It is morning coffee on the couch with new books by the huge picture windows, birds feeding and then slam, slam, slam, three in a row.

I rise and in a moment of nonsense say,

"Stop slamming yourself against the plate glass!  Why do you do it?  Do you see youself, reflected, and desire to kiss that Magical One?  Or does it look like so much open sky and you wish to soar, doing damage to yourself against the unforgiving truth?

Stay safe, little bird, and do not hit so…

The truth is that what I find attractive in a man is the same thing I find attractive in a woman.

Give me articulate, confident, low-maintenance, passionate, easily moved, living a chosen life rather than one visited upon you.

Give me strong, positive, a good listener, open to new ideas, sure of your own as they are in flux.

Make me laugh, not with dumb and dumber humor but with wit and words.

Intelligence turns me on  since my brain is my most sensitive sex…

I ride a large white horse, solid gentle, most of the time.

But today we rode in the lonely places, and all the voices around us were suspect, the shadows beneath the cedar trees, headless horsemen.

He stopped with all four feet at once, ears abruptly foreward, pointing at some hidden surprise I could not sense.

His solid gentle became spook, and that will happen in the lonely places.

An elk rose above us up the hill, crashing, not looking.

But we sat…

This is the time of year that the swallows clean house, sweeping the eggshells from the nest, and the wild green grapes are gone, devoured at first sugar by so many.

And I want to pick up the eggshells, but I am oh, so careful, for the lightest touch can crush.…

Nothing made her feel as small as that closed mouthed, pursed lipped, friendly kiss, the one that is like a pat on the head, a platonic putting off of passion.

And they came along, ocassionally, when she'd worn out the passion, worn out the lover who needed a break from her fucking enthusiasm!

What she needed him to know was that if he would just kiss her, really and truly and madly and…

The butterfly rests gracefully in the cocoon, but her wings are colored and striped without her choosing.*

The toad beneath the soil waits until it rains, but does not choose whether her tadpoles grow legs or antlers.

They are becoming, always, and the metaphor works... up to a point.

We are becoming, too, but the difference is that we get to choose, choose what brilliant feathers we wear, what hot winds we blow, what weather boils  inside our own soul.

We choose…

The door just said my name.... spooky like... as it squeeked with the air moving through this house that contains my office.

Of course, it is hard to hear the universe talking over the music blaring from my tinny laptop speakers.

I am looking for something, something good, something to quiet this roiling soul, this too many words in my head.

I am not going to try to explain it, but the past weekend made me think of…

Put fifteen writers in the same room--feed them, drink them, give them stars for their eyes, listen carefully to their accented heartbeats.

Circle them, boil them, pour them, stir them, ask them where their embers burn.

They'll take you to the page.

You all broke my heart open and it leaked into my eyes even as I kept on smiling.

I saw your dark, your light, your smoky nights, some buttery fingers, and clouds like down in labial folds.

Perhaps you scoff at…

The bag isn't big enough for all of the things she wants to pack, and the bouncing multi-colored enthusiasms she tied on the handles kept getting in the way of the zipper.

The puppy dog, all tongue and ears and muddy paws finally curled up in his corner of the bag and went to sleep, but the little girl with the party hat on is sulking because one of her balloons popped.

She tamped the naysaying scrooge into a side pocket, but he is still audibly…

Give me wind, rain, snow, heat, storms, seasons, walked through, lived in, felt and touched, not seen through glass or on a screen, not deflected by a shield but experienced on the skin and in the lungs, those highways to soul.

Give me wild things growling, slithering, flying, eating, growing, singing, germinating, hibernating, gestating, going on through metamorphosis, swimming, spinning, fleeing, fighting, clawing, digging, shedding, nesting, leaving tracks in the sand and on the…

This summer we are tearing down an old house, harvesting the wood for a future home, and yesterday we exposed a bird nest, cunningly hidden in the wall over the window, a hole in the siding allowing the flycatcher parents access to the three fledglings inside.

The hot sun heated their nest until one of the babies flung himself out, away from the unaccustomed heat on his brain.

We put him back and started cleaning out a spot under some rafters that we are leaving for now, a good…

I've spent most of the day trying to decide if my 5th of July hangover is truly due to too much alcohol and lack of sleep or if it is sensory and intellectual overload from twelve hours in stimulating and surpising company.

Our hosts put new potatoes, yellow corn, whole onions, sausage and shrimp into a big pot of boiling water with cajun spices, spread newspapers on the tables, and dumped the whole mess out for us to eat with our fingers, sending the homemade rolls around like…

This morning I saw a phainopepla in the top of a cedar tree with his mouth open, panting in the heat, and it is odd to think of mistletoe in July.

I don't know why the dirt tanks are called Queens and Spades, but I wouldn't have it any other way, and it was nice to see the Braford bull working like a son of a bitch.

We wet our shirts every chance we got, and the cold cloth against my skin made me want to…

This morning I caught a rock squirrel in a Hav-a-Heart trap, and put him on the breakfast table while I drank my coffee and read my book.

He cowered in the corner of the trap and chirped at me every time my hand moved my cup, a sound I have heard a thousand times out in the forest.

What I learned today is that at the end of every shrill chirp is a fierce little bareteeth growl, which would have made me laugh except I only wanted to be friends.

He did not eat the peanuts…

As you all know, I am very good at the Pollyanna thing, the focusing on joy and beauty.  Rusty's challenge was an interesting way to get to know each other re our senses, but I read a poem in The Sun where the poet discusses what he is NOT good at.  The challenge I present then is this: 

Write a six about the things in life you are NOT good at, the things in life that make you say "Fail!" again and again.  Then, write a six about things you do…