Portfolio

Picking Berries at Gram Coppini’s

The windows of the deserted sunporch
look out on disked, dry clods.
Unpruned canes splay out along the fence,
half hidden by tasseled grass.

I’ve come to pick the loganberries,
a summer ritual, outgrown by my children.
I rip at unwelcome weeds
revealing thorns and sweetness.

I recall a pair of barn swallows
twittering delicate arguments.
They weave in search of cabbage moth
between rows of gladiolus and rhubarb.
Irrigation shoots through the corn
the fecund smell of black soil.

I stand like Penelope before her loom
Watching the skein of time,
knowing I can’t unravel even one thread.

North Coast Journal

Libations to Hubris

This Year of Flood

Life Coaching from an Ancient Redwood

Even Banana Slugs Take Their Chances

Compline

Ode To A Fish Tail

Mary Thibodeaux Lentz

Coho’s sleek, malleable paddle,
muscle-powered metronome,
slivers of cartilage
melded apex of will,
undulating upstream;
treading cold tumults:
skittering rocky shallows;
skirting surging currents.
Skin slit by jutting branches;
scales loosed by sandstone;
flesh feathers trailing;
but in quiet pools
there’s respite;
in time, the steady beat returns,
the rhythm and the yearning.

Illustration by Mikaya Diaz

Times-Standard

I also did freelance work for the Times-Standard newspaper which was headquartered in Eureka, California at the time.