Like a Bird

Crouching on battered hands and knees, with focused flight, she goes

bowing from the turbulence on her Path—still unfolding

forward, she lifts in flight, upwardly to the stars and goes with focus

tenacious, it is all she knows in this day and tomorrow, this way.

Those who cradled her to their breasts, whispered, “Go in peace and love”

sending her off and out to live life with early riveted focus—flying, she goes

fielding mountainous terrain, low fertile valleys and broad open plains

rich in deep relationship—with focused flight she goes with love in her heart.

Kat

17 October 2016

Fog

In the heat of the baking sunlight,

the force of sand-whipping winds,

thinly oxygenated high mountain air—

there is a clarity within

that holds fast. 

The elements tether hearts and minds, firmly

to the crusted fissured landscape, drawing

the last two percent of moisture from our pores. 

The penitentes drag weighted crosses

on bloodied knees

baring sweated brows and

bulging veined arms. 

Flies hover, bite and amass

on wounded backs of man,

living off the pores of sweat and stink

that feed them well. 

Our plights, with which we wrestle,

small perhaps, yet immense,

draw us deeply within,

holding us down on bending knees—

with humility, molding us into our shadowed form

whether through mortification of the flesh

or by weathering the environmental dearths

until releasing us—

when obscurity becomes bright with clarity

and the heart sings with light.

Kat

3 October 2016

Conversation At 14

Golden bulbous muscle,

wild grainy strands, massed—

a swishing tail against flies and heat,

sweat and sweet hay-smell

wrapping her cocooned hairied body—

moisture and heart

pulsing through to my hands

on her breast,

her face,

thighs,

and with deep soulful breaths

through widening nostrils

she stomps her language

with her hooves

on dry sun baked soil

disturbing dust into the air

and my heart

in unison with hers.

Kat

3 October 2016

Cinco the Cat

“Cinco?  Cinco?  There you are.  Come here,” she whispered, on her hands, sideways leaning in through the unlocked dog door as she stuck her head into the house five doors down from her home on 12^th Avenue. 

Cinco had been missing for hours at a time—sometimes all night long and often throughout the daytime over the past two months, missing meals and making the neighbours suspect in her eyes.  But Mary denied feeding him but once as well as taking him in at night.  In spite of expressing her concern over Cinco’s absence, it appeared this morning, that Cinco was well acquainted with this home and lived there due to someone in Mary’s home.

“Meow,” said Cinco, quietly as he walked gently with familiarity on the insipid grey plaid vinyl kitchen flooring.  

 Oily, petroleum VOC releasing flooring, she thought matter-of-factly.  "Yuck" in her mind, horror in her heart.  My kitty is being exposed to this yuck!!! Horror of horrors!

“Cinco, come here,”  she said more insistently.

“Meow,” as he turned in those allusive cat circles, waving his tail up in the air—expressing indifference to her pleading.

“Cinco, come here!” This time with insistence and no patience, forgetting cat language altogether, and with complete ineffectiveness.

“Meowwwwwwww,” as he turned his back and sprung lightly away as if on air between pads and substrate, as cats do, out of her eyesight from her vantage point—head stuck inside this portal, shoulders held outside by the door's guillotine-like yoke framing and separating her head from the rest of her body.

Pushing further forward, she knew she could squeeze through the dog door and physically locate him….

“Doug!?” a woman’s voice pleaded.

“What are you doing,” he boomed?

“Finding my cat,” she said back, with no apology and with the utmost sincerity of her mission.

“He’s in your house and he is here due to your feeding and housing him.”

“Meet me at the front door and I’ll give you Cinco,” he said in irritation.

“Fine,” came out with relief and equal irritation.

“Mary and I have decided you cannot come on the property any longer to get Cinco,” he announced when we stood facing one another at proper height, weight, relationship now that I was standing fully upright sporting a 5’-6” vertical composition to his 6’-0” stance.

“That is fine, she replied back with her end of the agreement yet to come.

“And you must not feed him or let him in your house any longer, “ she said with as much certainty and outrage that justified her recent appearance with her head sticking through his dog door just minutes ago.

“That is our agreement,” he replied.

