I
after I tore off my roof on purpose
i built a stairway from the liberated rafters
milled out of the last giant cedars from the everglades

now they are treads
walked on tenderly until that distant day
they will be cremated to make electricity

small puffs of their windblown remains
will be inhaled by other generations
whose own liberated atoms will nourish the ground
perhaps enlivening future trees

II
in japan doctors prescribe forest bathing
to build bonds with the trunks and limbs
leaves and canopy in fair trade for undying wellness--
which the soul will keep enfolded well after time ends

color therapists join the fun
unravelling custom stress-relief shades
be they lime-khaki-jade-clover-kelly-olive-
emerald-mint-shamrock-fern-moss or sage
enough choices to make a self-contained green rainbow

III
before your judgy mind can stop you
become a planetary citizen
admit that you’ve fallen in fondness with a sabal palm

confess that you’ve hugged that ageless oak
into which your younger self carved a heart

divulge that you cried when your prized cypress fell over
in that storm punctuated by thunder and dizzying wind

​knowing these moments eternally burn in your inner campfire
you—like trees—can translate sunlight into cool shade
rain attraction climate composure
and beyond even to your own forever-enriched behavior
in which these gifts shall live on
in human in earthly and especially in star-field
consciousness

This poem first appeared in Poetry in the Park: Nature of Place, an Anthology, 2024

​from decades of looking into
this magnificent creation
i have come to see the ocean
as something of a big brother
who pushes me
into more joy than is mortally fair
which makes me wonder
what he sees
when he looks into me?
​

​we have really done it now
last month we shot a dart into a cute little moon
peacefully orbiting its mommy asteroid
seven million miles away
knocking it silly
 
imagine just having a pleasant star-time day
then getting knifed by a sharp blade
traveling at fourteen thousand miles an hour
all because the science girls and boys tell us 
this bow and arrow might save us someday
 
they claim to have looked back sixty-six million years 
when our lush rock got jolted 
by a six-mile-wide angry piece of broken star
[ncoming at forty-five thousand miles an hour
releasing the force of a billion hiroshimas 
 
a fiery rooster-tail plume of earth rock 
shot halfway to the moon
local temperatures hemorrhaged 
many times hotter than the sun’s surface
fire-storming the mammal-packed forests 
 
oceans tsunamied over the land
followed by a deep sunless freeze 
below methane and carbon-soaked skies
spiked with sulfuric acid rain 
leaving a few microbe clusters to struggle
   
we beat the odds 
evolving out of the spoiled dinosaur-rich soup
and poisoned soil
to become the new royalty on the rock
 
maybe the creator was so freaked 
by what had been wrought
we were granted a brain capable of deflecting 
the next random asteroid
 
maybe the science kids are onto something
or just maybe some more refined organism
will spring forth after our self-created collision 
with reality

​hair an unborn rain color
lips a flower-breath festival
eyes a double sunset
 
fingers in winter sift firewood ash
to rescue spent nails from common burial
 
feet in spring re-search back alleys
where hands scavenge
rusted bolts broken blades small tangles of wire
 
a whole-body finale
upon the strike of midsummer's noon
charges its garden
armed with a double-handled digger
 
twelve holes later under stinging shower
she circles and begins a wait
for the new of the next moon
 
at that exact moment by lantern light
she feeds in her yearly steel-crumb collection
backfills each hole with drooling soil then
celebrates with raisins
and juicy pitted prunes
 
she nourishes the earth she must
because some men
have bled its metal out
 
she nurses the earth she must
because she must
 
so she reaches a fist out to the night
pulling in a positive charge then
 
amused by its sudden gravity in her chest
tunnels through her unlit house
all the way to the mirror
to laugh at the image
of a servant who drops to her knees
on warm mornings
and fingers the globe like a rosary bead


​First published in January 2022 in Tiny Seed Literary Journal

​I just now overheard a scholar dismiss all the life in this entire universe as a random occurrence birthed from chaos. 
 
Really?
 
And his rationale for the irrefutable reality and benign complexity of our life-giving earth: “Well, it’s like we’re riding a winning lottery ticket.”
 
Indeed?
 
Then explain to me the unfathomable depth in a human tear. How the one sourcing the tear is in instant communion with every being who has ever cried out in pain or joy.  
 
Justify how synchronicity, déjà vu, joie de vivre, and the innate drive to be empathic can be reduced to chemical reactions. 
 
Clarify why the new physics is on a mission to de-camouflage the soul of the cosmos. Account for the existence of the word—and pervasiveness of the permanent human infatuation with—soul.
 
Enlighten us how it is possible that existence is a one-in-a-trillion chance when mathematicians have proven that the timeline probability of the evolution of just one simple enzyme found in the human body would take far longer than the known age of the universe. Defend the evolution of the other 75,000 enzymes and how they accidentally work in concert.
 
Use your logic to clarify why there is something rather than nothing. And why you are, rather than why you are not.
 
Now, when you’re exhaustedly emptied of cluttered and circular explanations, sit outside and commune with a star, a pebble, even the air, and reflect honestly upon the trite nature of your arguments. 
 
Then, if you dare, set your last remnant of jaded arrogance aside, and you’ll have proven your destiny as a bona fide winner. 
 
Indeed.