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I am the Moon.
Yes-it's cliche,
Every person, poet, and author who has ever cared
To understand the night sky has become,
Undoubtedly, the moon,
But I really am,
I feel.

It seems sometimes I move as Her
I rose in the wrong part of the sky with Her
that night the neon signs disgusted me.
I sometimes stare full-faced at the earth
And despite the darkness I see- SHINE, SHINE,
and SHINE
Until exhausted, I step down for the Sun
To keep lit what I can't anymore.

I return again but turn
My face, afraid to focus fully
On the ground- at what I'll soon be leaving,
Letting down.

Instead, I keep the earth in my peripherals
And give light without hearing the darkness,
Until, once again, I step down
For The Son
To make light what I can't anymore.

Anti-Events

I want to celebrate things that don't matter
Like the spaces between words
And lips and teeth
And the path your foot follows in the air
Before it reconnects with the earth
Between steps

That's Pretty Neat

Check it out.

A Sneak Peek

This is part of something I've been working on for a while;

I'll admit I have a problem:
I pretend to have this down. To understand everything, but I don't. I understand very little. But I've felt a lot. I've felt God. I've felt the light touch my mind in moments of such clarity that it's literally almost mind blowing. 

Jeffrey McDaniel

I found this. I liked it.

The Quiet World

In an effort to get people to look
into each other's eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn't respond,
I know she's used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe. 

Well, where'd you go?

I went to college! I'm here in Coeur d'Alene; a place I hope to make all mine one day.
Here are pictures of a few places I've made mine already here in Idaho:

 

This is Tubbs Hill. We spent the first week exploring and jumping off the rocks into Lake Coeur d'Alene.

 This is the pathway past the park near campus. I long boarded here when the weather was warmer. 

The boardwalk around the resort tower. 

This is a bit of downtown Coeur d'Alene in the winter. Such pretty lights. 

How To Talk To Your Sister*

She will speed into your driveway while you are drawing with chalk. She will run past you

without looking at you, even though you haven’t seen each other in years.

After she emerges teary eyed from your parents room, she will stop to visit, but not before she goes to her truck and comes out with gifts. A calendar and a teddy bear for you and toe rings for your other sisters. The conversation will be meaningless and awkward. When she leaves you will tell her you love her she will laugh and say goodbye. You used the calendar but felt bad because you knew it was meant to buy your love or forgiveness. Are they really all that different? And you were giving them for free. You’re in debt now.

Months later, just after Christmas, the phone rings and you answer. It’s her. You tell her what you got because she asks. After an awkward silence you ask about her Christmas. “Oh it was great!” She says a little too loudly. And you wonder if she is going to cry. She describes all her gifts in detail. And you think of a Lie to Me episode where they said criminals will be over-descriptive in an effort to convince someone of a lie. But you hope she had a good Christmas anyway. After you hang up, you tell your mother to mail her pictures of all of us.

The school year has ended. The phone rings and you check the caller ID then continue to pour your cereal for dinner.

You’re downtown with friends headed to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Before entering you realize you are close to where your sister lives. You think about how your friends aren’t even aware that you share blood with someone who lives within a two mile radius of here. You think about how some of them might not even know who have a sister.  You remember the ignored call from months before and feel guilty. “I’ll be in in a minute.” You’re friends go on ahead.  You wander around the block not sure really what you are looking for but get scared by a homeless person and quickly return to the restaurant. Your friends have already ordered. You sit and watch them eat.

When you get home that night you ask your parents if they have heard from her lately.

“She lives in Nevada now with Some Man.” They said “Some Man” as though that was his name.

“Oh.” Nevada? Some Man?

When summer rolls around again after your junior year your family takes an RV trip across the

states. Welcome to Nevada. You wonder who would willingly live here. There is nothing to look at but

wind. You are playing cards on the table with your brother which is extremely difficult because the draw pile keeps moving around. You notice the air becomes tighter. It is as though everyone’s thoughts and emotions became tinier. And you remember; your sister lives here with that man named Some. But no one says anything. You wonder if she can feel her family passing by, whether sharing blood holds more power than you realize.

You remember a book you read where a Mother received a letter informing her that her son had

died in war overseas. Despite her family’s acceptance of his death, she continued to believe he was alive until one day, months later, she felt what she described as a tiny burst in her heart as though the shadow of her heart leapt, and she knew then that he was dead. Journal entries and hidden writings in a POW camp confirmed that he had died the day the Mother was gardening. What is there to say? How do you talk to your sister?

*This is an imitation of How To Talk To A Hunter by Pam Houston

Also, sorry about the funky format; I couldn't change it.