Lines from a Life I

There is rain moving in
From the north and west,
And the wind coming up with
Threat and thunder.

Wet air comes, blowing sweet and cool
Across my cheek, a wonder of a sky-blown river.

What's left of bright and blue slips down the southeast sky,
Some scattered pearl drops spot the porch around my feet,
And I'll have to turn the lights on in the house
When I go back inside.

January 4, 1978
We live in a shell of glowing ice. The sun lights the windows like mother of pearl in candlelight. But it isn't the ice on the windows that keeps us here - it's the ice in the wind.

May 7, 1981
Another beautiful day, with the sun coming up like hotcakes.

May 19, 1981
Full Flower Moon last night. Steak and potatoes at the cabin. Whitethroats calling, coyotes singing, grouse drumming. Walk over the fields around 2:00 a.m.

June 27, 1981
I just imagined the landscape full of holes where people had been - big pools - poofs of dust - like a war zone. Plops and puddles of empty spaces in a dead dry desert beyond my wall - where people I have known stood once and then were lifted out - just gone. There are others standing there, but the hold is light and they can lift away anytime. There is no one in the cage that holds me. I am alone in there.

August 16, 1981
The sun shone nectarine red in a hazy sky. It outlined a firepath through the water, which was smooth and unruffled except when it lapped back from the water's edge, indicating a flow against the land not otherwise visible. The last tourist family left shortly after we came. The water was too cold for me - the air was damp and a bit clammy. Far out by the point a pair of loons swam across the sun path, and later they swam into sight just offshore.