Hello,
After a decade of poems, and essays (some 430!), Crowswrite is going on hiatus.  I have recently discovered that any writing previously published, including on this blog, will not be accepted for publication in most magazines, anthologies, etc.  One of my goals is to share my work more broadly, so I will stop entries here, at least for a while, allowing me to submit new work elsewhere.

I hope you have enjoyed this blog.  I certainly have enjoyed the journey. And thanks for your interest and feedback.

For now, I am currently reviving my middle school novel, Crows, and editing a life long collection of poems and stories.  It is an exciting new "chapter" in my writing career.

If you wish to receive an occasional piece from me please contact me via text or email and I'll send you a poem or essay.  I promise not to send too much.

Meanwhile, keep reading and writing, and enjoy your time.

Best regards,
Peace,
Paul

Drawing

I can hear it.
The drumming and hammering
Upon a rotted-out branch.
Perhaps there is a juicy grub?
Or maybe the need to reach out to its own kind?
I’m here
I’m alive
Where are you?

My guess would be a downy woodpecker
I see them frequently
When they brace themselves against the odds
And grab a seed at the feeder, then flee
But today I only hear
Not see
Lost as it should be
Amidst the almond shaped leaves
And the avenues of grey-brown bark.

But the bird has served a silent purpose
Unwittingly
And innocently
It draws me away
From my cauldron of self
Which occasionally needs a good stir
I am looking up now
Not down
I am reaching out now and opened
Not inward and closed
Stretching and unlocking
Receptive to worlds awaiting.

Magic

The sailor sets off
Letting the tide run
As sailors always have
Pointing the bow into the horizon
Which then becomes his destination.

Ports of call being only minor irritations
Distractions, complications
No gps dictating
No one’s fault if he sails off the edge:
It’s his journey, spawned of dreams
And if he so chooses
(Or is so chosen)
His life
His death.
To disappear is his expression
No grave, no flowers.

Beholding then,
As night clinks dully against day & wears on it,
While dead stars persistently shine
Black holes ever drawing
Smoothing the edges
Razors yielding
Grinding on and on
Stardust to stardust.

The sailor is indifferently cast in his part
Bearing his fruits
As tears of terror and wonder
Shore to unknown shore
Scorched by searing cauldrons
Frozen in place by the distances he has come
And his dark destinations
No charts can pretend to predict.

Only the whales can tell and lead
Its their magic.
Listen to their call:
There is only magic.

What Makes You Happy?

What makes you happy?
What cup of steaming morning brew
What weathered hand gently held
What nubile leaf or garden sprout
What laugh cascading through the trees
What waft of fresh spring early air
What downy pair of woolly socks
What baby’s breath upon your shoulder
What fresh cut grass
What distant thunder
What moment lost and then regained
What friend arriving unannounced
What day fulfilled
What night so deep
What word what way
What makes you happy?

-P. Sanderson

Rabbit Reverie

Rabbit Reverie

I can’t help but wonder
Coffee in hand
What the whitetail thinks.
Submerged in a patch of hop clover
Sharing it with the morning bees,
Is it lost in the wonder of such fortune?

It looks to think it is invisible
In its solitary motionless meditation
Hunkered down, vanished in the moment
Unseen to predators
As a mound of grey and white.

Does it retreat deep into itself
In a quiet reverie
Still in its own reality
Still as it knows to be
A practice tried and true?

And then in an instant of its wise choosing
It breaks from its retreat with a twitch of the nose,
Lifts a clover from the ground
And chews.

