I would name all my dogs for the winds.

Sirocco, Khamsin, Buran, Gilivar.

I would name my cats the same.

Shamal, Alisio, Zonda, Coromuel.

There are enough to last me to my end.

Chinook, Nigeq, Bora, Leveche.

They are forces of nature,

and so are they,

and so are they.

August 25 2023

Crusoe

Right now I just want to drift.

Tomorrow I will go ashore,

walk up the beach,

and figure out how to build a cabin,

or a fire,

or eventually a library,

or just a way to get off this damned island,

but for now I just want to

                                                             drift.

October 13 2023

Returning

The one thing that made up

for leaving lions behind

was running down the diamond lawn

barefoot, to strawberries.

January 26 2023

Here's the thing:

Waking with the sun,

rummaging in the fussy bottom drawer,

running out along the grassy drive

(cold dew numbing your feet to the stones)

and hoisting the raven flag

into the island breeze before

running back to breakfast

doesn't happen all that often.

Go back and tell yourself that

before you forget.

May 30 2023

I tell him I know,

I know,

but it isn't true,

any more than that he understands me.

He's an almost-gone dog,

a shawl of cancer beads shrouding a mystery

that tells me I don't know,

I don't know.

July 11 2023

Arriving

I wish I knew that memory more.

All I have is green beneath the wing,

rising as we made our final approach.

Were there really zebras

running beside the landing strip?

And then that taste of orange soda

in the British style hotel.

That’s it. But we were finally there

and that’s enough.

July 11 2023

To have looked through a kaleidoscope before

is not at all the same thing

as looking through one again.

May 2023

Did I tell you how the other morning 

Molly came down the road, 

paws and tail, 

to sniff his chin?

Old man, he stood still till she was done,

then he dipped his head to hers in turn, 

good girl,

and she ran back to her owner.

April 24 2023

The least of life is much to love.

Consider a withered tree

and how we hope to see it bud again,

and those who agree

that lichen on stone is beautiful.

To say nothing of pine.

To say nothing of ivy's profusion.

And then the lawn,

and then the crows,

and the wide savannah and its game and predators,

and the oblate spheroid of incalculable wealth.

We are the least of life, but there is much to love.

April 9 2023

Morning Pledge

For now, I will do these things

and I will be these things

and I will say these things

and I will see these things

before me.

The rest,

that horrid host,

shall not consume me.

April 4 2023

if you think about it

we’re all in a place

where someone falling from low earth orbit

would love to be

March 16 2023

All That Africa

All that Africa is gone from me now.

There is no continent

where once it crept in my heart,

tectonic.

No canvas tent survives to tell

of water buffalo just outside the flap

or elephants looming in darkness

beyond the mothy lantern light.

There is no VW bus named Zinjanthropus

for you to practice packing the night before,

and pack again at dawn.

There is no high plantation

from which you can carry me down,

head reeling from the mountain air.

I can’t put a pocketknife beside you

to show the scale of your life in a photograph.

Mzee, I will lay you down gently

in the creek bed where we found you,

old hand axe,

and I will dust off my hands,

and walk back to the car,

and my eyes will try to see the valley,

but my heart will feel only the rift.

March 27 2023

When you are helping them down a stair

they do not know they are descending,

you are naturally gentle.

This, above all other times, is not one for a fall.

Let them reach the floor with dignity.

The sleep they do not know they seek

is waiting on their old familiar bed.

January 31 2023