“I am fine with that,” she said.  “This would never have been an issue in the first place had you respected my wishes.  $600.00 in veterinarian bills and two months of worry and angst later, we are discussing the respect of my family at this moment.  I appreciate mutual cooperation from now on.  Thank you.”

A few days later, looking for Cinco and calling his name, a part-time neighbor, three houses down, asked if the missing kitty is orange and sports a collar.  “He was meowing insistently at our doorway late last evening and wanted in, but we didn’t open the door,” she said.

Here we go again, she thought to herself…..

Kat

29 August 2016

Joy For Writers!

September's cool moist mornings
giving way to the warming
afternoon sun
flood me
with a lifetime of Autumn memories.

A deep well of sighs escape my throat
pushing my shoulders back
down into their sockets
reminding my entire body
to breathe
to take a few longer moments
between movements.

Nearly as archaic a memory
as bear's hibernatatory jaunt
into her mountain cave
I sense
it is nearing my time, too,
as the daylight hours shorten
and coolness expands.

In the upcoming and increasing months
of darkness
we have more opportunity
to nudge our stories, unencumbered
by summer distractions
onto paper--
to chew the words more slowly

into music for our souls.

Kat
September 2016

Transformation

Serenity washes gently, completely

as a heavy dewed autumn morning

wears it moisture mantel.  

The moistened landscape releases

particles back into the warm atmosphere,

joining in the perpetual misting,

raining upon us.

The fullness, pores saturated

emotionally and spiritually,

poutingly expanded sensually, filling

the core being like water molecule receptors collecting

 their hydrogns and oxygens—culminating

in union and organic fusion of emotional expression

and physical transformation of the elements.

Satiation stills movement of mind, heart and body—

heavily weighted inside and out

like bees gorging upon honey

deep within their hive before

taking flight, 

calming the buzz, the flurry of movement, stilling

rapidity into beeline certainty.

A satiated being bears down peacefully into

hip sockets, ankles, shoulder joints and toes—balancing

fully as certainly as the securely evolved

numerological number four—

which represents oneness, completion—peacefulness—

with inner assurance and knowing

all is perfect, as perfect can be

in the fleetingness of any moment.

Kat

12 September 2016

Treasure Island Adventuress

  It was fate.  Isn’t it always? The alignment of the stars with our birth time—our path combined with our engagement in our relationships—to our family, friends, homeland, environment—the forests, streams, mountains--my favourite oak tree in Los Hueros Canyon,  water rock formation at Norwegian Memorial near Forks, Washington,  the sandstone undulations at Needles, Canonlands, Utah.  The understory lush with nettles, wild strawberry and raspberry dwarfed by leggy chokecherry shrubs along side Los Hueros creek, Ocate, NM.

Each opportunity from my heart, olfactory and visual senses fill me full becoming sensual photographs upon my energies—merged, meshed, intertwined, resonating harmonically and fully.

I met Treasure Ducharme in an ordinary way, on an ordinary day in an ordinary town, Westlock, Alberta, Canada one ordinary year in what came to be an unordinary life.   She was anything but ordinary and I noticed this.  Eyes alive, quick, and full, love spilling from her openness—her presence fascinated me and I wondered what-in-the-world she saw in my youngest brother, her fascination and love.

Thirty-eight years later, broken marriages, a boy child, countries and borders crossed, weaving a roughly etched engraving upon the earth and our psyches, we meet for this trip—aboard a ferry taking us across international waters from Port Angeles, Washington in the glory of a deep blue sky warmed by a giving August sun to the playground landscape, Victoria announces, then northward up the island to Union Bay where idyllic waters hold our kayaks sway, launch us to other islands to art festivals, galleries, and music jams every day.  Her girl-child wants me to visit and explore with her all the crannies she has explored and enjoyed for the past four years.

The child adventuress never left her--perhaps as present today as at 14. Exuding sheer delight and gratitude for sharing her life with those she loves--her community is the world—pulling and pushing unrelentingly, those hearts she dreams to be united with hers.  A dream of love with tenderness and joy.  If a fault can be found, it’s enthusiasm for sharing life to the minutia through which she experiences each moment.  Exhausting at times.  Guaranteed to be an adventure, always with appreciation and love.

Kat

14 August 2016