5.3.25 (1:45pm) Holden, Maine Sunny and partly cloudy: 69-70 degrees Hearing the hummingbirds zooming to the nectar, and the brown-headed cowbirds chittering from the roof with their tinkling voices, ringing like bells, I can’t help feeling a deep sense of peace. Happiness and peace, as Zen Master Thich Naht Hanh might say, is not only found in nature, but is our nature.  While Albus Dumbledore might suggest it can be found “even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers

“I don’t know how anyone could do this to me,” you declare as you sip my tea. Your split tongue wraps around the lip of the mug and tips it back. With the other tongue, you confirm, “I am the victim.”  The cafe table isn’t conducive for the spikes on your back. You complain to the waitress, who can’t do much, then you decide she’s a bitch once she’s out of earshot. The universe is conspiring against you.  Having been inside of your stomach, I’ve learned to tune you out withou

A boy calls for his cat in the wood behind his family home. The sunlight is just starting to fall beneath the treeline, and he worries the cat will be late for feeding time. He calls and calls until long after the word “Mittens” sounds no more like a word than “higgly piggly.” By the time the North star points at his green eye, the tuxedo cat is still nowhere to be found.  The boy still has hope, for Mittens has never stayed away from home too long. For three days he’s search

(Celeste Cota Photography) I never remember how numb Maine water feels on my toes. Irrelevant the cloud count or the blazing hot iron sun brought on by these scorching months, the heat breaking open the skin on my back, raising and razing hell from the bone out. 50 degrees is 50 degrees. The tidepools are irrelevant too - misleadingly inviting. Close your eyes and you could picture yourself in Cancun. But no, the Atlantic doesn’t care for your daydreams.  My one-piece fee

Found the body of a bird in the grass  Beside a 6-story bank downtown  An Eastern Phoebe, lying low  With a cracked wing and a bent crown A band around its ankle Tells me its death won’t go unknown, Thank god for that little tracking band,  Thank god I’m not grieving alone. *Note: this poem is a fictionalized (or should I say poeticized?) version of a story I was told by a bird conservationist, and the unfortunate number of songbirds that are killed each year flying into glas

Perhaps the very first atoms  were breathed into existence - not a bang - But an exhale As reflexive and natural as our own. And we prescribe some unknowable noise to this Kaleidoscopic beginning But as I wonder up at the sun and her sister stars, Patiently hovering in my late evening sky, I imagine a quiet start. Perhaps not silent, But whispered A hush As if to sneak up on space and time itself As a stubborn child might creep the stairs after bedtime To risk the treasures o