—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