-P.Sanderson

The Bear

 I know there is a bear out there
Although I have never seen it.
My part-time inner sleuth
Has been busily sifting through the clues
Ever since my neighbor Susan put that image in play.
She said, as casually as one can talk about a bear,
“Did you hear about the black bear that was seen
Down the street?  Ya, the folks at Adam’s Garden of Eden spotted it.
Six feet tall.  Pretty big.  Ya.”
This moment, these thoughts
Were like dumping the contents
Of a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle on the dining room table.
Let the games begin!
Clue one, and the biggest piece so far: 
My bird feeders have been emptied overnight
For the past week or so.  Especially the suet.
If I was a bear, the feeder food seems like an open invitation.
Midnight snack, come and get it!
Rendered fat and sunflower seeds, so tempting!
For several days I have been secretly accusing raccoons
Those midnight ramblers
Those masked banditos
So maybe they can be on my suspect list.
But how could they reach the suet, strung from a cable
Hung from a high branch?
About six feet off the ground?
I thought I was clever
Until recently.
But now the bear has been placed in the suspect lineup.
Excuse me, number 4, Mr. Black Bear,
Would you mind standing on your hind feet
And reaching up?
Ah! See?
Mr. Bear could reach the suet, for sure!
But how to prove it,
Where’s the evidence?
No witnesses
No tracks on the ground
No hair or scat.
I needed to catch him in the act.
“What you need is one of those infrared trail cameras
Like hunters use,” my friend Karen suggested.
Hmmm.  Maybe, just maybe.  
They have used those to take all the crystal clear
Photos that we’ve seen of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, right?
Right?
So off to Amazon Prime I go.
All hail Amazon for the work they do
In supporting our dreams and nightmares
Of monsters and mythical creatures
And maybe even bears in our backyards.
So my trail camera is on its way, shipped one day
And tomorrow night
When the moon is low, I’ll know:
Do black bears still roam
Sucking suet feeders dry?
And stirring my imagination?
While giving me more than a moment pause
To puzzle and ponder and wonder wild.
Tomorrow after dark, I may know.

Jumping Spider

It is a warm spring morning
A steady gentle breeze wafts and drafts
Pushing its way across the treetops
And settles in my lap
The pollen and particles
That temporarily adorned the nearby branches
Flowers high above so out of sight
Hidden in the great waves of green
Broken beauties decorate the day
Drop their offerings
Gifts to the ground.

My reptilian brain drives me to bask a bit
Armchair and coffee
I am ready for the nine o’clock show.
Right on cue
A jumping spider appears
And eight eyes wide open
It inspects the knuckles of my hand
Resting on the arm of my chair.
Furry fleshed bristle
Onyx eyes gleam
It raises its abdomen and spinnerets
And streams downwind
Jets of glowing silk
Cross my chest and lap
And I am captured in this moment.

Peace Puzzle

A Momentary Lapse in Judgment

As I read the sign in front of the church, I felt myself being sucked back into the black hole of pessimism that has been welling-up in me for the past decade or so.  For a while, I thought it was acid reflux, and indeed, Nexium actually helped.  

 For a while. Living better through chemistry.

The roadside sign implored, “Cherish each other and creation.”  Apparently, you don’t have to sit in a pew to get a sermon.  I once went to a church that assembled at a drive-in- movie theatre.  Passion plays on Sunday morning, passion pit on Saturday night.

The subtext implies that these are things we should be doing but we are not.  Perhaps this is the true epitaph that should be carved on the gravestones of the latter-day world: “We could have done better…”

But we didn’t.

We are drowning in the murk and detritus of our lesser angels, and are surely vulnerable, as are all life forms, to the strictly enforce rules of the evolutionary road.  This comes as no surprise for many; slings and arrows…slings and arrows.  For a few of us it is a bit of a shock, being buffered by home grown avarice. It was a nice ride while it lasted, the sign might read post-apocalypse, in front of The Church of I Told You So. 

I’m not ready for this eventuality.  I was born and ill-bred with the great American, great western dream, spawned post war; such a foolish dream. John and Paul wrote prophetically, although not likely their intention:

“…I've got to admit it's getting better (Better)
A little better all the time (It can't get no worse…)

Pop, opt!

Hopeful as these platitudes seem, it can always get worse.  At least in the short run.  And help me if you will to define short run:  What hour, what day?  What era, what epoch? What longitudinal lifeline?

We are on the cusp of many dark days of pessimism, followed by boundless stretches of night.  The pendulum will swing long and wide.

And as for me, I wish not to be prophetic.  I wish not to sooth say the end times, (which I saw on the roadside sign of another Pentecostal church:

“Are we in end times?”)

Give me that ol’ roadside religion!

I’d like to disbelieve these ideas.  I’d like to be buoyed by optimism.  But facts tell true another story.

It seems, I don’t burn hot enough. My shields are down, I don’t possess the greater glory of egotism that might just keep the climatologists and sociologist from knocking at my door.  “Ding-dong, doomsday calling! 

And I must admit, when all hope is gone, that it’s not an altogether bad thing.  It’s just a thing.  The next thing. 

It was a good run wasn’t it?

“…It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine…” Michael Stipe, et al.

It leaves me vulnerable (haven’t we always been?) to those slings and arrows, large and small, while still resting in the residue of whimsy and wonder?

“I reject your reality and substitute my own.”  -The Dungeonmaster.

I do what I can, while we are being consumed, absorbed, amoeba like, into the next moment, both terrifying and glorious.

