Four of us arrived at sunset equipped
with artificial lights that blinded us
when we turned toward one another.

The moon wore a sheer robe of gauzy
clouds, her luminous self semi-hidden
when we’d hoped to see her full radiance.

We trekked single file in personal
bubbles of weak battery-powered glow,
straining to identify mud versus ice
as our spikes clicked & clinked
up & down sloping riverbank paths.

We smelled the destination
long before we saw it, when finally
our headlamps caught clouds
of steam billowing up off the stream.

Our beams bobbed as we stripped
down to sports bras & underwear,
struggling to remove jackets & boots,
leggings & wool socks, shirts & snug hats
without dropping them in sulphuric water.

And then, stepping in, sitting,
extinguishing lights, sighing,
sinking down until only our faces
aren’t submerged, eyes adjusting
to the dim veiled moonlight.

Separated from the confines of clothes & time keepers & mile trackers, we bask in hot & cool currents, crisp air, sprinkles of rain on our heads like a ritual cleansing; we share secret struggles & dreams, our listening deepened by close proximity & low light & shed schedules—knowing children are tucked in & we ourselves have many quiet hours left to slip between sheets before dawn.

But Pragmatism had to invade
our rock-walled sanctuary eventually,
inducing middle-aged bodies to beg
for sleep & recall the waiting distance.

We wrapped ourselves in thin towels
& peeled slurping fabrics off soaked skin,
redressing clumsily on the bank,
pressing our torches back into service.

Rain with its soft chatter followed us
halfway to our car; we didn’t mind,
though we’d hoped for a brighter friend
who had vanished behind thick curtains.

I understood her hesitation—
the anxiety of stepping outside
safe familiarity into dark unknowns,
choosing to shed your defenses,
sharing your whole self as you are
& hoping your worth is seen.

“There she is!” we exclaim,
our fingers pointing above exposed
branches of winter-bare trees.

Click, click, click, click—our lamps go out,
awed by how much is visible this last mile,
snow-laced mountains wrapped in the
vulnerable beauty of midnight moonlight.

Is it a humble form of divination—
the elusive force that pulls me
like a current toward auspicious
needed or hoped-for destinations?

I’ve learned the silent spellcasting
that transmits like radio waves:
intending, releasing/trusting,
heeding, flowing, broadcasting

gratitude for whatever comes.
The five steps, interwoven like a
pentagram, unify spirit and
matter with mystic outcomes.

Is it a mild form of blasphemy
to believe incantations of certain
thoughts can transmute future
experience into gold, like alchemy?

Kismet is a sorcery that guides,
demanding as payment only
surrendered fear, like blood toll,
to synchronize with magic vibes.

*The snowflakes composed of icy lace.

Another decade rolls to a close
at Earth’s constant spiraling pace—
spinning 1,000 miles every 60 minutes
as she dances 66,600 mph around the sun,
who whirls on the arm of the galaxy
at a dizzying 560,000 miles an hour.

*The hedge-leaps of a steeplechase.

To slow or rush the approaching change,
we’d have to launch ourselves into
the unforgiving vacuum of outer space—
& jump to where the gravitational oomph
of black holes bends the universe’s fabric
into giant time-warping dimples.

*The evanescent tendrils of a fireplace.

To stop it altogether, we’d have to find
a shimmering wormhole & crawl through
to an alternate dimension, hoping
the rules of time might be circular,
malleable, or nonexistent in their case—
though death may be the only such portal.

*The falling petals of a rose in a vase.

Another decade rolls to a close
in the vast 200,000-year history
of our modern human race—
10 years = 2 seconds at that clock scale,
our total allotment less than 20 ticks:
one deep inhale, one extended exhale.

*The intricacies of a person’s face.

To enhance these rationed days, we’d
have to open our eyes to the wonders
we speed past in the locked velocity
of earthbound time, the tiny miracles
of here & now we often fail to embrace—
this breath, & the next, & the next …

*The sunlit glimmer of startling grace.

I’m sorry.
I can’t send you a card this year.

You’ve gone to a place
where no postal service delivers,
no matter how many stamps I attach;
a place without designated numbers or streets,
cities or states or zip codes;
a place no airline flies and no road leads;
a one-way travel destination.

