The first time I saw the ocean was at Golden Gate Park after two days hitchhiking from Denver. I was three or four years too late for the Summer of Love, but I felt it a duty to my generation and my chosen path as a poet to dip my toe in the sacred waters…
The Eagle Owns the River
Just at sunset, majesty flies up the river in the body of a Golden Eagle, the world lies still and quiet as he passes. I believe there may be one less catfish in the waters tonight. He follows the curve, veers over the bridge and disappears into the giant Cottonwoods A pair of Mississippi Kites…
Speaking of the Snow Moon
I was reminded that today is the fiftieth anniversary of my first visit to Kansas, a trip to Wichita to see a Black Sabbath concert at the newly opened Century II concert hall. It’s marked in history because of the twelve inch snow that fell on Friday night, followed by another ten inches the next…
Breaking Ground
Today is the endpoint of the serenity of my walk, at least the first quarter mile. We’ve known for a while that the nine acre plot at the north end of the golf course was going to get filled up with 40 “patio homes” – which basically means that you have a patio instead of…
Weathering the Weather
The homestead did ok in the arctic temperatures, being a duplex, all the plumbing is in the center of the structure, thankfully there are no pipes on exterior walls. There is one line running through the crawlspace, but it never got below 40 degrees down there This super-dry powdery snow is something we rarely see…
Dear Susan
I’m sorry I missed your birthday, I got confused about the dates, I can keep up with the brother’s birthdays because I stay in touch with them, but my memory failed with both you and Lynn. Her birthday post went up a couple of days late, but mostly because it was difficult to write. I…
A Portal to the Present
Eight degrees below zero, windchill at minus 23 and a steady snowfall – I feel like I have a classic winter walk under my belt, the full experience, if you will. Sure, we could still get a foot of snow in a spring blizzard, but I’m thinking we’ve passed the nadir, temperature-wise. It’s a turning…
The Past Alive Within
There’s a cleft in the hill across the pasture from where the old house once stood, where, now, only the stone summer kitchen remains, a place to store hay out of the weather. My time on that prairie was short, the city was calling to me, but the imprint it left on my spirit is…
Pasando Por Alla
Nights passed in days passing, years passed alone in trains moving over land where there was neither day nor night, clouds nor light, silence nor song but just the humming of metal on metal “I am my own best lover” Michael told me once on a train like this one, apart from time and space, the words as…
A Man of Integrity and Love
Today is the birthday of my oldest and deepest friend, my Kansas prairie brother, my Amtrac brother, my Penn Station brother, my Lower East Side brother, my Oaxaca brother, my Belle Isle with the sunset reflecting in the Detroit River brother. My stand by and support your friend no matter what brother. We share our…