Dear Bigfoot
I’m sending you this message
to deny that I am deceased.
However, as the general consensus
would have it, I may be, like you,
extinct. What I was as an active, younger man
no longer exists. That life is gone.
Now when I look into a thriving, green-faced
pond, I am comforted by both the microscopic
and tangible life. When my eyes climb
the slim, angled legs of the heron,
then move from the point of its long beak
to beautiful, round eyes that do not
hesitate to stare back at me, I bless
that bird as it flaps its large, somewhat awkward
wings. I am present in this world,
and the world is present in me.
My belief does not require that I fold
my hands in prayer.
I, too, am blessed.
Published in the WA129 anthology, edited by Washington Poet Laureate Tod Marshall, and published this year by Sage
Hill Press in Spokane
The Anointing
Every hilly acre
loves water
each tree inhabits the earth
with its thirst
stones brighten
under dull clouds of rain
even the fungus considers dampness
its maker.
This poem has been installed as a weather-proof placard on a mountain trail on Guemes Island (across the channel from Anacortes)
More information on James Here