kherzogcohen

Another ring

Nestling myselfinto the pine and mossbase of your trunkI raise my Nalgene that runneth over To you, Mother of the forest.Today, I whisperLet’s celebrate another ring! And my birthday wish-Released into the wooded wonderLike a seed podFloating throughThe cool air With hope and gratitude,With a promiseto return.

Magnificent blaze

River Light (Late Migrations by Margaret Renkel) I try to imagine what it must have been like for the first human beings who moved through this dark forest: to glimpse a flare of light on moving water, to step out of the shadows of the close trees and see the sun flashing on a broadContinue reading “Magnificent blaze”

The Grands

Your grandeur quietly resides in us— In love note whispers and doses of ice cream, Piles of sticker books and bandaids, Patient nods through endless fairy tale inventions. Stretching across the topography of generations, You hold tears like raindrops rolling off pine branches. You send sap strength to our roots reaching miles Beyond water waysContinue reading “The Grands”

Week Four

Smell the flowers

A tractor is humming with solemn duty — one of the goats must be buried before nightfall, before the coyotes descend. As I watched the farmhand carefully haul the goat from the adjacent field, the flock of sheep, a whole menagerie of beings, seemed to gather as a minyan in focused attention as their companionContinue reading “Smell the flowers”

Week three

Remembering infinity

For those moments we know our name is only Your name—Ein Sof—infinite as the desert’s dust and the sea’s sand. W.S Merwin says it all in this poem, Far Along in the Story: The boy walked on with a flock of cranes following him calling as they came from the horizon behind him sometimes heContinue reading “Remembering infinity”

Farmhouse poetry

We moved into a farmhouse on Marrowstone Island for ten days as Airbnb Herzog shifts to welcoming my brother, sister in law, and delicious niece and nephew. It’s been well over a year and a half. My nephew just turned one and we haven’t met him in person, which is a stark contrast to theContinue reading “Farmhouse poetry”

Bugs in a bowl

I love independent book stores and found myself perusing one in the historic downtown of Poulsbo, WA. Sometimes it feels like the books choose me, which is what seemed to happen when I picked up Buzz Words—Poems About Insects. We’ve heard several squeals these past weeks from the kids—an ant, a spider, an…ahhh, what’s that!? TheyContinue reading “Bugs in a bowl”

Ma’ariv Aravim

There’s no diva in the choral dusk- Croaking frogs and evening birdsong Dogs howling across the bay Equally join in conversation and praise. Patiently, Her paint-brushed sky Wraps tree crowns Like silken prayer shawls On majestic bodies of sap and bark. Together we roll with time and currents of light Into darkness, darkness into light.Continue reading “Ma’ariv Aravim”