The Aluminum Chateau burried by snow. The Barren is gone; exhiled to a warmer place. Merry Christmas to you all! Here is a small piece:
The burdened bamboo and bent beauty bush
are stirring to shiver, to shed the troublesome snow.
Singing softly a wind song, wishing the white wet away.

Pulling The Down Down

Late after long shadows bounced off the East and shooting high, painted sky; night sky.
She turned and pulled the down down. White roofs and white lawns; cold. Slow wind and fine song; the rythmic sway of bare poplars. My body's dreams flee from my open mouth and mingle with the falling dreams of clouds. Clouds that only wish to hold the tender, warm earth in a shivering embrace.
When we wake on a sharp, cold morning, warmth dug itself a deep refuge and the clouds had fallen from on high. White roofs and white lawns.

What Have we Really Learned

Before this, before this civilization came here, before the first towns and schools, the river flowed and fed this valley with mountain minerals, meandered free and flooded yearly. This land breathed, but it is desert now. Armored and impervious to rain and sun; pressed upon, by concrete and asphalt, worried over by the passing of ten ton trucks and the vacant steps of preoccupied pedestrians.
This land sleeps and dreams of weeds growing in cracks; licks the oily rain that seeps through fractures in the white lined black skins of parking lots and tire worn freeways.
I was sitting there, on this land, under a concrete marvel overpass. Above me, a broad way flew frozen; a multi-million dollar umbrella that shelters the homeless, who smoke borrowed cigarettes as they file the minutes off long, listless days.
A block away flowed a hurried metal river of whizzing cars and whooshing trucks, while sparse weeds waved from the cars-going-by gusts.
I was sitting on flattened card board boxes in the company of a tin can ashtray (so as to keep the view pristine), while the shackled bones of tarred trees tirelessly held wires that feed information and electricity into sharp-edged buildings. At my feet lapped the frozen asphalt parking pond and turned to rock and then skyward; an engineering marvel, burden on stout pillars that press insistent into the belly of the dreaming land.
A young man approached, cigarette in hand, cradling a book. He sat smoking nervously, flicking the ashes overmuch as he ingested the words of the book. He seemed oblivious to the thunderous passing of a freight train; burdened and graffitied box cars with tortured steel wheels grinding on screeching metal tracks, endless passing, car after car like segments of a mile long screaming centipede. On one of the cars was written in white, flowery cursive script: "i never really learned anything."

Fallen Memories of Summer

I like raking leaves. It happens once a year. A yearly ritual to mark the end of Summer; Summer, the Sun season, followed by the Falling of the leaves.
There are four red ornamental plum trees, out front, on the edge of the street. During their Falling, they weave a red blanket at their own feet; red drops of blood; the blood of Summer. Each leaf is a sliver of a memory; of hot afternoons and short, starry nights. Each leaf an early sunrise and evenings plump with light 'till ten.
These memories I gather. My rake an extension of my hands. Long fingers and longer fingernails. No hurry; the little piles pulled together. I am their shepherd urging the flocks to gather. These leaves are precious to me. Shining wet with November dew; red, yellow and green dabs left by an extravagant Artist.
These piles I take to the bank and deposit that wealth in my compost bins; my summer memories warehouses. All the long winter they will cook, simmering under drizzly skies; a brew for my garden; a spring tonic and hearty breakfast. Each leaf transformed, yet holding within the clues and urgings to tell my flowers what to do when the Sun Season returns.

The Secret Garden in late November

Here you see the Barren of La Conner, at the main gate of the Aluminum Chateau, taking a smoke break, after another battle with the invading Pine Needle Hordes. Notice the weapon of choice in hand, recently liberated from a neighbors' trash can. The Barren, though valiant warrior that he is, wins all the battles, yet is losing the war.

Dreams of the Frost Queen

Long after the reluctant November Sun closed her eyes and pulled that horizon blanket over her head; long after the cheery living room lights faded and the flickering blue television turned off; childred tucked and turned in; Mothers and Dads dropped into downey beds: long, long after midnight, the Ice Queen comes.
She sends the cold fog, a thousand fingers on a thousand hands, fine tendrils and spirals pushing into town, from far fields amd distant waters, alone in the dark quiet; a show unannounced. Secret hush.
She comes and dress'd the windows in fine lace; gliding 'cross mundane sweat of asphalt streets; leaving sparkles and King's crowns; grace of young ladies' curtsies; of soft music under crisp star light.
Children called, sending their shadows to play. Shadows that slide between ridgid posts and fence board, into silver streets, gliding reflections of distand stars; sugar dusted side walks and crunch grass. Twirling, chuckling, silent shouting, the dance of shirtless care; of abandon in the cold love of November's Consort; the Ice Queen.
At dawn, when the black sparkle sky fades to royal, then rose edged blue, when the surprized Sun lurches from her Eastern bed; gazing into bedroom windows, tapping on far walls, warm covers and closed eyelids, saying:
Come see the passing of my shadow, there on your window, the children of the Frost Queen.