Each night
The sliver grows
Like young buck antlers,
Gambolling
Beneath the thunderous claps
Gathering
Over our part
Of the world,
In July.

i.

dusk melts into walls
and corners,
the sun begins to dip,
below the earth
little islands of
light and shadow.

ii.

the light softens,
carries us towards
the sentry keeper
of the blue earth
the night’s noble
gaze.

iii.

rose-wood and indigo,
immense cloud
washed-out like
faded denim,
stars in summer’s hollowy skies.

iv.

as dark as a tinted window
the land breaks free
from the sun, dissolves
into shadows bent
into a thousand shapes
and altitudes
like softening rivers
of the mind.

v.

uncovered, the night
forgets it flowers and its
prisms, relents to magical
seas of black ink.

Over by the wild fields, crossing wired fences
climbing into view, we saw the sandhill cranes
like airplanes, impossibly winged
they weaved in and out of sight
stalking tall amid the grassy screens
prehistorically made and in the green
of murky shallows to wade
warming in the sun, they come
returning every year
and we can feel the air move
in a giant swoop, a flapping wave
breathing heavy winged
we sighed, at their precarious lift off
the feathery snow of sky
alas, the distant birds 
silver streaking by.

I potted your healing purple verbena
comforting scarlet geranium
never will forget you
pink carnation
the roots were dry
so I added new soil
watered them good
they'll survive

your granddaughter
brought them here
along with "Phil"
the ancient philodendron
he's taken up residence
close to her bed
his elephant ears
spread wide and listening

I thought you would  
be pleased to know
she loaded plants
until the car was full
that she did find
a bit of solace
in the garden
you left behind

Our Strawberry Moon,
Now waxed in June,
Brings crops to bloom;
Like a balloon:
All gone too soon.

Squalls force the judgement of yesterday
When oblique giants commanded the afternoon
Washing rural lanes , cooling the green manmade
furrows , shadowing the very ground from where I
stand today  
Have the fruits of today retained the memory of my
yesterday* ...

Shall I talk of Mistress Moon
Or her sisters the stars
Etching their endless orbits
On the black of space and night

Or should I talk of Brother Sun
Who brings the daytime on his own
Making the unseen seen again
And opening flowers to smiles

Without the dark of night
Separated from the bright of day
Our world would just exist
In a constant shade of grey

                                            By Phil Roberts

Today the rains came, without any warning
I watched droplets forming, pooling on the ground
the trees dissolving into palest fog
into the quiet of this forest, void of birds
traveling off to some secret world
perhaps to some cavernous mountain hollow
with glorious wings, I dream to follow
through the darkened woods, hidden by ferns
through harrowing clouds to be one with birds
with gorgeous feathers, downy warm
among the flickers, pheasant and crow
to be an evening silhouette in the alpenglow
a skylark winging in a painted sky.

The bones of this earth
grind down our fates
our hopes
our dreams
our lives

And a feathered serpent rules
over these climes
this western hemisphere
these Americas
have you heard?

Something elemental shapes this
world
and tempers our lives.
Unknown to most.

The old ones
the people who lived here before
knew him

Quetzalcoatl
Kukulkan
God of learning
Wearer of the wind jewel
the one who whispers life
and death
through his lips.
And you must drink it.
Alive or dead.

The morning star is his sign.
The evening star
his farewell.

He carries the sun
as a shield
and your fate
your fortune
as a good luck charm.

Listen and look.
You will see
You will hear it.

Whispers like water
from the heart
the skin
the bones of this sweet earth.

Listen.
You will hear it.