Wednesday, September 20, 2017

august and september


august and september 2017


real teachers 
and there are many

tell their way through examples 
of normalcy

that we just kind of get

just hang’n out is key


**


—relief reservoir, emigrant national wilderness—

clearly a grandfather, the old juniper pine
muscles into open sky

with a trunk five feet wide and more 

branches shoulder and extend 
twenty to thirty feet of tangled arcs 
of protective canopy 

reaching almost enough 
to touch the ground
encircled there 

where we stand 
and stroke rough red bark

sleep under limbs
lie over roots

there linger within 

that vital living, who refuses 
only to refuse


**


on the trail beneath 
east rising granite 

sunlight slides over 
to catch aspen 

sending signals 
to breezes 

singing to us all 


**


—lower relief valley—8,000 ft

camping west of granite dome
west of north flowing relief creek

on a rock promontory
of eastern exposure

the moon bright enough
to take starlight away

gives it back, when leaving
to set

we dream here


**


reading, even words that speak deeply
is invariably another’s life

writing is always mine—true 
but not truth enough

as writing is gathering the given
and chewing it with the pen

digesting ever-changing mixes 
of sense and sign 

into new living

always a matter of us and we—
me, ok, but never just mine

that’s why


**



listening to pine cones drop

counting needles
stroking bark

wondering
who these beings are

how they speak
their story


**


we don’t wait for first stars

figuring they and friends
will be there when we rise 
in night air to pee—as we do
they will too, rise that is

these are things we know
out here


**



reading poems 
in clouded morning air

settled flowers along the fence
along the street

purple marked green
against grey

the reach of roots

breath beneath embodied skin


**

the wanderer’s way
is not limited to high country  

walking there is walking here where 

the actual turns plans to dust
widening wonder emboldens feet 
curiosity trumps answer
and true songs sing 

it’s all just enough


**


poem

that which in the ordinary course
of events

catches the attention in such a way
that you yourself know it has

been caught—and somehow 
sometimes words


**


—the way i see it today—

to exude quiet
without, necessarily, that word
or its sister silence

to un-encumber words 
accessible there to be read  
and spoken as readily as

the un-choreographed flows 
that mark our living as such—

poems bubbling there 
as they do 

for those who share 
their timeless 
happening


**

what desire is that 
which falls right there
at your feet


**


staying home is not so much decision
as happening unfolding, not closing
circles, but telling layers deepening

borderless possibilities uncluttered
by tending now the timelessness 
silence speaks

pursuing its own sure-footed 
foundations 

of unbridled celebration


**


9/15

counting well-placed stones
in steep trails of shifting dusts

summer sunlight cures
the last tears of hidden springs
of latent promises, whispers 

of winter’s slow approach 

nights growing longer 
stroke by stroke


**


someone casts a name
and somehow it catches and 

the way we follow casts further 

our names a’new