Home Alone

I wake up 

to a quiet, 

unpeopled house

float down our long hall

toward the kitchen

my pajamas flutter

like an angel’s robe.

I reach out into the emptiness
sense something there

as if walking in the isle 

of a cathedral dense
with apparitions.

The boys went camping.

I don't miss them.

Instead I long for coffee.

I pour the dark powder

into the white filter 

as reverantly as
a priest preparing
Communion.

Then I lean against 

my white tile altar,

sipping, beholding,

following my bare feet 

into the garden. 

I hear myself humming. 

I hear myself praising the Lord.

I hear myself praying

there is a Lord 
to receive my praise, 

offered 
with so much yearning.

After This

Mount Tam

I want to live again--but not forever!
Time without end would be a bore.

Just give me ten millennia--
that will suffice I think--
to sate my curiosity,
to grow more restless,
to ready me for whatever
happens in that tick
of time before
the next conception.

Or if the worst be true,
to pare my fear
that after all this
there's only an abyss.

My Soul

Lake Chabot

Alone
beside the lake
I sense
something near
fusing me
with not me,
listening kindly,
filling
my empty self
with what is
everlasting.
In silent--
blessed--solitude,
I am at last
conjoined!

Peace of Mind

Lake Chabot

Here along Lake Chabot, 

My mind kicks off its boots, 

My soul drops its heavy pack.

Among ferns and horsetails, 

Where water gently ripples, 

my heart says ahhhh. 

Every bird song awakens me.

Every stray cloud a breath of mine.

Every cricket my own pulse.

Every leaf my own skin. 

Here the Star Thistles prompt

Knowing I will soon forget--

I am the universe and 

The universe is me. 

Center Line

Road to Yosemite 

At dusk on a two-lane road 

that curves like a Z, the

strip of paint that marks

a border between life and death

suddenly seems to glow
for me. 

How easily one can veer, 
I think. Take care.

A trespass by a hair

can spell the end 
of the road,

so to speak. 

Today's paper 
tells of a head-on 

in Wyoming
that killed three Boy Scouts, 

a toddler,  and a man 
whose car crossed 

the center line 
last night.

It’s only chance 
they strayed across 
the line just as I 
was measuring
its power
with a new
and urgent need
to keep my eyes
on it.

Mindfullness

What I came for is here:

Grasses bending to the breeze

Sun blinking when titan clouds pass by

Warm wind pounding on my back

A dear friend who loves it too nearby

Perfect sand dollars at my feet

I'm not hot or cold, no thirst, no hunger

A mind as fine, inert as sand

No woes will find me here

Just those my heart let in.

The Good Old Days

A garage door rumbles up slowly. 

He must have seen me coming 

in my navy blue pleated skirt 

and white cotton blouse

walking home from school.

BAM!  his pants drop to the floor,

he waves congenially at me,

my eyes follow his 
down to a dangling 
turtle neck.

I won’t tell my parents about this old man 

on our street--They’d not let me walk

that way again. 

But I know what lurks 
on all streets leading home 

in South Bend, Indiana.

A stranger in the park tried

to coax me to his car,  my
father's friend, a captain,

trapped me in his bathroom 

with frantic french kisses.

That  Peeping Tom (one of many)!
My neighbor caught him

pulling on my bedroom window
while I lay dreaming
just blocks from Notre Dame.

And little Ronnie Gloster hung himself
when he was 10.
His dad knows why.

Tonight an author on the radio

speaks sadly about the good old days

when a child could walk to school

and home again without a care. 

I want to call him on the air.

There were no good old days
in South Bend, Indiana.