After many years of living in a house that I built, I am now living in a place someone else built. It takes a while to touch a new house, all its parts and corners, and to learn to listen to it. This was one of those moments, discovered during the painting of the place. It’s also a poem about a sort of community.

By the time we cross
Lake Washington, I quietly
try on a sympathetic
Buhhhh, about every
third breath. It’s not
so bad when you
get used to
it.

You can learn a lot when given a moment’s opportunity to step into another’s shoes. Further, it seems to me that any chance to practice aging and, gulp, dying, is invaluable. And, ultimately, life affirming.

2.
Spring breathes urgency
into an eruption of peonies
near my porch. Nearby,
Heavenly bamboo
shimmers in the sun
while my newly sown
chard and kale seeds
unfurl to the light.

3.
The distance
between us
sighs.

Carl Jung noted that an intimate relationship provides just about the best laboratory imaginable for furthering one’s development as a human. Though I had already paid some dues when I read Jung’s remark, I had only the glimmer of an understanding of just how difficult and painful that process would turn out to be.

I give Ted’s velvet ears a loving
tug, tell him it won’t be long.
I feel him out there while I shop,
consider getting him a treat,
but don’t.

Three years have passed
since he showed me
how to
die.

Well, there it is: grief. Amazing, how long it takes to deal with significant loss.

Roaring guard demons assault
my truck in the gravel driveway.
They leap and froth,
relentless walkway shitters,
midnight snarlers, minions
of my neighbor.

Lizard brained, I jerk to a halt,
throw open truck door, counterattack
with insane barks and growls.
Dark swirl joins me from the left.
Andrea, usually delicate and reserved,
in full Kali shriek, turns vicious
brutes to tail tucked curs. Teamed,
our many problems suspended,
we share a last harmonious howl,
then laugh and laugh and
laugh.

The neighbor’s dogs are a pain in the ass, but so are relationship problems. It’s nice to laugh every now and then.

Though it’s charming when a shapely
word leaps to caress us, sometimes
it must be sought and wooed.
A true word Romeo stops at nothing,
however mad, bad, or dangerous
the seduction.

Brother Two-L,
you are
welcome.

John Willson is a fellow poet in my community, an all around nice guy, and leads a poetry workshop I often attend. One night John brought a fine piece which utilized his old high school Master combination padlock as the metaphor stitching together his reflections. None of us could name the part of the lock he was referring to as the “u-bolt,” which was clearly not the right word. Google came through. The true pleasure in John’s voice when he called was palpable, revealing that the missing word was “shackle.”

Thanks, Google.