Spruce trunk: mast for a ship
with neither sail nor oar.
Clouds roll through
carrying storms
from the sea.

After a long hike
it’s hard to distinguish
the snore of my dog
from the buzzing of a fly.

Aspen on the hillside:
thin-shingled forest cover.

When the flower
blossoms,
she unfurls her
weightless petals.

One stalk,
many blossoms.

From red paintbrush leaves
Green pointed blossoms emerge
Like beaks round their nest.

Blink. Blink and you might miss it.
Lavender wisp of sunset intertwined
with gold. Rustle in the grass. Streak
of bird. The momentary reflection
when the angle of light reflects off
an ornately spun spiderweb. Blue throat
of pinyon jay. Pearls of water
splashing in the sun. On the highway,
you crossed into the left lane
when you saw the black car parked
on the shoulder. Then we both saw the young
father carefully walking back towards
the parked car, arms clutching his
young child tightly against his chest.
And just a few paces behind him:
a mile marker, a simple roadside cross.
We too are stardust, traveling with the speed
of light, and we don’t even
know it.

On the jawbone, laughlines;
at the top, a hook
from which it hung once,
jawing; each molar,
a cell for contemplation;
the honeycomb of the marrow,
a labyrinth; the entirety
of the jawbone striated
like woodgrain
and not unlike a branch.

This, too, grew toward the light.

It isn’t the fruit—
so easily digested—
but the vine
that keeps giving
despite the harvest
and the bitter
pruning.
 

A bit of shell has broken off
like a continent, like Pangea
drifting apart. Light enters
the beached shell, where water
once pooled, where, earlier still,
a muscle oared through the deep.
A bit of broken shell, here
and there, near the apex
of the spiral, and a pagoda
emerges, watchtower
of the tsunami.
At the other end, the shell
extends a single prong, like
a toe, like mother of pearl

testing the waters.