Metaphor: A thing regarded as symbolic of something else. Comparing two disparate things. Yesterday, the presentation at the Roslyn Library revolved around Ellen Bass and metaphor. When Ellen came back to poetry in her 50s, the emphasis was more about craft than when she was younger. Her poems now start with something we all hold in common like daughters, butterflies, chicken bones, figs. Somewhere inside the poem, when the poem is talking back to her, the poem evolves into a deeper, darker place. Metaphors slip inside your mind without notice of what they entail. Horses: I wasn't thinking when I lifted the saddle onto Kansas back three days ago and rode down the driveway. We made it to the gate before I leaped off and when Kansas was free, she galloped up hill bucking. three days in hand now and the conversation has started: arch neck, fast run - her trot is faster, halt with a raised hand, eye as big as m y fist. Kali, Watch out for her! Today she keeps her eye on me. Halt at the gates, I walk through. She walks through. Walk on the lunge line on gravel by porch. Halt. Walk to her shoulder fast. Don't turn in Kali. Point to her hip and it turns away. Point to the other hip, it turns away. Small steps, big steps, small steps big steps. Not is my space Ms Kalypso! Beau arches. Trot 3, walk 5, trot 3. Trot small steps. Hooves almost in place. He watches me from large, round eye. Creeks are flooding beside us. "M heart is your neck arched in front of he rippled creek.

Dissemble: to give false or misleading appearance; conceal the real nature, feign. 2 1/2 days in New York City. There are many things. I talk too much about when I was young because now: I am not young. There is a hunger to live up to standards of the Carlyle Hotel. I am so much a nurse and talk to everyone, the elevator men, the waitress. Sometimes I do not produce sound but inside I talk. I walk with my beautiful daughter. Was she always this much taller? It is my own spine. It was my own choice to make my hair pink. Everything about me has too much color. I have always been white dough. I do not know dissemble. What I do know is: we walk past the Park-Midtown. The trees stretch over the brickwall, reach up and arc. We are walking side by side traveling Uptown. The old women that walk towards me are walking- Downtown. They are sharp rocks in a wash of whitewater. They hold my eyes. They do not blink. The old women smile. Their legs are bowed. Sometimes there is a man. Sometimes not. They walk alone in the dark with street lamps. The cobbled sidewalk heaves and sinks. I want to be an old lady walking along the park in New York, crook legged, crow's eyes and a slight smile.

Chicken Tracks- 1) what it used to mean: illegible or barely legible handwriting. 2) what it means now: term used in Florida referring to the marks you get on your arms from injecting meth. 3) what it means this morning to my hens and roosters: footprints in the snow on the way to check out what's to eat in the barn. I leave for my trip with my daughter to NYC this afternoon. Three inches of snow last night. Tony already out plowing. I did the stalls with fresh shavings and pellets. I will be back on Friday but I think Josie the Ewe will kid by then. Those little babies expand my heart muscles. I start out by telling them: I might eat you but I'm not hungry now. I think it's best to know the complexity of different species as well as individuals. None of us are safe. I have some great characteristics: I am tough, strong, smart, persevere. I also eat meat and lose my temper. Once during a crisis one of the roosters attacked me. I twisted his neck and then he came back to life. I got the ax and cut his head off. Then, I got my laptop and watched a u-tube on how to butcher a chicken. Let's be honest.

Renovation: to revive, restore to life, vigor or activity. Post hernia repair, I am more centered, balanced. I can stand straight up and down for periods of time. Yesterday, a 12 hour shift of multi-tasking. I was nurse for a young man who reminded me of a Samurai warrior. He saw an angel in front of Jen's right eye. He could see the reflection of the angel on Jen's glass lens. Our best minute, we talked about off-loading trucks at grocery warehouses. He worked with his uncle in Tacoma. In my truck days I loathed grocery warehouses, the hours, the time they would keep drivers waiting after driving through the night. The warehouse demand that drivers hire lumpers. The Samurai Warrior and I talked trucks not hospitals. I had to quit Harborview last fall because I could not keep up with the electronics, the fantastic new machinery and the direct patient care. Now, I say to patients like the Samurai Warrior: At my age I can only do one thing at a time; you need to be quiet until I finish these meds. I am more aware of limitations and I bould more boundaries. I am looking at the two dressers in my room. I am planning how to make the spare room nicer for Tony. At first I want to keep the tall oak dresser for myself because I can remember the day my ex-husband and I bought it in Ballard. I can remember oiling it with him. That was an okay day. Now, it will fit better in the spare room and I will take the rain damaged Ikea. First I need to clear out some books and clothes. It is spring even if there is a foot of snow on the ground. Eventually the ice will fissure. Tony says he slept better last night. He got up every three hours instead of two. I say: cut down on the coffee. He says it wouldn't help. It is Tony's decision. I do not wake up each time he staggers to the bathroom. He decides what is important to him. I am renovating.

