Nobody here but us bowls, coffee filters, and bean grinders . . .
"Looking at a cat, like looking at clouds or stars or the ocean, makes it difficult to believe there is nothing miraculous in this world." Leonard Michaels
Good Night 2020
photo by Dennis Bayer
Photographer Gets Photographed
photo by Denns Bayer
Shovel Art Masks Up
masks designed by Tony Aldarondo
Tai Chi And Galoshes
I'm up to my ears in winter and the neighbor's shingles are touched with frost. Practicing cloud hands on our roof, I could use a pair of mittens till the chi kicks in. I've lived in trees, under redwoods where sunlight did not go and the yellow glow from a kitchen's bulb illuminated our summer cabin all day. Moss in the trees, on the steps, on the shingled roof of a storybook house for a storybook life where our son was born, where neighbors brought us a stroller with a kitten tucked inside , where deer fed on grass and lived by the creek in a place we did not own but were never more free. And this morning doing tai chi on the roof in the light, the only trees being distant palms bending in the wind like sails on land, my galoshes in a pool of condensation deep enough for goldfish, for a Pisces to float, reflecting the foliage of clouds colored by sunrise, fluttered by gulls, my hands going through their motion . . . be your own hero, they whisper, lean into the wind, you are forever free when you live how you want to be . . . bow to the trees.
Float In
During the pandemic float-in concerts have sprung up. Every weekend bands play off the back of a houseboat and people float/paddle/row/motor into the lagoon and listen and party while floating in the water. My friend, musician Stephen Ehret who, along with his musical partner Hines plays in the ‘Nother Mother Brothers Band’ said that at times it’s the crowd that becomes the show.
How Writing Works For Me
Thursday night I read a poem in the Point Arena open mic that included a green M&M. Friday morning I found this one in the parking lot of our dock. Friday night at Nomadic’s open mic I heard a poem with the word quixotic written by my friend Linda. Saturday morning over coffee, I read a poem by Kay Ryan in the the book The Jam Jar Lifeboat which included the word quixotic. Quixotic. I’ve been told I write about the quotidian. Quotidian. An extraordinary word for the ordinary. But as you can see, even the ordinary is extraordinary. Quixotic. I left the green M&M on the asphalt where it had come to rest, and watched a feather adrift in the breeze, softly alighting on the surface of the bay. This day afloat.