I was trying
to get back to that
huckleberry muffin
at the Blackbird Café
on Bainbridge Island
till my wife came a day later
with a blueberry muffin.
She said, “It’s not huckleberry but”
Tag Archives: Washington
Landing in the snow at Friday Harbor
We’ll not miss the island.
When we’re near, it will beckon.
A line of lights will point the way,
and we’ll have more than
this roar and blue buffeting —
more to guide us
than the glow of little dials.
Heroes of yesteryear
Where this goes
Lonely but connected
Strainer
You don’t want to hit a tree,
he said
(and I agreed).
And when you go over the falls,
don’t do it the usual way:
get down and hang on,
and if you go under,
make like a ball,
and please,
if you pop up,
don’t float all the way to the Columbia.
Swim to shore and we’ll all have
a better day.
Comes a time
He came to me hang-dog,
sat down on the porch
of the little cabin I had.
Was there anything for
the misty trail and blank diffusion,
the locked-out midlife
and dry, throat-clearing
apology for not having done
– what?
He didn’t even know,
only that it was bad.
And what did I have
to offer? Nothing but
my own head hung,
the cracked and weathered grain
of the planks under my feet,
and the assumption that I wouldn’t
be in his shoes
twenty years hence.
Utrecht Journal 