So, there’s this place in Colorado called the Black Canyon, because it mostly is, except for a chalk-white line I’ll tell you about later.  I went there once when I was still young and cool enough that a guy in the parking lot lying on the hood of his Maverick asked me if I wanted to share a joint and watch the sun set but I told him no because I got high on nature.  So I walked past these two old ladies who were younger than I am now who were on their hands and knees because they were afraid to stand on the edge because the Park Service didn’t put railings on the rim of the Black Canyon. I looked out over the Painted Wall where a friend of mine would later jump off with a parachute and land, broken but proud, fifty million years below.  So, there’s this chalk-white line that’s a hundred thousand years thick.  And I was thinking that’s longer than all of human history, and some day, everything we’ve ever done, the Panama canal and the Burj Khalifa and the Pentagon and all of Elon Musk’s rockets (but it was someone else we were supposed to hate in those days, I think it was Ted Turner) anyway, some day all this would be just another chalk-white line on a canyon wall, and I wondered if we’d forgotten someone else who might be in that chalk-white line like dinosaur people or something.  Before I left, I scrapped my initials in the sand by the two ladies on their hands and knees who must be dead by now.

A world,
Once serene,
Blessed with dignified change
At the pace of shifting continents,
And eroding mountains.
The epochs rolled on.
Then came infestation,
With its slimy tendrils.
Every rock fouled by growth
Every crevice dark with
Rot and decay.
Filaments grow upward and branched
Giving shade for corruption
Beneath their moldering feet.
Some run across the festering plains
Trying to rise higher and live longer
Only to be rent limb from limb
And sink into the ooze
That strips flesh from bone
The muck always wins
And the cycle of death continues
Until the sun, disgusted,
Burns the world clean once more.

The wind brought the smell
Of aspen trees
Down from the Rockies
Clearing the smell of wood smoke
In that town of Arab princes
And Physics institutes
And visiting Tibetan monks.
My father settled his old bones
On the front porch.
“Son”, he said, perhaps knowing
The staleness in my heart,
“Why don’t you go to a lecture at the institute?”
So I walked through the fragrant streets,
As sunset lit the mountains tops
Above the shadowed valley,
To the auditorium crowded with far-seers.
“What is the origin of supermassive black holes?”
“What role does dark matter play in the evolution of galaxies?”
And the staleness blew away with the wood smoke.
My mind wandered across the universe
As I walked home under the starry sky,
Telling my wife, so far away, of my rediscovered awe.
I looked up to see maroon robes
And the gentle face from the posters:
“Hear the Dali Lama speak.”
With my android to my ear,
I smiled.
And he smiled.
As the wind flowed down from the mountains.

You don’t sleep well in hospitals
Someone always bustles in
To bring your suppository.
At night, they ship out the visitors
Leaving flowers and balloons stirring in the air conditioning
It’s dark
Except for the light under the door
And quiet
Except for
The distant beeping at the nurse’s station
The balloon faces leer from the shadows
While I watch Forensic Files marathons
Waiting for the next dose.
You feel good for three hours
But the meds always wear off before
The nurses will give you another.
When they come, a quick pill in a paper cup,
And you can sleep for a while
The fourth hour is the hardest

Ten-thirty AM in the campground,
Mourning Doves coo their sad sound,
People air their damp sleeping bags
Children swarm on electric scooters.
(In my day, it was roller skates)
Then, the diesels rumble to life.
Wives with cell phones direct the backouts,
Don’t run over the scooters!
Speed limit: five miles per hour,
(When are we going to go metric?)
Yet the earth trembles
As they pass by, single file.
Above, old white men look down
From their Plexiglas canopies,
The last one towing a smart car.
(To save gas, I presume)
The rumble moves down the county road,
The electric scooters swarm again,
And the Mourning Doves resume their laments

Red:
The glimmer of Mars on a northern lake
Sandblasting the old battleship’s belly

War:
Men in blue jackets line the railings
Bloodless hands signed the armistice,

Thursday:
Too early for a drink after work
White faces watched the stock market fall

Blackboards:
Teacher’s pets got to clean the erasers
The sound of fingernails could twist your stomach

Convenience:
What a thing to base society on
Driving down to pick up a box of hamburger helper

Michelangelo:
Woman’s ******* on men’s bodies
Freeing the form from the marble

Igneous Rocks:
Lava flows melting the asphalt driveways
Ocher glow on the bellies of helicopters.

The melting snow
Reveals the ruins of my city,
Fills the *** holes,
And makes the heaved sidewalks
Into skewed mirrors
Reflecting the abandoned storefronts.
And the legislature just extended
Daylight savings time.
Again.