let’s go back a
hundred-thousand years

to these ragged edges
torn rains
raw greens
biting seas

to the first sunrise,
now understood.
tears of calm joy –

a return.

we find ourselves
in this,
a kinship;
our brother is
our keeper,
and we
its’ guardian,
walk the edges
and the smooths;
our planet,
Earth’s children

teach me thy ways,
i follow
you;
the warmth,
changing colors,
everlasting
radiance,
I stand in the rays,
marveling the path;
we contemplate
The evening set,
your fiery dusk
friend, love
end the day.

Krack-ack-rack fleeing,
tree limb limb
swinging

Bank bank dip slipping, tail flipping, pout snout

Soft mud ooze soothing,
  hippo sun funning

Soft eyes      scanning,   flatboat

patience exceeding the lost madness,
fighting the reign  -  angry insanity.
vying for control, a dichotomy.

losing to the end  -  ancient battles,
evolutionary inevitability,
the loss of knowledge,
the death of understanding is at hand.
we are glad to see it go,
waving goodbye with red-clotted sticks
and true love.

Alone

Having now ascended the timeless moss-encroached stone steps
onto the new plain: earthy, pale, yellow, and grassy –
yet there is no grass;
only a large sun near the horizon, neither setting or rising
sun shining with the pale blue sky fading brightly to black,
whose wind breezes delicate music and ethereal threads.

Could just as well be surging up through fractures
in the ground, but this cool golden land remains solid
in its effortless abandon.

The land stretches away to vanish.  Nowhere is it close.
It is under my feet, grazing imagined toes.

Feeling the shade and coolness of the great pines,
I see in all directions as there are no trees.

A few horizontal wisps of white cloud, touched with the sun,
draw their close star into my universe as I converse
with myself and new surroundings,

Alone on my sheet of plain and singing sky.

Silver, cool, harsh rock-smooth as rolled steel on the horizon defies the cold blue-violet sky of Mars as the pinpoint dots of distant white suns circle in wonder of the scene.

Green mist hanging from the verdant leaves of the thick mountain forest permeates the humid cool air of a rain of a few minutes past above the soggy moss, gray-green rock, deep red brown trail, columned by mighty yet yielding deep-colored trunks.

Glistening snow reflects on each crystal the apparition of a cold white moon, blinding in glorious circles the eye which beholds the perimeter of sentinel black-green poines, opening the snow-hidden field to that which it mirrors.

Deep sea-salty blue-green transparency softens the pink bottom to a wavy yellow-pink-yellow-pink-banded black-white-black skittering across the deep pink-yellow-pink green blades waving in time to the yellow-pink-yellow deep sea, never leave.

On this day Cernan lands from his Gemini IX flight with Stafford conducting a two-hour space walk in that void.

There were days left over;
this fantastic architecture,
days of a planet too young to be seen,
at man’s eyes.

wanders companioned,
weary youth,
reflects on, with curious eyes path,
feel the last evening’s silent branches breath;
too few:
one step back Adam.
Integrate the least,
                   lest:
                   last tomorrow:

Atlantean ship’s return, dark outland’s call,
in men’s dreams only, to cold steam rising fall,
on green magic’s mist want,
only to find

lifting random hushes of grey green,
gentle pushes and unknown time
of salt sprinkled quiet and solitary
mist,

rising;
lifted;

speckled sand; flecked dunes
clumps grass blades,
their yellow curled tips

watching;

a small girl;
single tiny impressions
on level reaches home.

and the waves watching,
urchins but children of the sea,
learn their moods and reasons
searching in her eyes.

Days above morning, flying leaves leaving
     Out crimson’s crisp echo before the sharp blast.
Out crimson’s crisp echo
    I flying leaves leavings, watch days above morning
will sharp winds ride?
In this calm serene
      half-a-world away         unseen
high and high gasping the highest col raking
in final pierced rays of a cold sun’s begone
on grays of fierce snow crystal
crystal quiet alone
caused shattered collapses of ice-tons descending
is there a noise if no one can hear?

row and glide,
but do not hide,
for millions lie hidden
in cold pockets,
who will warm by reflection
of we who see,
grasping the secret power
of the present.

- peek around the corner
from the quiet shores of
sentimental memories.

- come out and be defenseless.

Chicago’s pall, leave behind.
Evanston’s smog,
still, a hope.  Lone telescope –

through the fog,   Faint light find,
Andromeda’s call.

Once away the house it burns
the fields they say are hay
Hey!
What the devil knows

so the quiet pre-born stars
share unquestioning looks,
and talk of insane releases.

“I laugh in the open field,
the sun’s house burning over
and down my shoulders.
I’m so sad.”

She smiles, giggles
and as they relax
the calm pouring
of the fire that does not burn.

high lights and gleaming cords,
roads and paths,
don’t lead them anywhere.
but you will someday take them all,
take them all at once –
someday,
but not today.