When the tired bones settle down
upon the cliffs
to see the greatest show on gaia
beyond the watercolor imagination
of an unheralded genius
so ends the day, blue keep aloft in the skies
the sun makes its retreat past mountain ranges
to illuminate other places over the vast ocean
the gold-dust scattered deepens and the far corner
becomes indigo then violet
beauty, fleeting
darkness, arrives
journey ends.
Under the withered tree
by the exit-ramp
heat-shimmered asphalt
I draw in sulphur
and exhale rose-breath
vibrant springtime birdsong
within primeval, ever long
I take in poison
to then speak
with loving-kindness
love, the last well run dry
while anger fills with dust
swept in, disappears
a transformation happens here.
Where the sprawl of concrete
Ends
Replaced with boundless trees
The true north as the surveyor
Would tell you
Cities to towns to villages
To a gas station selling
Expired hard candy and Pepsi
The dead-straight 5 gains its
Slalom features through the mountains
Weaving between the timber trucks
Towards a state line signifying
Nothing
Heading towards the land
Of the Willamette and the Columbia
Gridlocked bridges and trolley bells
The back holding very little but
A whole new life, uncharted
Unknown
Excited
Unwritten
No archeologist
has the power of Sol
summer soul unrelenting
court of last appeal
refuses a reprieve
the currents cease
the ripples end
the inhabitants flee
if they have the power
unearthed the hunger stones
our ancestors telling us
what we already know
the famine age
begun
beyond
the bed riven with
fissures in a kiln
crafted in greed
a mountain of gold
cannot buy a single drop
of the Loire
abundant to
sparse
endangered to
extinct
Eden to eternity
Remember eternity
Where the forest grows
Dies, rots, burns
From ashes to canopy
Towering shadows,
Coolness even on a
July day blazing
Footfalls silent
Bouncing gently on the moss
Past lichen-drenched logs
In the cycle towards oblivion
Mystery abounds
Spiritual and sacred
At dusk the fairies dance
Leaving their circles to
The other side
Curiosity comes, chided by sense
That their realm is not ours
Remember eternity
Where the forest grows
Stone, baked by summers
long since forgotten by
the living and the dead
races furrowed fields
across countryside lanes
as a spring-dew sunrise
reveals its scars
Rise like a single ember
caught in ecstatic swirling
tendrils of soft smoke
Rise like the first shoots
of a tentative spring
Rise like the Sun
greeting the East
Rise, rise together.
god never died;
was never alive.
except in human hearts
where the embers glow
and crackle upon
gentle pressure
to warm a biting
winter morning
where the lake stands
still, awaiting spring
so it may sway and churn
to let us know it
teems with life
each droplet
falls from sky to soil
divergent paths
converge to nourish the loam
where the ever-yearning shoots
of an uncertain spring stretch out
to bid the world a hearty
hello.
verdant landscape
beams in
naïve optimism
each year choosing
to forget the sun,
swollen with untempered power;
supple stems stiffen
involuntary camouflage
against once-moist soil
now nature’s adobe
stacked
to the horizon, and
pining for an autumn sunrise
Unspoken Politics 