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Posted by Paul J. Willis on
 February 1, 2015 

February

This is the season of sourgrass,
shy, lovely, beside the driveway.
Hanna gathers the stalks in her arms
like so many sheaves of daffodils
across her shoulder, green, gold.

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Posted by Paul J. Willis on
 October 1, 2014 

A Lovely Girl

There is a girl reading on the lawn.
Last week a cypress tree fell where she lies.
Now there is grass, and peace—the tree is gone.
And there’s a girl reading on the lawn.

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Posted by Paul J. Willis on
 September 1, 2014 

Proposal in a Modest Meadow

Monkeyflower crowds the foot of a waterfall
(those buttercup faces, up to something),

and a dipper flies the bends of the creek
down to a veil of mountain hemlock.

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Posted by Paul J. Willis on
 August 1, 2014 

Barney Lake Trail

Jeffrey pine hold out their arms
where we begin. They drop their cones
whenever they are good and ready—
and we kick them aside with a little dance.

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Posted by Paul J. Willis on
 July 1, 2014 

White Chief Canyon

A steep climb to the crushed cabin,
rusty litter of mining tools
under the trees, and the creek
in the pasture is rocky and dry.

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Posted by Paul J. Willis on
 June 1, 2014 

Midsummer

This evening we are awash in light.
It buoys the mountains as if they have finally
found their proper medium, their true home,

as if only now the peaks and ridges
and chaparral have come to the surface
and are free to look around, to take in air,
to catch us up in their respiration.

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Posted by Paul J. Willis on
 May 1, 2014 

Understory

Dogwood blossoms mount into the sunshine
as if they were creators of light,
as if the air were only blue

because of them, as if the pale
cinnamon of sequoia bark were like
the moon, a borrowed glow.

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Posted by Paul J. Willis on
 April 1, 2014 

Skunk Cabbage

I’ve seen it in the hollows of the Cascades in Oregon,
and head-high on the trail from Juneau up to the Icefield,
there to perplex
the pink mouth of a black bear.

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Posted by Paul J. Willis on
 March 1, 2014 

Red, White, and Blue

In early March, the toyon berries hang
in embers, fading under pale explosions
of ceanothus—a froth, a kindling,
winter offering itself to spring.

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