Home and Away
Home and Away is a chapbook collection of poems published by Finishing Line Press (Sept. 2019) in Georgetown, KY. Home and Away can be ordered by clicking the following link:
http://www.finishinglinepress.com/
where you can search for the book using my name or the book title to navigate to the information for ordering and purchase.
Of Home and Away, the poet and publisher, Christopher Howell, has noted, "The plain, direct language of the poems that voice delivers reminds us what it is like to be awake minute by minute in the world of our being. More importantly, and profoundly, their humor and unaffected humility suggest that we may have available to us a steadier, more capacious happiness than we know."
The following poems are a sample of the work presented in Home and Away. Please enjoy! If you like what you see here, please order the book from Finishing Line Press, or from any local bookseller, including Amazon.
ASHES AT THE BALDWIN AIRPORT
Someone had a good idea. I saw the two of them
at the far end of a grassy runway with their urn
waving it in the wind above their heads. That could be
me in a few years, disappearing into wild grasses
and distant pines as an ashy little dust storm. Maybe it
was the family dog, the “only child” of an aging couple.
Here, because this is where he ran freely when they
walked him. The space an invitation to emptying
walks with animals. Deer and black bear occasionally
cross the distant end of the runway, then disappear
through invisible doors in scrub oak bordering
the outstretched arm of black tarmac. Big sky
everywhere, as big as I remember Dakota, riding
cycle past miles of wheat. The peaceful quiet
enormous, and welcoming as a family threshold.
Tall stalks of nodding grasses wait for someone
to say: I love how I feel in this place. Wide open.
Free as dust.
(first published in Common Ground Review, Fall/Winter Issue, 2019)
GIRL IN THE WOODS
Wading through a puddle of crows
amok with the grammar of love,
she throws crusts to the bluest ones
who speak to her with eyes.
Suspicious. The way deer are
beguiled with the taste of carrots
and apples, set out as offerings
or bait. Their deaths imagined for them
by a woman, up early in darkness,
sitting quietly behind a blind.
Later, there will be blood and
hot coffee spilled in snow.
A mixed toast to a morning full
of gunshots and squawking crows.
(first published in Blueline, literary journal of SUNY Pottsdam, Spring, 2017)
NAPPING WITH MY GRANDSONS
With my neck bent,
head bowed,
chin resting
on the thumbprint of my heart,
I am listening
to their breath
and my heart's drum,
summoning the stars to dance.
On a midnight beach
with the peach scent
of blossoms wafting,
our feet begin
a Cha-cha. Gone the worry
over Christmas eviction,
the shadowy noose of father's
addiction. Gone the fear
and wild confusion
during kindergarten drills
for an active shooter.
Our footsteps swing
to a polka, laughing stars
whirl on the dance floor
above. Outstretched hands
stirring the air around us,
we are a cartoon
of happy movement.
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