Meanwhile,

Moment by moment…

-Paul Sanderson

May, 2019

Earth Day 2019

Much obliged dear mother
For the life you have given us
And the beauty and wonder
That surrounds us.

I beg your patience
At this late hour
For us to learn once more
To care and celebrate
To protect and preserve
The rare and marvelous spectacle
Of bounteous life
Here on Earth 

So displayed each day.

It's a Slow Dance

It's a Slow Dance

The trees are posing majestically 

In a standing salutation

Reaching, reaching, limbs akimbo 

Spring has come this day.

The maples spark up to the sky

This is their time

Festooned in red

They proclaim the ancient revival.

The oaks are waiting for the sun

To coax their sap
To rise, to shine
To layer wood upon their girth
More patiently than the growth below;

Sassafras saplings gather green
While tangy spicebush stand in the damp
Dogwoods open, blush, and show
As daggered greenbrier ramble about,
All flashing bright and verdant bold
In their romance with our brightest star.

This is a dance your welcome to
The steps are slow, the pace is honest
To see them move and gambol about
Sit patiently, with open heart
Beneath a woodland tree.

-P. Sanderson

Hatred, What to Do?

When you see hatred gather it up

And stuff it in the bottom of a paper bag.

You may need to tape the bag shut,

You may need to wear gloves.

Then hike out on your favorite trail

And stop at that beautiful place,

Maybe one overlooking a valley

Perhaps by a stream or a giant boulder.

You can do this alone, but

If it is your first time bring a trusted friend.

Sit quietly for a few minutes

Breathe in the peace and beauty,

Then carefully open the bag

And shred the hatred you have gathered

Into tiny-tiny pieces.

Try not to hate the hatred,

Just break it down, smaller and smaller

Look to see what it is made of,

Perhaps you will have a lucid moment.

At the right moment, 

gather the pieces and offer them to the wind

Cast them high, cast them away.

A good breeze will dilute them

As you salute them with a goodbye smile.

Sometimes a Chickadee will stop and help.

They know what to do with hatred

They are not afraid.

After you are done you may want to sing

A song or splash in a nearby stream.

Think:

How else can you send hatred to a better place?

Does it burn?  Can you compost it?  

Can the ocean wash it clean?

Ask the Chickadee, she may know.

Briefly Borrowed

It’s a lay me down wind.

Pruned by providence on other days
An old oak has fallen in the forest
Once a tower of leaf and trunk
Now resting in a bed of ferns and moss.

Its day has come
A wind too strong
Roars high above out of the north
First limbs bowed before the storm
Then roots yielded their groaning- grip
And dropped it with a snap and boom
Full circle it is now earthly bound.

And when my wind comes
On another day
I wish that if it please the fates
That I may rest upon such a bed
Of greens and sod
Of duff and rock
And so gently return
And thankful for
This life I’ve briefly borrowed.

Persistence

There is a sorting as the years pass
A choosing happens
Establishing an order
Of  things we keep
And things that must be let go
Objects totemic
That flow with us
Through our time and space
A temporal persistence
Tactile
Visceral.

I have a baseball glove
A leather lefty
Folded and creased
Sweat stained
Scented and storied.
My hand knows how it feels
Before I slip it over my fingers.
I’ve kept it
And it keeps me.

It’s been many years
Since the last game of catch,
Still it’s a living thing,
Now relegated to the back of a closet,
Or
Boxes in attics
Or
Storage units.

In my day-to-day reality
It has been long gone
But not forgotten.
It seems that I will never let it go.
It is a place holder
A memory marker
A man maker
A dream keeper.

93 Million

Going nowhere down the road
I sit in my car
There is nothing like the warmth of the sun
On this chilled spring day.

Only a few hours past the frost of dark
I sit in this sanctuary
And luxuriate
The seat has soaked in
The infrared rays
Issued from the solar furnace
Some 93 million miles distant
It’s warmth now radiant
Soaking into my bones
Relieving my burdens.

Energy
Conceived on day one
Chasing shadows
Filling voids
Generating peace
In my reptilian brain.

Why be cold?

Laundro

I didn’t notice the short bus pull up.  I was busy pushing quarters into the silver slot.  It takes twenty-seven for the big washer.  My goal is to finish the wash and dry in one act, one hour.

 Teacher and John have arrived inside the entrance.  Teacher exchanges pleasantries with Marianne as she folds clothes.  John stands in place, slightly weaving, as if the world was moving too fast and then suddenly stopped.  Teacher grabs a broom and starts sweeping the already clean floor.  He hands the broom to John, who moves it to-and-fro twice, pushing the imaginary pile of dust into the pickup. 

