Old Griz

This time the old bear set off straight to the top.
Every year before,
it was a crooked trail.

Deep snow slowed us both,
and fog blurred the day;

my eyes
and my spirit.

Until,
emerging above the mist
the trail was clear

and beside a deadfall,
there were the eyes:

fixed upon the backtrail
and upon my own;
vacant,
seeing well beyond
a remnant dream
and my shadow in the evening sun.

I reached for a cold foot
in a shivering embrace,
cold, now, in a slight breath
stirring stunted needles
on ancient brush

and

kneeled.

waiting for eternity.

Riding Kate

she swapped ends
180 degrees to the right
before she felt the reins

mule deer in the brush!

one ear forward, one ear back,
like me

then on to the
turning point:

calmer

hoping against hope
that there really is

a soul keeper

Pausing by the cedar stump

tracks came to here:

stopped.

looking back,
it was a crooked path
and snow is melting them,
distortions along the way.

the burned out cedar stump,
hollow now in age,
ancient even then,

sheltered much
in the days
and nights
spent in its safe womb,

(a child's innocent retreat)

but, revisiting,
the old entrance is too small
to allow passage now.

what follows this failing trail?

ahead is westering sun.

if I wait too long
the trail will be as dim
as future's twilight:

present and past,
in diminished sight,
melt poorly
into the arrival of the night.

Greta

She was crazy wild,

running
even on hind feet
faster than me,
always testing the wind.

She was crazy wild,

laying
on the passenger seat
in the old truck
on the arm of this old man
sly kisses on my ear

She was crazy wild,

just wanted to be near
but ran...

running,

to the end of her chains
to the end of her innate

boundaries

circles

and back ,

back to check her center...
diameters,
as if at the length of invisible restraint,

She was crazy wild,

love incarnate
loyally blind

ignorant of
affirming any consequent,

brief love
in the scheme of things

she was,

friend.

Borogoves and Momeraiths

"all mimsy were the borogoves and the momeraiths outgrabe"


the beautiful Tennessee Waltz
was darling its way
o're the cherry groves

when along came Bob
running

and stole my life
into 'Nam and other places

and the flag was downside up
and all could hear
seagulls cry
over oily oysters

revolution

so that pearls ashore
when we get there
would be white

and saints could
march blackly in
(darkly speaking)

it's ok
it's alright

all right

so,

when borogoves get all mimsy
why would we care?
we wouldn't dare
the momeraiths
would outgrabe
taking us away

anyway,

any way,

the redbird's off her nest
and her eggs arot
won't give a damn alot

(we'll waltz away home)

Choice

man from the mountain
demounts

broken commandments

defiance,
rage against chains,

seeking not freedom
but liberty

(even the eagle's wings
are subject to the laws of flight)

soar after freedom!

(are the angel's wings
subject to the laws of flight?)

choosing falling,
why do we want wings
to soften the landing?

Journey

helmet laying near a stump:

two signs of harvest.

they say that Ulyses himself
may have passed here
a cavalry crush
in the civil conflict

the crush of my feet
and the disturbance of my breath,

the sound of my words

all passed

the helmet,
the stump,

and...

Yellowstone Love

slowly comes the wind
across steaming waters

swirling spirits soaring

sulphur rich silence
blending love and pleasure

time stops

and the intensity of the sun
fills the basin of our hearts
where we dance in the shadows of our souls

suspended waiting

love waiting like a weight

like the weight of the lake
on its bed

like the weight of the bubbling
of our own murky depths

the purple night of our souls
sealed
healed
by breath of your breath
and sigh of your sigh

Dad

I see your
silhouette on the ridge
like a shadow in reverse....

my heart sinks with the sun
old man-leaning back
as if to remain
in yesterday

while the present portends
the inevitable,

longing
for missed opportunities
overwhelms the spirit
and my soul cries out to meet you

before the coming of the night.

Old

"old" requires looking back,
it is expected by some, and,
as the future narrows
to a thin perspective,

loving opens the heart...

like the view from a valley floor,
change evolves from the top
of a ridge

and the cleft of your breasts
is comfort
in a valley of shadows

Strange Meadowlark

this bird flies
a fluttered blur
all flurry on the rise
then silohetted,
fury at rest
behind puffed breast
well lost in flight

like a kite
on a lost wind
it drops,
gathering again
finally to sit
eating rocks

its song
a searching melodious grit
sailing after lunch embarked:

there's something strange
about a meadow larked...

Haiku

Sunset:
trees growing
bats soaring
moths die
do I hear crying?


Sunset:
beetles boring
bite-dust drops
on lizard tracks:
paisley print-dirt.

The little red bug

A little red bug is crawling
on a type-written page:

All those pre-planned words
babbling beyound its feelers...

it disappears when it crawls
onto a period...

escaping only when it flies...

Perhaps flight
is the only escape
from
not being able to communicate...

Choosing flight to bridge the gap
organized between

words
endings
hyphens

isolates their defined nature

not being able themselves
to burst into spontaneous flight...

Walking

Walking

is a dance;

without

within,

measured by

only

what a head does
to ordinarily happy feet.

Sunny porch

We sit on a sunny porch
the screen door full of flies
beating their brains in
trying to get in or out...

We do not feel the impact
on our own heads
'cause all that sun
has us a little buzzy
so we pick up the paper and a book

reading

between

us

asking when our friends
will come to visit
'cause we haven't seen them
since yesterday.

Sunset birches

Sunset birches,
falling leaves,
cast broken shadows
over the old man and me,

the weathered fellow and I,
coupled by a park bench near a pond,
were calling out the future,
sharing dreams.

It wasn't until the frogs began chattering
that we had too,
(its always too hard for me to sit quietly when everyone else is talking)
so I had spoken first,
startled that the old guy
wasn"t drunk,
(there was after all that brown wrapper sticking from his pocket)

"Even a frog in a mud puddle has dreams"
he said.

I sat silently for awhile,
then his eyes said goodbye.

I wondered afterward,
what frogs dream about,
and realized
that if under all that mud
their dreams were nightmares
about giant dragonflies
and sinking lily pads,
they probably would chatter a lot
in order to avoid seeing the fallen leaves floating by,
and eat every dragon fly they saw...

River song

The river

sings many songs
of sad and lonely precipises,
around them rumbling praises:
exhorted aums
time no measure,

bubbling rocks
and slitherng cliffs

retaining parts of each;

knows forgotten edges
seperating self from self....

(listen, laughing river
listen laughing river,
a stone dropped in your smile
causes you to quiver)

until its course is run,
and many stones have slowed
a hurried way.

Old barn, brown calf

Sun sinking into azure sand,
tall grass,
green gone brown, gone red...

pink clouds in a turquoise sky
roll eternity into my head.

Deep black holes
in the old board fence
on a prarie plow rent,
frame
a small brown calf
soon to know abandonment.


My sight passes beyond
the sunken barn,
senses deeply honed by twilight:

How shall I cherish the nighthawks flight
without keeping it?

Sunset

The chainsaw's roar
dies into ashes on the hearth,
and warmth creeps into winter souls
watching a horned moon meet the horizon.

Pointing with the evening star,

Where,

when
wood
is needed less for its death
than its life,
preparations are made,
for embracing a new light.

The last time I saw the sun

The last time I saw the sun,
I was picking myself up
from tripping over a root,
because...
I was looking over my shoulder..

and there...
was a damn spider
crawling up my leg,
probably...
wondering
why a root felt like cotton...
not knowing why it is flying
on its own
from my finger flick...
sling shot style,
having missed a messy mash
under my hand.

It was then I
ran blindly
into a glaring sunset
falsely proclaiming warmth.