One last hoorah
Before The Spirit of Summer
Succumbs to the seriousness
Of Education and Work
That signals the American
Tradition of Fall
That seems to come earlier
And earlier each year
As administrative minds
Decide for the masses
That the excess of
Time and energy is the
Corruption of Mind and Learning —
So into the woods we’ve run
With cedar and river
And Freedom and Fun
To learn the bird’s songs
One last time and throw
Our poles to lure one last
Meal from the waters
The lessons of the wild
Provide the mild mind
With relaxation and realization
That a simpler life may be
Required to grasp the enlightenment
That a generation sought there
Generations back as they fought
To find what lacked in their daily life.
Category: American Place
These are poems that aim at reflecting something uniquely American in experience. Be it a place. Or a person or an experience. It had to happen somewhere to become something.
Categories
Last Day, Last
It’s the last day
Of our family outing
Alone I sit with
Dog and pen
To re-collect this
time spent passing
With my loved ones
Out in the open
Breathing the air
Of the American West
Full of trees
And smoke and dust
Hot air, cool air
Dry air, wet air
We’ve made so many stops
I can no longer compare.
I’m bone-tired from
100 Miles walked
So many things we’ve seen
So many times we’ve talked
All such inspiring scenes
No aspirations mocked
To find this life serene
On happiness we’ve stocked
The bare cupboards
Of our souls
And fill our empty holes
With moments where we lived
So that we’d have more to give
Each other and our world
Full of memories we clutch like pearls.
Categories
Archland
The Land of Edward Abbey
The Land of Desert Solitaire
The Land that inspired
An entire conservation movement.
The Land of the Black Widow
The Coyote and the Rattlesnake
Where Mountain Lions used to roam before they were banished from their home by the development from which The Park was developed to protect.
The Land of Red Sand and Slick Rock where if you walk long enough
You will be rewarded with Vistas that thwart adjectives of all sorts to describe this incommunicable beauty.
This Land where stones fall away to make the objects of your day’s
Pursuit across this waterless garden.
The Land that draws so many
Out of their homes; out of their cities
To reunite their families and populate their Snapchat feeds.
This Land that calls the human spirit to bear this Heat and push their limits to be inspired by This Land
And renew this desire for protection
So that generation after generation
May review and renew This Land until the rains make something new of This Land!
Categories
Afternoon Rain
Two Rainbows crested
O’er the emerald hills beyond
A pot of gold it rested
A short time behind the pond
And as we then persisted
To get to the other side
All the colors they resisted
Faded to oblivion
For if it’s gold you’re after
Take a moment to reflect
The treasure’s in the Rainbow
And your fortune you neglect
By not breathing in this moment
Being present as you inspect
The myth that drives your desire
Yes, your narrative will unravel
As you chase on to acquire
This prize out on the gravel
If you stand to be inspired
By the distance that you travel
Categories
The chase is on
The Blackbirds chase the Raven
Three or four at a time
They push him away
From their demesne.
Keep their eggs safe and sound
“Chuck, chuck, chip, chip”
These Blackbirds sing
“That charred crow is back
For our nest he is looking
Away, Away, Away” we follow him
up into the sky
“Go back, Go back
From Where you came
And stay away, stay away from my
Brood in the bushes
No breakfast for your kind
Belie your wishes
Away, Away!
Away sly raven
To some other nest
you fly with abandon!”
Categories
Eagle’s Nest
Grackles and Crows
Cackle and call
Filling the morning with their chatter
Does it matter that I’m here?
Not to them, they do not care
About the comings and going of this
Self-absorbed
Man
They don’t plan
Except for their next
meal
Or where to nest
for their love
appeal
And when the crows
Do interfere
These Grackles
Chase them out of here
Then go back to minding
Not a thing
About me
Who listens most intently
To the songs
And calls
Of all things
Small
From the prairie dogs bark
To the red-winged black bird
And the horned lark
Categories
Not Home
Home,
Home again
Not my home now
My mother-in-law’s home
Now
Now
Not home
The home of my youth
My old house and school
in a drive by
Through the Alley
of Memory Lane
Somehow lame
A bit run down
40 years passed
This ain’t my town
“Happiness is Lubbock Texas
in the Rearview Mirror”
Happy to leave this home
That made me happily
Weird
Categories
Cuba
The table’s set, the food is made
Here we sit and give this grace
We’ve gathered here to share our wits
A funny quip, a story with grit
I remember the grand house on the Cimmaron
I’d play in the woods when told to “run along”
In the hills and trees and on sandy shores
The red, red dirt where the water pours
Those days of youth when I was carefree
Not burdened by this loss that’s coming for me
Of my gracious aunt whose lovely smile
Was warm as the hearth after a cold country mile
Never the center piece like her beloved Yellow Rose
But always the backbone for all of those
Who have come and gone doing God’s work
Filling trucks full of clothes and food for the Church
No she was never the center of attention
Just a helping hand, a cup of coffee from the kitchen
An open door to her welcoming home
A meal, a blanket, a place to rest weary bones
I never once heard her ask for her turn
Always on task to help those who yearn
To find God’s grace in an unforgiving land
To help without question her fellow man
Her radiant smile, her questions about you
So gracious, so kind, so ready to do
Anything she could to make things run smooth
All she would do to comfort and soothe
Her presence is missed as we gather today
One more moment or kiss or kind word to say
From this lady of grace who asked for no return
On her investment in you, your life, your concern
We should all be so bold to live life like this
To give all that we have of ourselves in kindness
Like our fair lady who we lay here to rest
Who spent her whole life giving only her best.
If I stop and take
A minute to write
Or a photograph
How much Life
Am I missing?
If a notational ear
Or observant eye
Can pull from the landscape
Into Memory than my
Experience my be more enlightening…
What is your approach?
Coleridge’s observational reproach?
Or Wordsworth’s walking as he wrote?
Which will glean and which will gloss?
Who will find meaning? What will be lost?
I find myself quite often
At a loss for themes, my memory softened
If I take too long from my observations
The meter fades and the propositions
Wash away and become forgotten.
Yet if in the moment I focus too much
On this art I offer and the places I touch
Do I leave too little of this world explored?
And proffer false narratives for you to adore?
Not the depths of this moment I’m here to explore…
Categories
UFO
Terrifying
Is the first sensation that
creeps up my spine as the
long trail of stars creeps
across the just blackened night
Sky of dusk out in the desert
The stream of lights arched from
Horizon to Horizon – a steady
pace of objects un-evenly spaced
giving it the illusion of a
Naturally occurring phenomenon
Without internet out in the dark
Night sky of our camping spot
We could neither deny nor
Confirm the spectacle we had witnessed
By referring to the digital brain
We could only speculate the
Nature of these UFOs with
Our New Mexican mythology
Some 160 miles north of
Roswell in the darkness at Villanueva