Shall I Sing?

What song shall I sing this morning?
Shall I sing of the sky
And the wonders above me,
Of the night and day,
The sun, moon, and stars?
Shall I sing of the wind,
The clouds and rain falling
Onto the desert?
Or shall I sing of the earth,
Core, mantle, and crust,
Of the rocks pushed up into mountains,
fractured, crumbling, eroding
Into the sand, silt, and clay
beneath my feet?
Shall I sing of the oceans
Blue cradle of life
Spawning storms,
Breathing for us all?
Shall I sing for life?
Shall I sing for my green brothers,
Tiny algae, grasses, and sequoias,
That grow to cover the earth
With a green blanket,
A garment that captures sunlight
For all that live?
Shall I sing for my creature brothers,
They who live and crawl, run and jump,
Swim and fly,
Build and court and mate and play,
And then sleep
Upon the earth,
Beneath the sky?
Shall I sing for my brothers and sisters
Living and singing
Like me?
Shall I sing for myself?
Shall I sing?

Ideas

I play with ideas.
I kick them around,
Bounce them
On the hard ground,
Throw them against the wall.
I stack them to build towers,
Weigh them,
Balance them,
A
nd spin them around.
And I hold them up
In the sunlight
To see how they sparkle.
Then I put them in my pocket
And keep them
To play with later.

This Path

This path,
This sky,
This sun,
This path,
This earth,
This wind,
This day
This body,
This mind.

I walk,
I look,
I feel,
I smile,
and walk.

untitled

windows closed
I still want to see
the color and movement
of this day's life
from my bed
I close my eyes
involuntarily
hoping for this
illness will pass
as I know
it will
it will

simple

Color,
sound,
scents,
life
all around;
I walk
through joy,
thick
as honey,
just as
it is.

Autumn Grasses

(for Mark Poulson)

lie down gently
your season is over
whether the wind
or flood or heavy foot
pushes you down
lie down gently
upon the earth
you have given
your gifts to us
and we thank you
and will remember you
lie down gently

for Jean

these are humble
called weeds
like me I suppose
I give then to you
with my heart
and soul...

Long Road

It is a long road
That we all travel,
Sometimes together,
Sometimes all alone.

It lies before us,
Never ending, connected,
From here to everywhere,
Across the great deserts,
Into dark forests,
Up over mountains,
Down into valleys.

It is a long road,
Paved by humanity,
A long road away
And back home again.

A Poet's Last Effort

I've drained
My brain...

Parowan Gap Musings

I am not native here;
I know so little of this land,
So little of the Earth,
The old ones knew.
They lived here,
Beneath the sky,
In yellow sunlight.
They i
nhaled the wind,
Drank the rain and streams
Ate from the soil,
Clothed themselves in skins,
Grew their crops,
their families, their clans,
Under the celestial wheel
of the seasons.
I too am of the Earth,
but I take nothing,
from it for myself.
I am cut off from the Earth.
fixed in blue light.

September 18, 2015

After the storms,
and floods that tore lives away,
we stand in the afternoon sun,
and witness the changes
to the mountains.
Summer's long grasp
has been broken again,
as we lean away from the sun,
into the cold winds that will come.
Oh... the colors of aspens,
new ephemeral gold,
that pour into our souls;
we are alive and rich
this day, this day of life.

Asymptotes

Ever approaching,
Never touching.

Could have been lovers,
They will never know.

On opposite sides,
Agreement so close.

Just when did he fall,
So far from our home?

It was just right there,
How did I miss it?

Closer and closer,
Never quite there.

September Grass

The vernal greens
have faded white,
summer seed heads
are nearly gone
the stately stems
are bent by winds.
Their season is
now nearly done.

The Wind

The wind blows this morning.
Its voice in my ears,
It pushes against me,
pulls on my hat.
It pushes the clouds
Over the land.
It is the breath of the sky
It is the breath of the earth,
of the ocean, the sun,
and of storm.
I breathe in the wind,
and become part of it,
and exhale, my breath
becomes part of it.
The wind blows against me
and lifting my arms
I feel that I could lift
up from the earth
like a kite and sail
above it all.
I hold on to my hat,
As the wind blows this morning.

There Is No Justice While Children Starve

A man with just a
little paunch and little hunger
is touched as he eats
his salad in front of
the television
images of children
starving multiply
by millions in his head
till he weeps
while he eats.

This Morning

I woke early this morning
to parental concerns, I suppose,
to ambitions, I suppose,
lights on in the house,
and lights outside,
Venus, Sirius, Orion.

It's cool after last night's
thunderstorms, remnant
pieces of a hurricane
watering this thirsty land,
the earth can use the rain,
my garden can use the rain,
I can use the rain,
watering my soul.

How faint the dawn is
this early and yet
how bright it will be.
What is lost in the dark
will be found in the light
this morning,
this day.

Two Ways

There are those
who stay put
in one place:
grasses, herbs,
bushes, and trees.
They may dance,
But they are
rooted in place.

There are those
who move out
over the ground,
in water,
or wing up
into the sky.
They too dance
and migrate,
the whole earth
is their home.

Two ways of being
staying here,
and going there.
Which am I?

Plate Tectonics, the Big Bang, and Evolution

When I was a boy
The Earth was solid rock
Beneath my feet,
The Heavens were eternal,
God made everything perfectly,
And my mom and dad
And everyone else
Were immortal.
Everything was beautiful,

and mine.

Then I learned
The Earth was not solid,
The Universe began
And will probably end.
There were no immortals
Walking around me.
We were flawed,
Inheriting errors in our cells
And everything imperfect
Was still beautiful
And mine.

In the shifting continents,
The expanding universe,
And evolving world,
I am poorer and richer
at the same time.

Stones

Small stones,
pebbles,
some are keepers;
round and smooth,
colorful,
sparkle.
But none perfect.
Part broken,
rough with accretion,
dull, dry.
But always unique,
and some stones
are keepers.

Coming Home

(From three days outdoors, in a jeep, and walking in  the desert...)

In the door,
I take off my dusty shoes
and clothes,
shower and shave,
unpack the backpack,
and return to you
about the same as I left,
to you, our home,
and our garden.

We have a roof,
and walls, and windows,
water in faucets, food on shelves.
We have our bed, our pillows,
we have our home.

What wilderness I have seen,
what wilderness may be,
surrounds us and reaches
touching us with sun, heat,
wind, dry, weeds, insects,
the spider in the corner.

We sweep it away,
close the doors,
and enjoy our illusion
of domestication,
and civilization...

Everything is cool, soft, and comfortable
here at home.

Ants in the Asphalt

There they were
ant colonies in the cracks
of a paved, asphalt road.
They were clearing their tunnels
forming the ring around the nest
without consulting DOT,
civil engineers,
city planners, or building inspectors.
They didn't care
how many cars drove by.
They didn't care that I walked by
and took a look at their nest.
They were busy.

Burdens

I watch people,
each carrying something,
age, disease, disabilities,
family, worries, grief, sorrow.

Like a cross,
we each carry
something.

I remember Christ
lifting our burdens,
from each of us,
everything, from everyone.

I believe
what holds us down now
may in the end
lift us up.

a feather (revisited)

A feather left on the path,
a gift, a token, a sign,
from some winged cousin of mine.
A feather that I pick up
and hold in my hand.
This once flew in the air,
and what once flew inside me
looked up at the sky again,
remembering.