I nod at a pair of slouched graybeards
by the entrance to a Denver Starbucks.
Coupla’ owlhoots, I growl.
Ariel, my daughter, raises her eyebrows—Say what?
You know—sort of like Yosemite Sam’s ‘varmint.’
Waiting for her chai, faster than a gunslinger,
she draws her Sidekick,
checks Dictionary.com
Nada.
Uh-oh, have I made this up?
More clicks, before Google opines
this may be a western regional term
rooted […]
Most nights we read aloud,
sloped against each other on the
afghan covered couch.
Through Narnia and Earthsea
we cheered Good’s
endless battles with Evil.
One night, when it was time,
we placed Air’s homemade
super kiss bookmark at
chapter’s end.
She climbed up to her bed
built over drawers and low closet.
A guardian angel looked down
from the low ceiling,
and glow-in-the-dark stars absorbed light
for their upcoming […]
From dusky fir
ascends the heart break
of the Swainson’s thrush,
gray-green movement
stirring the summer twilight.
At meadow’s edge my infant daughter
sturdily answers the woodland voice,
La-a-a-a-ahh; alaah!
Again and again.
Soundless tears stream,
my constricting fears
of fatherhood
released.
(Number 4 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
In the summer, when we camp
along the coast,
the girls find good and evil
in the way over the rocks.
Grogon’s Lagoon leads to the cave
of the Evil Witch, dripping and dark.
There, she raises a poisonous poppy,
which only looks like miner’s lettuce.
The Good Witch’s grotto is open and light,
and the girls say she has sea anemones
from the Mermaid’s […]
