From the very top of Grey Butte,the peaks and canyons of Yosemiteflash around us as they do. But above, in an ocean of deep-blue sky,four-five-six

Take heart—they say the darkest hour gives birth to dawn,the pain and pitch and fog, saliva-thick, but then, the brand-new start.Take heart—joy comes with the

The mystics say to dig, hammer the cloud, dayand night. That the act of gazing at the long obsidian robe of God undresses unknowing. I

In the heat of summer as afternoonwears on as octogenarians care fortheir flower gardens & sprinklers jet across expanses of lawn the waterlevel in the

You ask me what I thought then. I thought what I think still—tokeep custody of my eyes and lips. If my mistress wraps fig cakes

Plenty of dented signs on the highway. Igloo photographs in the drawers on the left. I don’t know where the antidote is kept. Nobody came

The fog again –it hangs late this year,whitening the airthe way snow whitens the ground.Separating the city,it makes neighbours invisible,softening and dulling all of life.

The first flurries are falling,falling slowly. In the dark of morning,I reached into my shadow closetand plucked my wool sweater,the old one, with snowflakes. It

Sitting at the end of a lakeside dock,with solid cedar boards below my chairbut ever-flowing water underneath,I saw a cumulus cloud toweringlike a holy city