2018 on Multer family website

Feathery Hope

Tue, 16 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

A fragile and feathery hope grows in my chest
It tickles my ribcage and brushes against my cheeks
Like the kiss of a bird’s wing as it takes flight.
The moment suspended
Between the weight of the world
And the unburdened sky.

Small and tender hearted
This alien thing grows inside of me.
At night I feed it quietly with whispered dreams
And words I am too afraid to say aloud.
I do not yet know whether it will become
Friend or foe to me as it grows.

Hive Mind

Sat, 13 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The bees have infested my brain again
Rattling around within my skull
Like a ricochet bullet
Unwilling to settle on damaging a single target.
They fill my mind with vibrations
like a tremor behind my eyes
Like a precursor pressure
Waiting to crack open my head
When the real earthquake hits
Releasing the infestation of my mind
Upon the world that was never prepared
For this devastation that I have lived with
Everyday like a close companion
Or a haunting voice whispering in your ear
Words you do not want to hear.

Jagged Edges

Tue, 09 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The jagged edges of me
Clash up against fluidity;
Unrelenting shattering.
Shards of ice caught
Between land and sea
Where lines blur to reveal
Snow blankets everything.
Only the tall stand above
The war of attrition
Between the changing tides
And the bedrock beneath.

Elysium Red

Sun, 07 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Virgin snow collapses under a heavy foot
Like sand washed away from a steep embankment
By waves impatient of passing time.
Footprints dug deep below the surface
Only to be covered by the next snowfall;
Man lacks permanence in a place such as this.

Translucent diamonds fall from the soft blue sky
Sharp and glinting in sunlight
That offers no warmth or respite from biting winds.
Tree limbs grow heavy with new white robes
Bowing before the might of Winter
With sideways eyes on far away Spring.

Remembering Jacob DiNoto

Fri, 05 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

In many ways, I fail to find the correct words to describe this feeling because the pain is not my own. I cannot lay claim to this grief even though it tears at my heart and wearies my soul. I know how dreadfully Jacob’s family misses him and the grief of struggling to understand his premature death burdens both his family back in Connecticut and his new family in California. The death of a person so young cannot be justified, especially when they have so much life left to live. But I cannot speak for his family, I cannot speak for Mackenzie or her children, I can only share my memories of Jacob in the hopes that my own struggle to comprehend the incomprehensible may help others facing the same uphill battle. My words cannot be sufficient to encapsulate the pain of Jacob’s death, but I hope they can bring back a piece of the light that Jacob shared with everyone he encountered in life.

Small Life Grows Here

Wed, 03 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Be careful where you tread
Small life grows here.
Fragile yet persistent
Chances of success
Wax and wane constantly.
Look closely
Don’t miss the tiny opportunity
To witness something
Greater than yourself.
A tree can grow
With roots born from stone.

Silence Awful and Sublime

Tue, 02 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” – John Muir

Fewer words ring truer in my mind than John Muir’s transcendental musings on nature, the wilderness of this world, and the triad connection between man, the outdoors, and the universe.

For me, Winter arrives with a contemplation as a companion every year. There is something about snow, the coldness of winter, and the stripping down of life to its raw bones that always leaves me in awe. In many ways I am gladly forced into this state of introspection during this time of year; it is during these times that Muir returns to me again and again as I confront the devastating beauty of the natural world.

Becoming New

Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Ever since I can remember I have been coming to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to visit our family compound on the shores of a lake fed by Lake Superior. I never went to summer camp or a sports camp as a child, instead I gathered alongside my numerous cousins, aunts and uncles, and under the amused gaze of my grandparents to run amuck in the forests and swim in the Great Lakes. The sun never seemed to fade on those long summer nights.The memories and experiences I had during those endless summers forever altered who I was and who I would become in ways so numerous that this blog post could never even begin to contain all of them. The shores of Lake Superior will always be my second home, but standing where I have stood many times before on the Sandstone cliffs of Jacobsville as the light from the first day of 2018 fades into shades of soft pink, I realize just how unfamiliar and new familiar places can become.