Wind is 40mph. Snow blows sideways, presses into crests hard as cement. Wind crashes to the ground like breakers on sand. Living out in this open is like sand blasted into my eyes. I cannot keep my eyes open. I think there is an answer to a problem. I believe Tony wants to change. I close my eyes to what's infront of me. What I do do is go to the Teanaway. The road is black top except a few stretches. The farther I go into the valley, the closer to the circle of mountains, the lower the wind. When I get out of the truck, Al the Dog hops down with me. The birds are big and raucous. Birds believe it is March. Do they have eyes wide open? There are strips of bare pavement to pull me along. Trees wave deep green, bounce their needles. Snow builds up along the sides of the road. I peer between trees and snowbanks at winter campground picnic tables. If I could have the serenity of a picnic table in winter. Is that what age could bring me? A picnic does not try to solve another picnic table's problems. For some reason the campground is abandoned and plowed. We wind our way and I take many photos of incognito picnic tables. Tables sit hunched under snow like a childhood fort athat I would crawl under, inside, but I need a shovel. The voices and screams, sound of TVs and radios inside trailers and camper, the light of little colored bulbs has drained away like through a sieve. Has the Teanaway River carried it all off to the Yakima and on into the Columbia? Al the Dog already learned to stop at each snowbank view of tables. I believe that my photo series of snow piled picnictables will be in a gallery someday and many people will file past and fill with peace. When I get home the farrier texts that he is almost here. Tony is irritated: I thought he was coming at five. I set to organizing all the animals and then I begin brushing the horses. When Geri gets here, he flames up his furnace. The barn smells like burnt hoof. As he works I braid Kalypso's mane. Her mane is thick, dark, covers her neck and sparks with red highlights like a Ponderosa but it is so fine and soft the braid will be gone in an hour.

Tempest: violent and windy storm commotion disruption hurly burly. I can not take photos of wind even as it blows sideways at 40 MPH. It takes more than I know. It looks like a sunny day with smoke along the ground. Wind wakes me up at 4am rattling, breaking like waves against the house. Scout and Al the Dogs do not whine to go out. While Tony and I drink coffee with the bed covers up under our armpits, I talk about retirement. Seven years here and right from the start I always said: I'm not retired yet. Seventy I will retire and make at least one more choice: Western Washington, giant trees, rain and beaches. I foresee Tony with a walker, Beau dies by 30, Scout the 16 yo lab mix no longer with us, maybe not even Al. That iss too painsful to think of. We buy a woodshed that looks like a mini-barn and fill it with tools, a small pen for 2 pet goats and straw for our Pyrenees that are past middle-age by then and we string an invisible fence up. Kansas is 21. If Kaly finds a good home at 7 we will sell or if not I will be long-lining at 90...I have to snap at Tony to get him out of bed. Sunrise did not bring the wind down. By the time he has finished his breakfast drink, I will be done at least one stall. I am up and out. March 1: no physical restrictions starting today. Hernia repair will hold. I am even on both sides of my belly. Just this has made me 10 years younger. I carry outside goats 4 flakes of compressed timothy. Ellensburg has internationally renowned hay and here the big hay sheds sell seconds. The goats pile out of their shed but I walk on top of snow to the lee side and spread hay on clean snow. The stalls go fast. Badger lays on top of a 2 tier hay stack. Jaci Chan spreads out in the hay on the floor. They do not go out in this wind. Liz the chicken and a rooster cluck for layina. By the time I've mucked Kaly's Tony is in the barn. He pries the boot on Kansas shoeless right front then we slowly walk her through the barn. I hold Kaly back and her mom joins her in that stall with turn-out. Two big flakes of Dave's timothy go on clean snow outside. Tony wrestles Beau's boot on his shoeless left front, feeds him inside and I finish cleaning stalls. On my way to the m anure pile the wind picks the heavy rubber bowl out of the wheelbarrow and turns it upside down with molasses cob grain intact on the ground. Quick I let the nubian, cindy, out of the goat pen and she gobbles grain. The baby goats and their mom, the pregnant ewes get compressed hay I set in a line in the lean-to. I string up a rope between the 2 turnouts to give the goats a safe, windless area away from Kaly in case she decides to chase them again. Maybe today fighting the wind will be enough for her. Tony fills the inside water buckets and I fill the outside. The sun is shining. The wind is screaming and up my nose. It is so good to be able to carry, lift, move. Back in the house, homemade bread with broiled cheese. I sneeze and sneeze. I say: I will not be ready to leave for 5 years. I say: You and I know so much now. We know how to work with the weather and around our own limitations and we can almost work together. And then there is what this place will give the 3 grandson; it is so precious.

1) Hernia repair January 1/30/17 2) Spinal cerebellar ataxia slows Tony to a crawl 3) Gutted the goat herd and sold Spud the Buck 7/16 4) 2 Great Pyrenees come to live here 5) house doubles in size 2015 (contractor runs off with young woman) 6) garden eaten by rodents 2016 7) plant blackberries 2016 last but not least: Kalypso born to Kansas April 2015 Isolation living on a mountain with a man who has progressive neurological disease. What if he had a stroke? It would be no different, an emotional instability, discouragement. What are the choices we can make? I have come to the dream of my life so late, by the seat of my pants. Samuel Becket would say: I go on. This is the longest winter yet and last time I went out to rescue the sled I sunk in snow up to my knees. Tomorrow I am officially free of surgical restrictions and maybe I will go out and rescue the sled. Too many ways to be too old: for young horses for being relevant in poetry in word usage for cute shoes This is a strange place Tony and I started. I am the organizer, the planner, the daydreamer. Tony is the one who can exist in repetition. The horses pull Tony to the barn; they are his closest relationships. Kalypso is his princess. Kansas is the Queen and Beau ever gallant and handsome. Tony keeps walking for the horses. While we are on this land by ourselves we do not see how often Tony stumbles, how many times he falls. Here we are normal for us. At 65, I went for my medicare wellness check and the ARNP said to pick up all the non-rubberized rugs...In the past year and a half I have smashed my head so hard I lost words (with my helmet on) and been trampled by a young horse two times. So far, we do not give up.