Kenny enters, full of bluster, speaking in a voice way too loud for the room. He engages Teacher and Marianne in a protracted and one-sided conversation about the events of his day; the condition of his truck, the fish fry at the VFW, and some relative that they might see at some point soon, but probably not. 

Marianne continues to fold clothes.  She is a youthful middle-aged woman, and it seems she is the reason Kenny and Teacher are here; old drones circling the honey.  John continues to sway, mouth slightly agape, while fiddling with his earphones.  I can’t see if his eyes are vacant or just simply have vacated this show.  

Kenny completes his monologue and exits, bow implied. Teacher and Marianne give a kind review of his performance, noting that this man “knows a lot.”

Teacher offers John the opportunity to run the vacuum cleaner.  He declines, preferring to watch a television show droning-on about buying the perfect home.  

My clothes are now dry and I join in the ritual of folding. 

Kenny departs with a practiced aplomb, soon followed by Teacher, and then John, trailing slightly behind, who appears to have completed the lesson. 

"Have a nice day, have a nice day, have a nice day.  You too, you too, you too.”

The laundromat quiets upon these exits. Marianne looks across the row of washers churning away and we make brief eye contact.  “Quite the show,” I comment, trying to stay in my neutral corner.  She smiles and slightly rolls her eyes, as she begins to fold another load of clothes.

Silent Sentinels

Silent Sentinels

Daffodils

Adrift, afield

Randomly placed

This time, this day.

Silent sentinels nodding east

Still these yellow belles so boldly chime

Remember me?

Remember me.

Planted on a day of grace

By backdoors gone

Or unmarked graves

Near walkways that lead

From the shadowed past to now.

We see them as we pass on by

Gifted by their persistent charm

Remembrances of those moments when

We stoop and plant them future bound.

Low Along the Water's Edge

I saw three Oyster Catchers
And they saw me,
Handsome with their bright orange bills

They worked the wrack

Quick afoot
Then scampered down the sandy beach
Took flight
Low along the water’s edge
As if to say
I’d rather not sir
So we will be on our secret way.

I stopped to marvel
And labored for a moment
To think the things
I think I know
One of which is to ponder
From the bird’s point of view
What they may have made of me.

Thinking simply of them
And more highly of myself
I stopped to wonder
What it means to be an Oyster Catcher
What it is to live along the shore
To fly
To nest
To see this day
In their own unique way?

Do they have a day?
Meted -out in their minds?
A remembered yesterday
A hopeful tomorrow?

I saw three Oyster Catchers
And they saw me,
Handsome with their bright orange bills
Teachers on this bright spring day
Teaching in their secret way
What we do not know.

Stream of Creation

Sitting on the beach below the dunes
I have interrupted an ongoing conversation
Between the wave tossed trunk
Of a massive oak,
Now debarked and scoured and bleached,
And a heap of slipper shells,
The skeletal like remains of a mollusk
Fanciful footwear of intertidal fairies.

They speak of being swept into the stream of creation
Even now
And once again,
And kindly suggest that I might relinquish too
And know the journey we are on.

I dig my toes into the sand
Mindlessly considering,
And feel my roots grow deeper
Into the earth and sea and sky.
They grip and purchase
And hold me steadily
On our course.

Old School

There you are
Old school like I knew
And today in the mailbox
Once again
Old school in an envelope
A few scrawled letters
My name
My address
And I could only smile
And feel the love.

John Lennon was the postage stamp
He was our friend we never met
We cried the day he died
We share these roots
Old and strong
Grown deep now in different soils
But connected by rhizomal memories
That will always be
Faithful, proud and loyal.

And now yellow pages from your pad
With ink and care
Sent my way
Pages covered with your DNA
Letting me know the state of your story
The tales of your time
Your hand extended to mine.

Basic Requirements

Basic Requirements



I need you.
Like in the old days
As we stepped down from the trees
And you helped me find water on the Serengeti
As we hid from prowling lions.

And today
When you helped fix my cell phone
And later went to the grocery in my stead

So I could safely plant our garden.

I needed you

Then and now

To teach me

When to be smart 

And when to be wise

When to act and when to wait.

When to sow and when to reap.

And we need each other 

To acknowledge our limitations

To correct our mistakes

And to build upon our brilliant truths

To join collectively
To care deeply

To find strength in our numbers

To celebrate our synergy

To revel in our survival.

I need you

And we desperately need each other.

Because we can be greater 

Than the sum of our scattered numbers.

There is no better way.

