Some mornings I wake up tired
before the fire of the sun eats
the mist covering the dust
on the long road my feet travel
each day wishing I was asleep still
just like a snake in an old tire
dreaming of young boys rolling
me over and over down a steep hill
again, forever and ever, amen.

Must we only dream
   of wise kings who know
that rivers must flow
   peacefully
so a woman can sing
   her children to sleep
and fathers not weep
   holding them
in grief too heartbroken
   to rage
at the violence men bring
    in this age
that should be long left
   behind us?

a rose I had
plucked her from
a ten foot high
bush growing
at the end of my mobile home
the city
loved her incomparable yellow
had many men ask could they have a
cutting
I answered
every one the same
she is nature's gift
her roots and thorns long stems
are a gift to us
her beauty is
not mine to hoard
go ahead
it'll cost you fifty

free thoughts on my day the universe
the guy with a sign on the corner a backpack  
his life on the side of a highway just wanting to go to
Dothan -his sign says

I turned the other way ,
I had my day all planned.
Two jobs to do make enough
dough for my weekend party.

I thought about him
for the next ten miles
heard his loneliness sing through
my tires

I turned around went back
glad I had found a care a heart
concern for someone other than I

And got back to that corner  
empty , it was. No man no sign no backpack no worldly belongings
alone on a corner of a highway in Alabama.

I rode my way back home. decided to take a day off
and think.