Everything about the actual fact of it..
comes smooth and easy
so close to what the body knows
rising over compressed air, thrust
over drag,lift over gravity, nothing
could be simpler, once we stop
looking at guages, doing the math;
once we fill up on expanding horizons
letting hands go, feet relax,
and brain, shut the f..k up while our
butt end settles into yes/no understandings
of stall, leftward graveyard spins,
overcome by gentle pushing in
to nose and power up
this is all foreplay…
the tetanies of erogenous zones
teased into being by fingertips,
open palms, tantalizing tongues
wetting and letting the air skin bristle.
we fly straight and true by the mark,
Mt. Baker in company with Glacier Peak,
the Skagit River’s glacier milk moving
fresh water into Rosario Strait.
Flying is  long drawn sighs of too much
“please” and “yes” and “more”, and 
“tantras” of being born into this
rich blue ball, this mandala of air
surrounding earth and sea-green hope
of over and over and over again…

re-flective waters ©tom odgeard
there’s passion under a veneer of remoteness:
a mirror might have served us both well.
we were standing on the edge of a town,
heading out when we could of stayed home.
"Looking for love in all the wrong places"
the song in my head loops around 
still standing on the edge of a town
I'm looking in re-flective waters
and all I see is love…

“deep time”
A million years generationally
is roughly 50 thousand generations…
hot ‘n tots would say “many”… and
bible freaks would say, “Not!”
Seemingly this is a long long time and
from a child’s viewpoint maybe so.
But the terrain of the earth thinks otherwise
having recyled itself quite a lot.
Crustally thinking everything’s pretty new,
in spread, crush, fault and weld.
4 times 10 to the sixth: a small picture really.
our million is only an eyeblink in the slurry
of terranes, plates, volcanic inserting, salt domes.
I like the view from here, swimming in “deep time”,
I can compass my unconscious and resume
being at one with the earth. (terrane – a block of terrain resting on magma)

strawberry crik back then ©tom odegard
we used to spelunk the culverts from Ridge Road east
under 500 feet of foothills to wild wood canyons
of live oak, laurel, and bush sage, dripping with poison oak
and thorny blackberries...
we'd crawl a tunnel under the fence guarding Lawrence Labs
who were we then? Lone Ranger, Straight Arrow, and
Red Ryder keeping the world safe: so much for yesteryear...
so much for that "safe world"
but the memories grow "fine" and
the sunshine crik sparkles diamonds on
young skin and limber limbs
back then