I Told You So

Unplug me
Then plug me back in.
Reset me back to a previously functioning state.
I’ve been running version 2.0
For the past 20,000.0 years
And it’s gotten quite buggy.
The day before that
Was the last day we were on course true.

I’m standing in the cornfield
In my virtual Kansas
Waiting in my foil cap
Emblazoned with the logo
Of my hometown team.
I never made varsity
Which turns out to be my possible salvation.

I can follow my story tree
All the way back to the day before
It all went wrong.
You know, you were there too.
Our roots go deep
Where we once were anchored.

So back in Kansas
I dig my feet in
I’m done with the dance
And am waiting for lightning to strike
Knowing no other way
To let go
To reset
To gain course
To make amends
As the wind whistles her telling-tune
Called,  “I Told You So.”

The Cure

I feel weak and out of sorts.
Maybe it’s the winter wind that haunts the nearby trees?
It moves me to desperation.
Something lacking in my snacking?
And out of desperation
I eat chocolate cake.

Modern science knows only a little about its healing properties.
But long-gone astrologers will tell you of its potential.
The Aztecs believed that cacao seeds were the gift of Quetzalcoatl.
Dutch mystics rendered it into cacao butter and added sugar. 
And wonderbaar!
It’s probably why people often say “Oh, my god!”
After a forkful of German chocolate cake.

Chocolate is often part of holy day rituals.
Ever nibble the ears of a chocolate bunny?
Or eat the gold foil wrapped coins of Hanukkah money?
Show me the gelt!

The Swiss also belong in the pantheon of chocolate deities.
Nothing neutral about that flavor.
Lob sei, Toblerone!

I’m hoping that the cake will return me back to “in sorts.”
A culinary cure of sorts.
Meanwhile, what would really be good with chocolate cake
Is a scoop of ice cream.
“What flavor,” you say?
Come on now…

Good Day

Hey,
I hope you’re having a good day.
What is a good day?
A good day is the first steps you take
In a new pair of sneakers
(and extra good if you have new socks!)
A good day is making someone laugh out loud
Who has been locked up in a prison of pain.
A good day is seeing a kid
Make baby steps of success.
A good day is feeling the warm sun on your cheek
On a cold January day.
A good day is catching a golden leaf
That a maple tree has dropped to you.

A good day is
Finding your keys
A warm cookie
A wink and a nod.

A good day my friend
Is waiting for you.

The Unregulated Territories

A cat passes by here
On some sort of regular patrol,
Black with white boots,
She seems to prowl in the unregulated territories.

And I wish to ask her
“What do you know?”
For I think that she could answer
Though she chooses to keep to herself.
Run silent run deep?
Reticence is her pedagogy…
That may be the better way to go.

Other creatures have answers,
The wisdom of wings
Furbearers foresight
but they seemed skeptical
And reluctant to share them.

Humans have stories
That explain our stories,
But our bullshit masks many
Of our creature canon
 -we once knew better-
And might still know now
If we listened.

Ask a cat what it knows of the sparrow
And what the sparrow knows of the cat;
Truths are to be found in the unregulated territories.

My Next Step

I have stumbled along
Taken many a misstep
(And in falling down
 sometimes
I have been placed perfectly)
And found my way
Miraculously, to this very day
-Gifted by kindness
Gifted by forgiveness,
And generous secrecy
And the mere passage of time,
Such a generous keeper
 and merciful mentor-
That I might nearly know
Where to put my next step.

Beach Shells

I could take you to a beach nearby..
There is a two mile walk along a pulsing estuary
In order to earn your visit.
It is no great sacrifice.

Where the beach begins
There is a rocky outcrop;
It anchors the sand and dunes at one end.
At the far end,
Keeping its tenuous grip on a small mound of land
A tombolo, worthy of a barefoot walk.

The beach smiles up some nights
Mirroring the crescent moon.

At the start of the beach
To the right of the outcrop
Is a great swath of slipper shells.
And though the beach lies alluringly ahead
This mound of mollusks
Now empty husks
Rattles in the waves,
Calling even the casual passer;
A boy with a bucket, a girl with a dog
To stop for a moment (or an hour)
And lose themselves in this spectacle.

Playing the role of the boy
I pick up a shell,
Smooth and cool
Like a hard boiled egg split lengthwise
Well-formed and intact.
One of many.
Is this what millions looks like?

And as if this shell could converse
I say out loud,
“You made this case,
And this case made you.”

From beach to pocket to nearby window sill,
This shell, my friend, still speaks to me,
And shares itself so generously.