RODEO RIDER
Time’s a bucking bronco
furious to shake me off,
still I hang on tight
strictly from pride.
Guess he’s gotten bored with me
wants to test the next damn fool
who’ll mount willingly
to dare the ride.
Whirls me in a tesseract:
Past and Future meld with Now
grandchild fused with child,
and I am young.
Once I rode a horse called Gold
tried but could not make him halt:
missed the flapping reins
whipping him on.
Feared I’d ride forever
but his weary legs gave out.
He stopped, snorted mist
and let me go.
But…
Time’s a different sort of beast:
relentless, cruel, untiring.
We’ll not part gently.
This much I know.
THIS MORNING
contrails
stitched your initials in the sky
first sharp,
then cotton fluff, then gone.
My friend
said you were saying hi
from
someplace northward of the sun.
But she
finds comfort everywhere:
In music
from a passing car,
or robin lighting
on his chair,
she sees a
sign from her lost love.
So she
insists you’ve come to me
as
hummingbird with onyx glare
suspended
inches from my face,
or strange
cat waiting on the stair.
He would not
leave his chosen place
as if his
home was always there.
(And smiled
at me with amber eyes—
your color
when your mood was fair.)
Such moments
do not prove you live.
The comforts
we create are lies.
If answered
once, I might believe
but what I
ask you do not give:
Because you
never come in dreams,
no matter
how I plead and call,
each “sign” is
merely what it seems.
The sky is
empty after all.
ABSCISSION
LAYER
For a time
all appears
the same:
the leaf
remains attached
by memory.
Only the
tree
senses its
loss.
So with
love:
Long before
they parted
the wound
had healed.
SPRING STORM
After
days of sun
and
arid shirtsleeve heat
we
moved geraniums outside,
took
covers from the picnic set—
grateful
for the end of cold.
Suddenly,
at noon
an
over-stuffed dark cloud
on
its way to somewhere else,
burst
loudly, dimpling all the earth
with
icy golfball hail.
Finches
chirped, confused.
They
fled to sheltering trees
shaking
winter from their wings.
In
moments, all was coated white
and
startled silence reigned.
Bright
sun soon returned.
The
grass glowed green again.
Then,
mockingly, a single peal
of
thunder rolled like laughter from
the
jokester in the sky.,
LET’S
BE FOOLS TOGETHER
Let’s
pretend that we believe
that in
the sky there is an eye
that
sees and grieves,
an ear
that hears us cry.
Let’s
imagine there’s a Guide
who has
a real plan for us.
Let’s
jump with joy, forget our pride,
Let’s
loudly shout in chorus:
“Thank
You for the sunshine!
Thank
You for the rain!
Thank
You for the beauty!
Thank
You for the pain!”
Let’s
eat the junk that kills us.
Let’s
breathe the air that chokes.
Let’s
let the rich ones steal the world
from
all us simple folks.
You
know what? I don’t care.
Let
them ravish everywhere,
Send
the victims to the chair.
Give
the guilty ones my share.
I’m
weary of excuses
for my
fellow man.
I’m
tired of the abuses
they
commit since time began.
Let’s
admit there’s nothing,
no reason
for it all.
Let’s
be fools together
forget
the things we know—
Let’s
be joyous fools together
Just
relax…and let it go.
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