“waking lights”    The room sits in its late-hour weight,charcoal settling where the boards dip.A latch sticks; the cold has worked at itthrough weeks of short days.   The radio mutters through the same reports.Outside, the yard is a sheet of dull metal,the shed roof taking the last scraps of lightwithout giving anything back.   […]

“late cup“   day thins on toothy edges,each request arrives, softening contours.Still, hands move in steady patterns,carrying out what the moment askswhile the inner field settlesinto quieted grain. a cup waits on the bench,its position unchanged,holding a small shift of lightas the room adjusts around its rim.shoulders follow that adjustment,working through each hourwith the same […]

  Morning comes softer now.You rise without rushing,the house no longer waitingfor your first move. I visit with small things —fruit cut the way you like,a cardigan folded on the chair,the kettle already warm. You smile as if surprisedthat care can travel in this direction. There was a timewhen every hour depended on you:school forms, […]

  “poetical queries“   does it take a poet to read anotheror a poetic soul to catch a glisterdo poems fire all we can muster o’er lines traversing verses light or direwhy do poems keep an inner pyrepoetry dares conspire ’round what we admire     .       1

“windswept voices“ rough is the wind that forcesa trunk sideways from its long‑held berth, not quick to undo what’s stood for yearsyet close enough to warn me through its scrape: we keep moving along the same worn track,no pause in the work or its miles, and something behind us still pushes forward,brushing hard against these […]