when the moon was full,
grandpa and I would stay in town past sunset
the road home good, with few ruts, the pastures soft
silver in all that lunar light

his team was old, slow,
but grandpa knew no haste
even getting to the cellar, when
great twisters came

born the week Lincoln freed the slaves
he not once drove a car, though he lived
to read of Sputnik in the Gazette,
and died when JFK was elected

summers lasted a long time
with grandpa--I still see him. giving reins
a gentle shake, reminding his horses to pull us home
whistling to them, telling me tales

on a July night, the year of the Crash
he put his gaze on the fat orb, barely waning
“one day we'll put a man up there,” he proclaimed
but I thought he was pulling my leg

“have to put him in a cannon like,
enclosed in some hard shell, otherwise
we’d blow him all to hell, gettin' enough power
to loose the bounds of God's earth”

grandpa didn't live to hear Neil's famous words,
two score years after that summer night; though I yet hear the shod
hooves plodding, the wagon wheels rolling, and his words
soothsaying, whenever I gaze at a white moon’s face

(the old man told his grandson)
that fleck of light out yonder is Venus
all by itself, out in the dark
can we go there?

would take my old truck a hundred
years to make it, and there ain't no air
what do people breathe
on that planet?

ain't no people, just a mess
of smelly clouds and hot rocks
it looks so small from here
and white, very white

that's light from the sun
grandson, and that tricks our eyes, even here
wait, grandpa, I see another light
blinking, going to Venus

that's a big old jet,
fifty far miles from here
but it's getting closer to Venus
see it, will it land there?

no boy, it won't come any closer
to that fried rock than we are to Mars
I see it, see, I see it, closer
even closer, blinking

I told you light tricks your eyes
I s'pose you'll figure that out later
wait, wait, I can't see it anymore
did it land on Venus?

maybe, maybe so, son
but I don't know for sure, it's just gone
*'cuz light tricks our eyes, right
grandpa, right?

it never occurred to him,
not even late in the light of day,
he had paid scant attention
to birds

he heard the mourning doves
and saw a black ****** of crows scavenge
for crumbs at his feet at the outdoor cafe;
a crimson cardinal caught his eye, once

but most days he looked little
to the skies, and couldn't tell a wondrous warbler
from a fine finch--vultures and eagles were the same:
carrion eaters, high flyers

this, his avian compendium complete,
save hummingbirds he recalled outside his kitchen window
as a child, when his mother would bake bread
and fill the feeder with sugar water

the buzzing birds had caught his eye, until
his mother passed; then he failed to feed the tiny flock;
where they went he did not know, for he had little
wonder where winged creatures go

in this pasture,
one hundred days past,
scores cheered as the current coursed
through Bundy's body

this evening, I am here,
solitaire, except for my *****,
the cattle, and the fireflies sprinkled
against the night

my spaniel nips
at the flies, but they are quick,
eluding her jaws to perform
a brilliant alchemy again

amidst this spectacle,
cows chew their cud, unperturbed, unaware
it seems, magical lightning comes without
thunder from these creatures

the bovines don't scatter
as I walk among them--perhaps they’ve forgotten
those revelers here on a crisp winter night, eager
to celebrate an extinguishing of light

sleep deprived five dozen hours  
I am on a desert highway, without a nickel
my thumb begging for a ride which wouldn’t come
until dawn    

but I don’t know all that dark is ahead;
I only know the night is moonless, the cedars
the pinyons on the far mesas are moving like mournful buffalo,
long gone except in my waking dream  

on the road two eyes are all I see
green, sparkling as prisms of light in all that black,  
electrified ***** of mushy matter, glowing in sockets
in a canine skull    

I fear strange dogs
and other fanged beasts--I pray to a god
I do not know is there, imploring empty space
and dark matter for salvation    

it comes when the lights of a diesel  
birth, rear, and shrink the shadow of me  
and allow my vexed eyes to see, an asphalt stream
with nary a scary creature but I

spending time with you is like
being cast eternally as a character in
a Terrence Malick film, a narrator dictating
our every move, our scripts unfolding
in slow, mesmerizing motion

someone always has to die in these tales
and question the almighty's purpose, if there
be one, beyond birth and return to the earth;
the time between being swallowed
by our eyes, undigested

I am ****** in as well, slowly, by the lungs
of our creator, whose exhalations come as oceans of light,
though high tides recede to reveal dark shores,
our inevitable demise, before painful,
interminable resurrections

the boy leaned his head back
and proclaimed the clouds looked like
a dog in a pond

when in his three years had he seen
a dog in a pond? who taught him you could see
anything in the heavens?  

trees spouting marshmallow blossoms  
white angels in a kangaroo choir, dragons
breathing scarlet fire   

who would tell him he saw but vapor
and light? who could make his hound drown
by ******* dry such a beautiful blue?

a sextillion tons of sea above me  
I am watchful sentinel, in the trench
Mariana--what strange creatures visit,
in this world without light  

day or night matters not, here,
where pressures are beyond measure
yet these beings glide by, more drifting
dreams than sluggish flesh  

my neighbors yet belch fire,
steam, and black cream from their bellies
as I did in my youth, but
I am now silent  

and though I have perfect recall
of all that has ever happened, I am crevice  
without the crease of time, and remember
not one sorrowful thing