a beautiful thing

 

It is a beautiful thing to wake

in the dark chill of October

and go out into it

where a crescent moon

and two stars appear both ahead

and in the rear view mirror

before you even leave home

to sit on the floor with it

kneecap to kneecap

inhaling the dark clarinet

of your body

only the breath of the tires

the train’s long choo-choo

searching in the rubble of itself

your pounding throat, a bratty knee

a molecule of coffee still clinging

to the root of  your tongue

your eyelids lower now

and in front of you wrapped shoulders

of a robe folded with her empty hands

that her, that you, that teacher

with the one word lesson

RETURN TO TOP >

Ursa Major

 

musket fire

the crack of all three 4x4’s

at 3 a.m.

our twelve-foot deck rail yields

to a cinnamon bear

 

no match

for his crescent claw’s

pick-pick-picking

the shed door’s panel peels

like a Chiquita sticker

 

on tippy-toes

he stretches for the spruce’s

suet feeder

its chain links, Perseids

raining down on the garden

 

I know

the Universal Tongue:

it is hunger

the bear’s stomach speaks to mine

and I understand its growl

 

Buddha Bear

his great moon face rising

amber-eyed

to offer his suet cake

to an August sky

Following the Gunnison

 

Zhuangzi’s road sign:

Icy Conditions

May Exist

 

Kodak 3200

its grain the same

as Cimmaron snow

 

the Gunnison

Ansel Adam’s Zone 5

grey-card grey

 

naked landscape

chaparral blushing

with the cold

 

reeling in the wind

ice fishermen summon

Kokanee salmon

 

the citrine flash

of an osprey’s eye

before she dives

 

that splash of blue

sky stones skipping across

the Curecanti