Skin

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Color in the skin of the earth,

Green and gray and brown,

The colors of our daily lives,

Sleek as the skin of a python,

The earth stretching out now

Like a leopard in the sun,

Drying her sleek hide.

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Intersecting Concentrics

Down they come,

Him first, days before she shows,

Rings expanding around him concentric,

Then her, now swimming in tandem,

She follows him, rings intersecting,

Now grubbing in the rill,

Each fanning one wing,

Flashing their blue and their bond,

Male and female in the spring.

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Win Doggerel

Blue ribbon red

ribbon white see

your name in

agate type be the

first be the best

win gold stars for

your good looks

call the paper

praise the lord

paste the clippings

in a book make

awards your call

to action length of life when winning ends

a simple matter of subtraction.

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Snow in Late March

Snow in late March like a farewell

from a friend who has stayed too long,

waving, a little sad, mostly happy

for the freedom and the space,

aware again of their finer qualities,

everything best in measured doses,

including  poetry.

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Water Cycle

Wraiths raised by the quick sun,

Skyward spirits of the water

Moving still in all its forms

Among our thirsty billions,

Healing what it touches,

The planet, too, if we let it

Rest, let it rest,

Let it drink and breathe.

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Reflections

Surfaces, depths,

creatures no different,

surfaces,

depths,

elusive

as time,

the living,

the dead,

the depths

overhead,

fish in the sky,

still here instead.

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Winter's End

Climb the awakening hill

Coil of life unfurling

Head in the sky with the wind

Sharing our pulse and our thoughts

One winter closer to last

Every good reason on earth

To celebrate gravity.

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Rite of Passage

Tunnel through Big Savage

opened to the mid-March light

to long vistas to soaring birds

to helmeted bicyclists

waiting to be first

waiting to ride summer

men under the mountain

in the cool drippng dark

waiting to emerge

and stand blinking

with accomplishment, keepers

of the Great Allegheny Passage.

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Robin Rain

Robin rain

Come evening

Raises the worms,

New song

Come morning

Raises the heart.

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The Day Ends in Silence

The day ends in silence

blackbirds spreading out

over the continent from the south

the mallard startled off the pond

circles until it's safe to land again

the world is full of suffering

come sit on this hilltop

and watch the night come.

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Direction

Broken and bowed, flattened in the fallow field

By wind, by snow, by the forces of winter

in our absence, showing the way

of the prevalent elements, revealed now

as the snow sinks into the earth,

the natural path, the direction of the spheres

spinning in their revolutions around

our primal star, crushing in its flame and light,

proof that the universe goes on without us,

that beauty exists beyond our existence;

let us recognize it while we can, with gratitude.

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Primal March

Plastering transitory horizontal snow

Wind we can hold in our stiffening hands

Stones born of ice in the cold sudden sun

Awakening surge in the small sweet veins

Heat of our open-air lusts each to each.

-

Primitive

Ancient eye

knowledge of

the cruel ways

of kill of eat

of long ago

overcome by

the laws of

compassionate

men subsumed

in the order of

a sane world

or so men like

to think.

Latitude

No shock of flight

To bask as an exotic

In the morning and at dusk

To stand with your feet

In the cold puddled mud

Of a muck spreader's tracks;

No shock of flight I said,

But a release of mind

Into the vast expanse

Of the slow familiar,

The deep unfurling

Of the seasons of self.

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Training for Spring

The Forida parks are wiser,

Quieter, calmer, more civilized

Than The Show farther north.

No blaring scoreboards.

No clangorous giveaways.

Just the crack of the bat, just

The pop of the ball in the glove,

Just the gifted young men

calling out to each other,

Just the game in the sunlight

As it was meant to be played,

Just the open geometric spaces,

Just the flight of the ball,

Just the order of threes,

Just the continuance,

Just the tradition.

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The Gathering

It's a lifestyle

You hear it often

The choice to be free of choices

To pack dinner most evenings in coolers

Not forgetting the corkscrew

To dine with friends in the sound of surf

To toast sunset over the Gulf

Knowing the richest colors

Are after the sun goes down

That the sweetest hours of the day

Are at the beginning of its end.

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Living Unknown

When was this self which is like a floating cloud

Ever limited by boundaries of north and south?

Live unknown if you would realize your end.

Avoid the the dust of the times

And the wind of the Northern Pass.

As for literature, it is its own reward.

Fortunately fools pay little attention to it.

–lines of Su Dongpo, 11th Century.

Gulf: View from Venice Beach

Take our picture sir

While the sun is going down on all that's young

While the tide is clear and warm

While the sand supports our bones

Take us now while we're in love and strong

While our days are rich with work

While our nights are free of screams

While our memories give us peace

Take it now and wish us well and say no more.

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