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.

Time is different out here. I can’t keep up with anyone, let alone who I was trying to be.

Just misread Fun with Homophones as Fun with Homophobes.

I think I might be done with Facebook.

Being (mostly) inactive on Facebook for the past week has taught me nothing about my relationship with Facebook. It has, however, given me time to think about my relationship with my work, my writing, my spirituality, and even my life. It’s amazing what emerges when we don’t fill every available moment with something, with anything, that keeps us from fully thinking and feeling.

Instead of the option that allows users to omit “Games” their friends play, we should have the option of omitting “Head Games” our friends play.

I might not be able to make a living here, but I can certainly make a life here. That’s the beauty of this place, the beauty and the wonder of it.

When a trapdoor closes, an actual door opens.

Stop trading what you have for what you want.

I’ve lost my will to die.

For a long time, I thought I was Hindemith, but it turns out I am Satie.

Poetry shouldn’t explain anything. It should explain everything.

The best advice my mother ever gave me was, Don’t step in shit. The second-best advice she ever gave me was, Don’t touch a dog on the butt.

This town is all ears and mouths.

I am 819 words into this essay, and I forgot the point I am trying to make.

Last night I dreamed your name meant, Rub cheese all over your throat and mouth.

Last night I dreamed your name meant, Paint a beehive automotive white and wear it like a lampshade on your head.

Last night I dreamed your name meant, Be a skull that roaches enter through the eye sockets.

For me, the key to figuring out what to say to adults was figuring out what to say to children.

I am a force. A weak force, like a potato battery, but still a force.

One year. One open heart. Boom. Starts now.

Sometimes we don’t have room for love. We have to make room.

I’ve never been one to follow paths. Instead, I build them.

Sometimes we have to be erased to be redrawn.

For me, poetry is more about understanding than aesthetics.

Dyslexia: A label created by people who don’t understand dyslexia.

I long for the land in rural areas and the people in urban areas.

I love therefore I am.

What I’m saying is that Eastern Washington is an expression of human existence, really, in the landscape. — Dana Guthrie Martin, in a voice mail to Andre Tan dated Jan. 23, 2011

More on Eastern Washington: You feel something strange about your existence and your safety, out here, but it’s also quite beautiful. And I really think that’s the way life is. — Dana Guthrie Martin, in a voice mail to Andre Tan dated Jan. 23, 2011

There are only a few important things to say. That’s why people who say only important things tend to repeat themselves.

Found book title: CB Talk for Goodbye.

I’m 40 years old. Time to stop acting like a cheerleader and simply act like a leader.

I’ve decided to write poems that people can understand. Regular people, not just poet-people.

One year ago on Facebook, I wrote: If I started talking about love and light and peace and healing, would that freak you out?

Handwritten sign posted in neighbor’s yard: Pick up after your dog or he/she might get shot.

The world is full of what you believe it is full of.

I am finally learning what it means to see everything and everyone as a teacher.

T-shirt idea: Your past is not my present.

There’s a pillow moving all around in the bedroom. I suspect there’s a dog under it.

Morning in Walla Walla: 4th Avenue is alive with horses.

Aside from not representing faces with accuracy, painting was an area of strength for him. — hypothetical neuropsychological evaluation of Picasso

Life occurs in an abscess, in our absence, in our backwards mess.

Pictures of hamsters really are hit or miss, aren’t they.

I think more poets should keep their poetry open and their mouths shut.

From the Walla Walla Freecycle list: We are in need of sand, a trampoline and a guinea pig.

I always thought I was Eurydice, the one others look back at. Turns out, I am Orpheus, the one looking back.

My life is all Junes and Januaries.

I came up with a classification system for forms of intelligence last night in a dream: inherent/automatic, enforced/shaped, developed/honed, atrophied, symptomatic and received.

In the end, remaining open might be all that matters.

I washed my dog. I love my dog.

When I was young, a small town swallowed me whole. Now, I can swallow a small town whole.

