"August 15"

A spangled highway curves through branches.

Between two hills on a gravel road,


It finds the parking lot.

Afoot on the trail, the hot sun broadens.
We exit the forest into a meadow


So fecund it smells sweet and heavy.
Person-high underbrush droops in the path,
Brushing, scraping our legs.

A bear-sized dot barely moves far above us,
Two thousand feet up on the carpet of green.

Its paws must bat flies from its warm furry face
As we do from our red sweaty noses.

I’m glad that the bear is so far from our passage,

But I wish I could see it more clearly.

We summit the mountain, which, glacially carved

With blocks of profound geometrics,
Resembles a stone god’s early art project.

Chasms of granite fit right into scale.


I leverage my arms and descend,

Touching my feet to the bottom,

Chasm filled with dirt.
Standing inside it is easy,
Hugged by walls snug and shady.

Up here, see freely in every direction.
Valleys to peaks, and the slopes in between.

A stately white range encircling,
Dignified beyond all compare.
No rumors persist in this thin atmosphere,
Finally everything's fair.

Elegance

My math teacher, a frail young man,

Excitable, with frothy lips,

(Who somehow ran triathlons)

Said, "certain proofs are elegant."

We chuckled at his choice of words,

But now I understand his folly.

Elegance means grace in motion,

Music playing out of doors.

But numbers too can grace us,

Lassoed by dextrous minds. 

The answer's often spoken for,

What else but to groom the route?

Keeping Track

The things I write are mutable

Once they have lapped their facts,

But images I keep remain,

Though further I look back.

My memory is more justly served

With pictures than with words.

It's getting more imperative: 

Sing notes, take notes, keep track.

Between Reality

She woke up when I nudged her -

With crusty eyes and a musty yawn -

And asked me why I woke her.

I answered, while she tied her hair,

"You seemed powerfully content,

And I was laying, wondering,

What contained that answer."

She said she traveled to a place,

Where people's hands were bark, 

Their dispositions were children's. 

She said the space behind their eyes

Was peaceful to investigate.  

Puerta del Sol

Clouds float down to the village,

Wash the stones with silky dampness,

Frame the sky the color of paper before thought.

Someone once decided

The city deserved a stacked stone gate,

To beckon to the sun to shine again each day. 

The sacred never goes away. 

The days crawl anciently, 

Citizens move lethargically, 

Eating at noon, quietly gone, 

Bodies tripping away. 

A spirit won't leave such privilege behind. 

It whistles between the branches, 

Reminds the sun to shine today, 

Even if we've out-welcomed our stay. 

Generosity

A twinkling beard with eyes to match,

Leaning down to talk to me.

Twisting around to the back seat.

The clarity of that memory,

Sings how important it is

To look all ages in eyes.

Two men - one just learning,

Adults were also kids too. 

The other a veteran of childhood

He thinks of when talking to me. 

Now that I know the world never ends

I remember my oldest of friends.

Satisfied

Today I wake up quickly,

Hop out of bed with springy feet. 

The sunlight lulls me back when I 

Begin to walk the humid street.

Down the block from where I work, 

A restaurant whose noise and smells
Make cereal obsolete, and nine
is far from holy twelve. 

I eat until my aching sides 

Turn satisfaction past its prime. 

A plump and unambitious time,
Wistful and sublime. 

A Poem: "Spotless Sky"

I spend my day in a classroom seat where

Between breaks we learn of slaves

Whose decades built a stately tomb

The color of the sun. 

The classroom windows flaunt the grounds, 

When I stand near them cool air rushes

Through small cracks within the frames, 

Meets the radiator's heat and dies in swirls about my feet. 

A bright grey sky with borders only 

Where the trees and roofs arrange 

Around the spotless vault.

The windows and the sky are broad

The sloping shoulders of perfection

Bend to dabble in this realm. 

I squint at the bright between tree branches,

Tiny cells slip down my lashes,

Leave faded spangles on the window,

And tumble out of view.  

Once beneath my plane of sight

They scale the backsides of my eyelids 

With angelic ease.

A Poem: "The River's Bed"

Windswept places have dry red rocks

With faces coarse and dotted,

Wiry trees with scattered shade 

Cast sleepy shapes upon them.

A man lives here - the only one

Although he looks for others

He peeks in houses when he passes

Approaching them from miles off, 

He likes to look inside them.

Their rooms are strung with cobwebs, 

He thinks they hold the walls together, 

Once nails have rusted into dust. 

The winds knock often at the frame and 

Shake the cobwebs to the ground, 

Begin to knock the houses down

A slow consumptive process.

He tries to stay near watered lands

He sets up camp right by the river, 

A small, strong vein of chuckling rapids,

Which hasn't dried up yet this year.

Rain comes not often but dramatically, 

Hard enough to feed the river

To keep the roots around it swollen 

and leaves a healthy shade of green. 

He checks the river every day, 

To make sure that it keeps its promise -

Today it seems a little low,

It doesn't quite bite at his ankles.

When he wades across to check a trap

He doesn't need his arms for balance

A rock downstream sticks in the air - 

It never did before. 

A few days later he walks across

Without touching the water,

He hops between sandbars and rocks 

And understands the source is dry - 

No rain will come for months. 

He returns, kicking at the grass 

And packs up all his camping things

To put across his back. 

He sleeps one last time by the river, 

Wrapped up to his ears in blankets

The moon shines on his head. 

The next day he walks straight upstream

Up the path of the fading river

Moisture pools in little pockets

To gather muck that was once swept downstream

He kicks at the bank to watch the dirt tumble,

It collapses softly like snow

He picks up things he thinks might be useful,

And stops to eat when there's shade

A Poem: "Catching Dreams"

Just once I'll inhabit the world that I dream in

And bring back the secrets of dreams

I won't use a net - I'll catch them gently

By coaxing them out with silent kinship

The kind good books make when I understand them.

Tonight I'll inhabit the dream world I sleep in 

To discover the secrets of dreams

I'll awaken a little while covered in blankets

And roam in the soft canvas hills

Each shadow I find I will stop by and whisper,

"Here, secret, please show me yourself"

I swear I'll be patient - no anxious persuasion

No trapping the thing with an act of force

I'll sit in the sun and peel dandelions

And tell it how peaceful, how warm and relaxing

The day is out here when one's not draped in shadows

Awaiting my sleep to come