Archive for Poems – Page 3

Apocalypse

Apocalypse by Paul J. Willis Hiking up Shadow Creek this morning, we saw the moon caught shimmering in the top of a lodgepole on the ridge. Like dandelion seeds, you said. We cupped our hands and blew, and the moon dissolved and scattered into a thousand stars, circling the Sierra summits on the wind and […]

Read More

The Good Portion

The Good Portion by Paul J. Willis Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her. —Luke 10:42 Is it waking to this calm morning after a night of dry winds? Is it scrambled eggs, the ones with cheese, or the hot glaze of a cinnamon roll? Is it the […]

Read More

A Story of Hands

A Story of Hands by Paul J. Willis Our hands, say the Chumash, were supposed to be coyote paws. Coyote had won the argument of who would provide that part of us. At the last second, lizard, who had been very quiet, reached out to touch the white stone of our creation in the sky […]

Read More

Mountain Hemlock

Mountain Hemlock by Paul J. Willis (Tsuga mertensiana) Bent under snowpack at timberline, wait for release. At summer solstice, spring into sharp air, shed and fling the ice clods from supple branches. Half-stooped from nine months in little room, make your bows to the world. —from Say This Prayer into the Past

Read More

Rosing from the Dead

Rosing from the Dead by Paul J. Willis We are on our way home from Good Friday service. It is dark. It is silent. “Sunday,” says Hanna, “Jesus will be rosing from the dead.” It must have been like that. A white blossom, or maybe a red one, pulsing from the floor of the tomb, […]

Read More

San Ysidro Canyon

San Ysidro Canyon by Paul J. Willis Yesterday my daughter slipped from underneath an overhang some sixty feet above the ground. She had climbed so sure and ably to that hold. I squeezed the rope and stopped her almost casually, bolts and slings and carabiners doing their allotted work. There was one second no not […]

Read More

Late October, Mineral King

Late October, Mineral King by Paul J. Willis It is the kind of afternoon in which shade and sun please equally. Smoke-filled valleys pale below, but we climb into bluer skies on remnant snow in the ravines. How does the trail know where to turn? Why do the wood grouse wait for us around the […]

Read More

A Likeness

A Likeness by Paul J. Willis (Quercus agrifolia) Live oaks and elephants, the gray curled skin, hard-shifting shanks and knees. These trees never forget what they take from earth, what they give back. Birds land on their heads all day and bask in sky till fog rolls in. Then thick feet lumber and stand while […]

Read More

Sierra Says

Sierra Says by Paul J. Willis Mosquito says, remember me. Stream says, willow, willow. Lake says, leap trout. Meadow says, shooting star. Snow says, suncup. Granite says, old bones. Glacier says, bergschrund. Cloud says, thunder coming. Sun says, sun says, sun says it all. —from Visiting Home

Read More

In Residence

In Residence by Paul J. Willis The trees don’t move. Incense cedar, ponderosa. The sturdiness of Douglas fir, white oak, leaves with lobes. Small brown cabins grow up quietly at their feet, but the trees are the ones that live here. We come and go, enter and exit porch and door, but no one opens […]

Read More