Writing a poem is like walking a dog: It stops a lot when you want it to keep going, and if you’re not careful it will shit on your feet.

We have to stop assuming God is a capitalist who wants us all the be rich.

Go froth and conquer.

I am convinced we are less interested in saying something original than in saying something that has origins.

This poet generates a simple, random sentence.

One of the criteria I had for culling my Facebook contacts this morning was: If I saw you in public, would I hide from you? If I answered no to that question, you are still here.

I just misread the phrase Candid Camera as Candida Camera.

I derive my power in part from the fact that you don’t know what I am capable of, but I do know what you are capable of.

Weird things poets say: You’re not allowed to have an original voice unless we know who you are.

While editing, I misread edit as idiot.

Finally, I understand why I turn to poets.

From the Walla Walla Freecycle list: Looking for bottom half of mannequin or above the shoulders.

I’m so unsettled I feel like a Henry Darger painting.

There are two sides to me: one dark, one darker.

So much about religious interpretation seems to be about making sure women don’t give men a hard on.

Meditation realization of the day: Time does not exist in order for me to be productive.

Poems are like orgasms: never as good as we imagine they will be.

Your ignorance is not my bliss.

If you’re going to say something, say something that’s worth repeating.

We are hurt. We are healed. We hurt. We heal.

I feel so basic, like a Yugo.

As the days become colder, I feel my heart warming up.

What we all want, more than anything, is meaning.

If I started talking about love and light and peace and healing, would that freak you out?

These decorative tassels are not the boss of me.

I will not be governed by metronome or meter.

Suddenly there is a dump truck in my driveway and a woman yelling in Thai.

What would we not worship or covet simply because of its materiality.

One cannot live in a heartless world without something that has a heart.

My tap water smells like a dog I once loved.

I have no idea how I went from a sleeping to a waking state today. One moment I was in bed. The next, I was standing in front of a full-length mirror wearing jeans and a bra, worrying about the state of my abdomen.

Quigly “Dubious” Terrington likes the smell of peanut butter.

Now that I have a hamster and two hermit crabs, who isn’t going to want to be my friend?

The world is full of poets with bold moves and bad manners.

I read language as if looking through branches.

I am not here to write things that will make you feel comfortable.

I am coming to believe the only person I was/am meant to converse with is my dead mother: Everyone else was/is just a stand-in.

I might start talking again sogon. To the living, that is.

I am busy removing the pleats from my invisibility cloak. They make me look bulky, even though I am invisible.

For every “discovery” you make, you leave hundreds, if not thousands, unearthed.

To provide effective customer service, one must work the library as if they are working the room at a party. Only without the alcohol.

Oh look. You made spam email into a poem. How original.

No, this is not something I normally do. It’s something I abnormally do. Thanks for allowing me to clarify.

I think the entire field of public librarianship needs to be put in the spanking machine.

My husband just aptly described my modus operendi: You hold happiness hostage, and then you steal all the candy.

No matter how many rituals I employ to frame, contain and contextualize my day, nothing negates the futility of existence.

If everything is futile, why do we continue? I think it is because someone told us we could love one another.

I think what I want more than anything is to have an open heart.

If I know when you’ve been naughty or nice, does that make me Santa Claus or God. I can’t remember.

Twitter’s Who to Follow suggestions should be renamed Who to Avoid.

I want to be open to wide views and visionary dimensions that can be fantastic, but not deformed.

To my credit, at every phase of my life, I have surrounded myself with those who are more talented than I am.

I am staring out the window, waiting for my husband to come home and walk me.

People say I’m just like my father: a pistol. Too bad I’m not loaded.

I have a passion that is greater than you.

When one cannot issue orders, one becomes adept at offering suggestions.

Because I could not disagree, I remained silent. This was the first step in the occupation of my life.

I remember touching David Lynch: His skin was soft and cold, like a Vietnamese spring roll.