Wilderness Interface Zone

Make
like a tree* and
grow, bloom and bear fruit,
give shade, give shelter, sow seed,
weather storms, dig deep,
breathe deeper.
Be useful
in your
death:
frame
well,
burn
bright,
enrich
the soil,
and,
mulch
made,
resurrect
a tree.
____________________________________________________________________________
*This is, of course, a variation on the common adage to “make like a tree and branch out,” and the less common adage, used primarily among canines (the dogs, not the teeth), “make like a [...]

The 7 o’ clock was hot again, hotter than any 7 o’ clock.
A drop of sweat travelling down my cheek
In search of destination stopped suddenly
And I rubbed it off, removing its existence.
I went up for a glass of glucose to see
Ants caving in there;
The glass had one inch water with dead ants floating—
Perhaps they have [...]

Like most folks, my husband, kids, and I greet spring’s arrival with relief.  The relaxing of winter’s grip, the first crack of color between sepals clutching flower buds, the sun’s liberating warmth all lighten the load my family balances gingerly as we carry it through winter’s dimly-lit cellars.  But as daylight’s gold, pink or orange [...]

If you look at WIZ’s short blogroll, you’ll see I added a link to a new site: Our Mother’s Keeper, “a LDS group blog dedicated to environmentalism, ecofeminsim and environmental justice issues that result from the changes the planet is currently undergoing.”  To read more about Our Mother’s Keeper, click here.
Sorry it took so long [...]

To read Part One, click here.
H. is unwilling to give up and is looking more closely at the little hole we might be able to climb in. I back up and find a passage behind a fallen slab about the size of a pancaked SUV leaning against the wall of rock. I tell H. and [...]

Every year an old friend and I undertake an adventure. H. and I are middle-aged now. Past our prime and youth when our adventures were bolder and more carefree. I can remember when we then, full of laughter, took his new pickup and rubbed its shiny sides against aspens for luck while searching out some [...]

On the warm late Spring shore, late
in a lunar glow,
he stood looking at the waves
trooping slowly, relentlessly into the cove
He stood wondering about the strings
of which some say he was made
Of what tidal forces were they drawn?
What sort of other moon forced him
into existence by its orbit around . . . what?
He placed his foot [...]

I never knew you held a rosary
of lilies in your heart, or meadows filled
with songbirds in your hand, that chirped and trilled
into the night. I could not sense the sea,
or brimming emerald pools that filled your days
and buoyed you up, when morning could not find
one star. Your quiet life is intertwined
with jasmine flowers, washed in [...]

I
The breeze has caught
the cherry tree ready to shed
her petals and the air
is filled with flakes.
They settle in grass
and the lee of the garden steps.
The rosebush that clasps
the creaking trellis
is speckled with white.
II
What is the time?
It is now.  And the place?
The place is here.
How does now look?
It looks like here.
III
Time will take away the thrill
of [...]

(Boulder City, Nevada)
I did not know I was from the desert
when I moved to this hell of heat
that engulfed, stifled, weighed down leaden.
I pouted and sweltered that first summer
while sauna winds desiccated Spring bushes
into brittle skeletons whose sapped roots
cowered with reptiles under charred, rock pavement.
Then the heat gave way to a docile winter
so warm there [...]