Maybe they have viewing portals there
like those observation window-mirrors
and you’ve watched my mundane year
and laughed at my attempt to recap it
on double-sided 5×7 cardstock.

I hope so.
The laugh of the card is my present,
like a jolly Santa’s ho ho ho.

To be honest,
I hated seeing your name on my address list,
hated the reminder that I can’t call
or text or visit or even send a postcard,
hated thinking I should delete you
to save myself from future torment.

I couldn’t.
I’m sorry.
Next December I will cry again.

Let’s say life is black-lit mini-golf.
Each decision is a shot in the dark.
You’re trusting your disadvantaged eyes
and assuming someone’s painted
everything important—nix that,
everything you’re meant to see—
in glowing neon paint,
including the ball you’re chasing
and the next drop ahead.

But what about those who disappear
like ghosts because their clothes
lack phosphorescence?
They hide in the purple-lit dim,
appearing as disembodied grins
if they choose to show their teeth.

Who’s to say what invisible forms
surround us—what spirits and energies
and gods and magics and sprites
traipse across our course unseen
because they lack the chemical structure
to be caught by the dominant light?

Our two eyes see only
what they’re designed to see.
Best to open the third,
the one that peeks around corners
and confirms there’s more to life
than meets the eyes.

We don’t know how to wait for death—
how to size it up or frame it
or decide what to do with ourselves
as time stretches
and the person we love
is there but fading
at a pace only God can measure.

Those who’ve squeezed into the room
can squeeze your hand while it’s warm
to convey love beyond words and hearing.
Those of us distanced by miles
feel crippled by language
as we crop our grief
into messages and continue
to cry alone.

What is left except to make peace
with the thief of life—
to comfort ourselves with the end
of your pain as we sob for ours?

Next will come the finality of a funeral
with its eulogies in elegant sentences
and whole paragraphs and stories,
but this space of in-between
and not knowing when,
of texted updates hours apart,
of ventilators and heart monitors
and lines of uncertainty,
has the wrenching feel of a poem.

This was all I could do for you
on your deathbed—
you who loves words as I do
and would know what each of these
cost me in tears.

A half-inch-long burn scar on my left forearm
lasted a good twenty years,
from a pancake griddle when I was a kid.

This year I gave myself a new
matching one on the right arm
because a policeman pulled us over
for two bicycles strapped to our car,
wanting the license plate more visible,
so I lashed it to the bikes with nylon cord
that has to be melted after it’s cut
so it doesn’t fray. The lighter got hotter
than I expected. I hurried to drop it.
My arm collided with the liquefied nylon.
It took some skin with it.

It’s taken me some time to accept
that scars are part of life’s landscape,
some time to accept them as anything
but eyesores that last for decades.

I would cringe at the mine straight out
our front windows and hate it for existing,
hate that humans mar our own horizons.

This year the sunflowers beckoned me
nearer to the mine to look again,
and I came by bike in soft morning hours
while commuters sped past inside
cars and light-rail trains.
I crossed under huge, ugly electric lines
and grinned in surprise at the crackle of power
I hadn’t expected to be so audible.

I thought on my own complicity—
the copper in my home that had to be mined,
the electricity my lifestyle requires.
Can I accept my own faults?

I believe happiness depends on
laughing at the policeman’s deadpan humor,
how he used his loudspeaker to ask if we needed
a knife to slice our hundred-foot nylon cord
as he sat in his squad car amused by
our makeshift solutions on the highway’s shoulder,
trying to work with what we had.

As humans do. Mines and power plants and all.
We make things work the best we can.

That’s the part I remember when my new scar
flashes in the mirror every time I blast hot air
at my wet hair, loud with electric privilege
grounded by copper wires.

I remember to accept what is
and find joy in it—
sunflowers and scars.

Perhaps you should go for it.
Throw it all in at once.
Laugh about it.
Walk away with a grin.
Life is a gamble anyway.

Consider your odds.
You could break no rules
and still cause trouble.
You could take no chances
and still lose everything.

Like simulator training,
your circumstances seek only
to teach each lesson well,
however many mistakes
or however high the stakes.

Thank God for one saving grace:
Your gut is a competent guide,
turning roulette into a surer route
if you toss fear aside when intuition
assures you, “This is it. Let go.”