This is my pregnant daughter Alyssa.  I posed her in front of my two paintings that were inspired by the discovery of the “God Particle” (or Higgs Bosun field). 

Two poems today.  The first poem I have been revising for a while.  Perhaps I am seeking absolution for spending so much of my life in “resource extraction industries” like King crab fishing in the Bering sea and logging the high country?  

There is still work to be done on these words, any criticism would be appreciated, much obliged.

The last Supper

The last whale comes to a dead stop
Waft, floating
And not hearing her song return to her
She lies still gray silent
Not accusing her maker for her circumstance
Even the last whale song is beautiful

Watching us from the beginning
Bobbing on the surface,
Splashing, laughing, crying, dying
Not Standoffish at all, for ones so small
Though it turns out that the entire ocean was
Not big enough

Technically speaking
We won’t know for sure when the last whale dies
The whale-killers will return from the sea empty handed
Another venture will be written off as
A loss on the balance sheets
The ships will be refitted to 
Hunt penguins or starfish or angels

Eventually, a marine biologist or 
Responsible government agency
Someone with authority
Simply states the obvious, ‘they are all gone,’ dead
Then it’s back to business as usual
Some family in Osaka or Haugesund will look up from their plates
Saying ‘had we known, we would have savored it all the more!’

One day the gods will come to notice how quiet earth is
No clamor of war, no prayers for more
And after seeing no lights on at night for awhile
Or being annoyed by harpooning rocket bursts they 
Will say something like, “Well, now when did that happen?’

Obliged.

Rapture

It’s always come easy to me

Thinking about death

I’m every bit afraid as a sinner should be

More than the sky gives me credit for

Part of it is the waiting game

Part is having my number just come up

Whatever can die aught to be called by name

In the vernacular of it’s own life

I would opt for a rapture every Jubilee year

Rather than one big fandango at the end

We need the space and there are people I miss

For some even three days seems an eternity

Mathematically the figures don't add up

We can see to the edge of infinity

Too calculate any farther might be blasphemy

But I’d like to take a crack at it from another angle

The sheer volume of the past is staggering

But the angel of history is not the same as

The angels of death

Only our time-pieces make it seem so

Weary virgins trim their wicks

The watchers seek the sign of Jonas

Far from the sea a pearl comes to light in a plowed field

Vows were made but never kept

We were promised:

‘after the first death there would be no other’

That’s what comes of listening to poets

Without them everything could be what it seems

Instead of all these literalists coming to a tragic end

Obliged.