I’ve just been through an interesting health challenge, a spinal fusion surgery about ten days ago. It went really well, but now I have a ton of time on my hands. I’ve been flipping back through my notebooks, and it’s clear that coming into the procedure, I was heavily self-medicating with poetry.

Increasingly, I take refuge in the rhythm of words and the off-axis perceptions they can open up.

So I thought I’d share a couple of pieces I wrote recently. Oh, and I still take refuge in dogs. Let’s start with dogs

Jess

(a puppy)

everything is new for her
especially birds, and anything hanging
in the open sky. she spots flying geese
long before I see them. then this morning
she paused to peer into a dark bush
where a hummingbird hovered in shadow
and last week, she froze in her tracks
staring intently at the moon.

tonight on our evening walk
she stopped short and looked up—
the sky to the west was banded
with brilliant layers of white and gold
rising from the mountains
to the very top of the sky

neither of us moved
each of us astonished
by the unspeakable beauty of this life

each of us
whimpering softly