Today, we saw the edge of a controlled burn, red flames against char.

Today in Dayton, pieces of charred wheat fell from the sky, thin as paper, dark as night.

Hanford joke: “The waste is a terrible thing to mind.”

I believe the land wishes it could talk, and I believe it speaks through us if we let it.

Today, the sun comes and goes like a thought never quite completed. (Or a lover always hurrying away to be with anyone but you.)

What I feel when I read poems is something like love—a waterfall suddenly inside me, every drop longing for the source which brought it into being, longing for the great, ordinary mind that saw fit to put those words on the page.

Offered today on the Walla Walla Freecycle list: “A bag full of UNUSED condoms.”

Our dog has informed us that her new nickname is Nom Chompsky. Nom Chompsky says: “You never need an argument for the use of peanut butter, you need an argument against it.” Nom Chompsky says: “Unlimited use of peanut butter has the marvelous quality of stilling discontent while maintaining privilege, a fact that has not gone unnoticed by Nom Chompsky.” Nom Chompsky says: “You don’t get to be a respected intellectual by uttering truisms with a mouth full of peanut butter.”

Those who are exceptional are not the gifted; they are the gift.

Meditation without proper form is merely breathing. Poetry without proper form is merely prose.