Trees

In the first days, we revealed the house, the land and sky, felling trees in hours while the neighborhood watched. An old Japanese maple was discovered, which now angles toward the sun, wind shedding its broken branches. Other trees, so long neglected bud anew. Trees are resilient, are in constant need of the elements. We […]

Electricity

A small fire to be sure, but fire nonetheless. Borne of a spark, faulty wiring the verdict. It just needed maintenance. A check up, steady hands and tools to close the circuit, cap the wires. Electricity flows, bends, arcs, and dissipates. In this home many of the sockets don’t work, but enough do, and all […]

Nightlight

A beacon for houses, the nightlight is a safe passage to our front door. If one feels at sea, find our house, the one on the corner, with the cracks, failing plumbing, electric wires haphazard in their power. Know our light will not go out, despite admonishments that renovation is hard, the challenges will pull […]

Stucco

Lines like roads etch the stucco. our house’s face a roadmap of weather: rain, wind, sun, and today, this fog. Fog against the windows, in the eaves, sun just breaking through. We question whether to demolish and strip away the years, or patch and repair, leaving the history, and the roads traveled, as proud reminders […]

Compost

Stare at the underbelly of compost, the rot and dark and loamy steam of it rising on a cold morning, its weight sinking arguments of matter. When the door closes and questions arise, questions that leave you stranded wondering if the compost will spring new life or be left, piled like detritus, left for another […]

Leaf

A map of the world contained in a leaf, structures of democracies and dictatorships, declining governments and birthing nations. The world’s backbone reaches up and out; tiny tendrils of hope and life dissipate from it. The root of all life breathes in and out. We tore down trees whose scale and care were shopworn; reforestation […]

Geometry

Rain hard as tropical washes the retaining wall, cementing in place a structure built block by block. It’s not so hard, come to think of it, when the eye sees the pattern: square, then short, big block, then long rectangle. Pieced together it forms a barrier stronger than hands, stronger than the earth we moved […]

Restoration

In shale dusted cypress lies a house, gables worn down, the rain incessantly tarnishing the paint. Therein lies a man’s ghost, wired from head to toe with rust, patina rubbed away revealing the good years: climbing roses, clear windows, magnificent bones. He’s here in rain-soaked swaddling, a Norwegian bed where offspring dreamt airplanes and stars, plaster […]

The Pier, Lake Washington

The pier that inspired Swimming With Michelangelo, which, when I jumped off of it a couple of summers ago, kickstarted the poem is just down the road from where I live. I love this pier. It’s ever changing, and a couple of days ago, with the sky reflecting in the mirrored lake, it was quite […]