimination left

to choose the better of my ideas. Look!

I’ve already lost two thoughts,

like dropping swords, points buried in the mud.

These are likely the best two, but who knows?

I’m forgetting memories, rejecting plans.

 Pharmaceuticals, or age, or just plain tired—

I walk into battle fields and kitchens both

not sure what drew me there. It was some object

I needed to find, or an online task, some duty,

a necessity, and already

most of my mind’s blades have become blunt.

Carrying them in a bag on my back

has become burdensome. It’s time

a protege should pick them up,

but no one has the vision I seem to have lost

I shouldn’t have imagined myself impervious to age.

Tarot: 8 of Swords

 (c) 2026 

All my doubts form a fence—

my insecurities a blindfold—

and the stories I tell wrap me like loose ropes.

What if I find the stories sweet?

What if I find pleasure in the lies?

The waters beneath my feet are shallow,

and nothing in my heart is so deep

as the rivers of previous weeks.

In the distance I hear the obscene hurrahs

of soldiers finishing war games—

wiping blood from their blades.

The King and Queen in their castle are half-asleep.

I am insignificant and therein lies the beauty--

I can stand still and think.

Tarot: The Lovers

 09/2025 (c)

On paper the lovers would likely have not felt the attraction

Their uniqueness seen more as disparity than as harmony.

One of them is a tempest. An updraft. A whoosh.

Another is a soft rose. A square of velvet.

There is water. Sometimes stagnant but usually gurgling and slurping.

There is fire and there is stone, but who is to say which one holds what cards?

What split-off personalities do I need to re-unite? Just how much love

may I give myself?

I recall the obsessions, the perfect fit of two hands touching

as though touch were a new thing.  Turning his off-hand remark

into a koan, into a worry stone to rub away into an iridescent hue.

I recall the ideal weather, the luminescent being whose flaws

didn’t require forgiveness. Even fault lines were perfect. 

Part of my soul is a tamed bird. Part is a wagon wheel.

Part prefers solitude. The other is already looking for a way out.

Sport

 (2009)

I remember fishing, once.

Caught nothing I could keep. 

Under three inches and thin as my middle finger. 

I unhooked the hinged mouth

and threw it back, already dead, or if not,

left to live out its days

with a gaping hole in its mouth and pain. 

This is what is called "sport".

To alleviate boredom I attempt my first BlackOut poem. March 7, 2025