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Tuesday, May 12, AD 2026
Monticello, Kentucky
Latitude: 36.504' N Longitude: -84.508' W
473 feet above sea level
Sunrise: 6:35 Sunset: 8:37
Those who grieve are respected. They have the
comfort of their tears.
St. Matthew 5:4, Ya Shua
Back to Work
Our father, strength of the sky, in hope
that your reputation be clean, your movement noted,
your pleasure accomplished on the ground as it is
in the sky; see that everyone has enough to eat today--
pick us up, put us back to work as we have done
for everyone in our way. Don't lead us off into deep water
to see what we'll do. But snatch us away
from disaster and from rot.
Words and Music, Sincerity and Roots
Events Calendar
Video - Front Porch Friday 4/17/2020 - Skull Hill (click it)
Pine branch with new growth
lists with the playful spirit
But if all's not good?
Long night of rain, then
sunlight on dogwood blossoms
In a chill new day
Alone in the Monastery, Staring at One Thing
with Red Leaves, Green Grass, and Birds
Happy in Sunlight
A young man stumbles into a crisis of years.
Old man sits in his crisis of tears.
Both are stranded without words.
They stop and look both ways
for something or someone unexpected to come
round the corner with big feet and a red nose.
When no one shows, they will dress the part
and take up acting in leotards and pointed shoes,
be someone they can only imagine,
dread someone else's fears
cry someone else's tears and go the distance.
It's not really all that far to go.
The Winter of '26
Christmas warm and grey
Golden leaves cover the ground
and Schroeder plays on
Brown leaves are matted
junco hides in his pine tree
Branches rise and fall
Robin red breast hops
cold north wind again with snow
Winter continues
Sunbeams come and go
old snow waits in underbrush
We begin again
Field of snow and ice
bright under long shadowed oaks
Groundhog soon to wake
Witch hazel in bloom
pink tulip flowers as well
And it's still winter
In the morning rain
a small branch in a tall tree moved
I stood up again
Again, cold morning
but with pink flowers this time
Hoot of mourning dove
War in Iran now
It is that time of the year
While cherries blossom
Trees in joyous bloom
new leaves dance in morning wind
Dove moans softly twice
Wind, rain, and darkness
green grass, trees red with promise
Snow showeres all day
Bright sun, dogwood buds
At last the wood stove is lit
Woman out walking
On the Fourth Day of Christmas
I read of the fourth day of earth and sky.
And I read of wise men leaving town.
Then I looked out my window.
The moon was in its final quarter.
The stars had told their old, old story.
And the sun had arrived right on time.
Light was divided from darkness.
A Ukrainian flag fluttered from a flower pot.
Quick clouds moved up from the Southwest.
An old willow danced its branches.
The hundred million peaceful protesters
had yet to be deployed to the Kremlin and the White House.
But there was a Nutcracker-king beside a white tree.
Wreaths and ribbons lined the street.
While in Bethlehem children continued to be slaughtered.
Rachel mourns. But Herod is wroth.
The mocker is mocked. And wisdom has fled.
December 28, AD 2025
Come Away and Sing
Come away out of the cold, out of the damp,
out of the world of mocking laughter,
come away and sing for the the one who is,
to King Alpha a tune with twang and strum,
a joyful noise in an ordering of words.
There's been damage done in the name of the familiar,
in a frame of civility against the ones who know how,
how to live in the strength of hills, in the deep
places, by the sea, and on dry land.
Come away and sing for the ones who made
such places and such people to inherit and to tend.
Strands of spider web
a few red leaves in sunlight
And sky thrill enough
Few Trees Still Have Leaves
Few trees still have leaves
that whisper in the morning
Is there any hope
Quiet mockingbird
stands on the red fire hydrant
Warm bright autumn day
Wind chimes sound their tune
Blue flag waves from neighbor's porch
Crow from tree top speaks
Thanks to you old crow
you have filled out my poem
with your old story
To Tell the Old, Old Story
We eat and play and sleep awhile.
We wonder about the depth of the sky.
Then we get up and work making what we imagine
will be good and respectable,
something to make our neighbors glad,
and sit well among the hills and forests,
along the creeks of falling water,
something we can trade for beans and tomatoes.
Whatever trouble may come will be enough.
We will write songs about it to sing in the evening,
songs of wonder, songs of love,
songs of disaster to keep us alert,
songs to tell the old old story
that will trail off into our dreams.
Offspring of Humans, Will You Judge the Bloody City?
You will be judged within it
with its vexation of strangers, its murder of anyone
in the way of its lust --the must have stuff
that glows in your mind, its lewd
disrespect of women. I would rather judge
the clover in the field, the red bird in the red bud
tree, the kindness of neighbors ready to help,
(ready to hide you in the attic or in the floor,
ready to say yes, ready to say no,
ready to die in the moment with truth in their faces,)
ready to die toward the better day--
a day in clover where wisdom is at play.
(She has always been quite playful.)
Moon flowers opened
a thousand honeybees came
Warm summer morning
They Were Robins
A lot of green, a lot of rain,
sky all the same color--the insistent bird
continued to call for the others
to join in, not happy nor sad
I imagine, just singing, being alive
in daylight, encouraging the others
to righteousness, to faithfulness, to courage.
It's daylight and what else do you have to do?
I will sing for you. You will sing for me.
We will sing for each other and for whoever
will listen of the green, of the rain,
of the sky that holds us, of The Being
in which we live and in which we must die
and be reborn, be reborn, be reborn, be
reborn to sing in phrases long and high,
encircling the hood, encircling the day
as long as it lasts in these bodies filled with song.
We Celebrated Bob Dylan
I like Bob Dylan more all the time--
I like his voice; I like his confidence, his imagination,
and his diction. For awhile I wanted to be Bob Dylan.
But it didn't work out. I was told I'd have
to be my self which has been hard enough
--my own voice, my own hair, my own nose.
And, of course, I would have to die. And I have died often
but am still not quite dead. So that day
I rose up and sat down and sang the songs
of Bob Dylan among the others--
a fine bunch of readers and writers and singers,
pickers and poets inspired by the man,
including several whose souls had been saved.
The Quietest Place in Arkansas
We went looking for the quietest place in Arkansas,
had heard of a place where the rock was balanced--
a steep place where a waterfall fell.
After thousands of miles, we came into Jasper where
the preservationists, the artists, and folk singers gathered
at a courthouse built in “olden times” of local stone.
We listened and sang and were informed of the work--
of the long view to maintain the quiet.
Then we returned to our rented nest by the creek
along Highway Seven where the dump trucks roar.
After a while, the dump trucks stopped.
We sat and watched the goats go home.
And when night came on, we went to sleep--
wanted to be prepared for the final push.
Next day we tended to one another then set out,
finally found the middle path along Steel Creek,
went in expectantly with our walking sticks,
but in half a mile the path was closed to us
by fallen trees and aged knees.
So we sat and listened and heard the water,
and in the evening trees, the song of evening thrushes.
