Winter is a protection racket

not unlike the skin disease once known as the king’s evil that could only be cured by a king’s touch.

Ask a vintner or a fromager:

few things are more festive than decay.

to maximize their receptivity to the lightning of thought.

we were adrift long before we were at sea.

has convinced us this stillness is meditative?

sawed-off end of a log
now riddled
with openings

maple-leaf viburnum / turns out its true color / is viburnum

at the trailhead / a maple limb grows down / into the earth

always has vacancies— dead maple

nothing but the sound of the wind hissing in the weeds

even with these special seats squirrels still make a mess

now the leaves get more of the sky than just sunlight