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.

My parents used to fish
On Castle Creek
With canvas vests and wicker creels.
They always caught their limit.
And we had fresh trout for breakfast.
Last year
I drove my father
Up Castle Creek,
Alone and with knees too old
For clambering on wet rocks.
We stopped and talked
To a fisherman
With nylon gear and neoprene boots.
My father told him where the fish were.
Then I drove him home,
Down castle creek,
For the last time.

I saw a Muskellunge
Snap a tiny Loon
Out of its mother's wake
Leaving her to circle
The floating down
And cry
That primal cry
That echoes
Through the north woods.

The ghosts of the dead give no shade
In this cemetery of stumps.
Elsewhere, the seeds left behind
Sprouted, and the forest lived again.
Not so on Kingston plain,
Where the life of the very soil failed,
Now a field of Bracken fern and lichen.
But, here and there,
An Aspen lifts it's quaking leaves.
In the shade, the lichens yield,
And grass grows again.
"Perhaps in another hundred years",
The ghosts whisper.

Are you still alive?
Or did your mother’s mistake
Give birth to a child
With her own death already within?
I remember your head on my shoulder
When you told me
“I’ll probably be okay.
But I might need a hysterectomy.”
You never gave me the chance
To face that future with you.
“Maybe we both needed it,”
As you closed the door
I looked you up on Facebook
You’d be sixty-eight now,
If you lived.

The teacher traced the golden lines
Across his Mercator projection,
(Now considered imperialist.)
The Frigid zone:
Where people live only to survive
The Torrid zone:
Where life is too easy
We should be grateful
To live in the Temperate zone:
Where the challenge of the seasons
Makes men prepare and plan
And make their alabaster cities gleam
How cruel of us
To deny them
Our metaphor.

Why must I die?
I asked the man in the black robe
As he sharpened his bone-white knife
My time here has been so short
He stepped closer
And smiled
(Why does death smile)?
You should be grateful
Everyone must face me
Naked and alone
Unable to flee or cajole or bargain
Or bully
He lifted his blade
Or would you prefer
An immortal ******?

I remember sitting at the top of the stairs
At night
To hear adult secrets from below.
They talked about Polio
And Selma.
“We’ll have to keep his bedroom window closed.”
“Did you hear that sheriff with the sunglasses?”
I remember the iron lung wards,
Like graveyards for the living.
I asked my father if the protestors were crazy.
He said “no.”
I remember they called Sabin a hero,
The March of Dimes moved on.
We moved to an integrated school.
“I’m not colored,” Olonzo told me.  “I’m black.”
I remember mounting tapes on the night shift
With Don.
We played chess when it got quiet.
We joked about playing black and white
Until he got killed.
Now Black Lives Matter
And my mask hangs next to the car keys.

I couldn’t find the car
So, I walked that night
Past tall stone churches,
And trees too big,
And gardens with wizards hiding in the corners.
I shouted in the courtyard of echoes
Was dazzled in the hall of illusions
I walked in bare feet
Through fields of herbs
By secret ponds of golden fish
And looked through the window
At the iron towers
Silhouetted by the blue dawn.
Until they told me
It was time to go.

Do Seagulls have kings?
Someone to settle disputes
Over choice bits
Of floating detritus?
They don’t seem organized,
Balancing on the wind,
And Laughing

We’re allowed to walk
Down by the river
During the Plague
Stepping aside for the others
So they don’t get too close
While the lustful geese
Joust, just like
The middle ages
And the river rolls down to the sea.

I used to pray at bedtime
That your electric violence
Would spare our house.
Once I stood on a summer night,
Bare ankles wet with dew,
As your voice rumbled across the fields,
And you lit the clouds beyond the trees.
Later I drove a car,
Secure that my steel box
And rubber wheels ungrounded me.
But you set the wires swinging,
And unbearable blue light
Cast black shadows through the windshield.
Now the sky grows darker,
And the wind is in my face.
You strike close,
Then closer,
And closer still.

On the shore
Of the dark lake,
I awoke,
When someone said
"Hey, Simpson"
Outside my tent.
My name is not Simpson.
The voice spoke again,
Then another, then a chorus
Of "Hey, Simpson".
The next night I awoke
When someone said
"Hey, Edgar"
Outside my tent.
My name is not Edgar.

The young crusader sat
With stern jaw set
On the old pink couch
That was all they could afford
With her dark gentle head
On his lap
And watched Jack Benny
Before her trip
To the doctor.

The boys were throwing poles
Like spears
To see who was the mightiest
I threw a pole too.
Even little John Dinky
That twit
Threw his pole
Farther than mine
And that has made
All the difference.

I saw a dark rainbow,
An arc of shadow and red,
Caught between the setting sun,
And a storm in the east.
Light and dark in conflict,
Locked in somber beauty,
Against the end of day.

In Texas,
Land of guns,
And oil fields,
And chain gangs,
They warm sea turtles
In plastic bins
When it gets cold,
And send them on their way
When the sun returns.

I sat by the water
In my Walmart folding chair.
A gull came to visit.
He told me
He played on the wind all day,
But his feathers were finer
Than my polyester fleece.
I think I saw that in the Bible.
Then he flew away
With one of my corn chips.

Some of today's children
Still swim in wild lakes,
Where the fish nibble toes,
And weeds slither around bare legs.
They sing songs together,
Which echo across the water.
Two loons herd their children away,
And their prehistoric
Cries of protest
Echo across the water.

All things die,
Even tree houses,
And trees.
Far away,
The children who played here,
Among green leaves,
Sigh
Their children
Never call.

The cat
Brings my wife toys
At night
He drops
A velvet mouse
By her head
And curls up at her feet
I pull her close
And feel the soft flannel
I left for her
Under the Christmas tree.

Only when the leaves have fallen
And the world is quiet
As the snow falls softly
Can I hear the lonely wail
Of distant trains
As they run down the tracks
Far away from my window

The sun shines bright on Agate Bay.
Lake Superior is cobalt cold,
And the wind never stops,
Hurrying the little waves,
Onto the red pebble beach,
Which hurts bare feet.
Two girls in bikinis walk
With eyes downcast,
Looking for the pretty stones.
Indifferent to the gelid wind.

Crows flock in the graveyard
Of St. David’s cathedral.
We walk under the gnarled trees.
My wife takes my hand,
“Have I told you I love you today?”
She does that.
No, but you did wipe crow ****,
Off the back of my neck,
With a tissue
From your purse.

She climbs
She leaps
And crashes
And climbs again
Such energy
She almost flies
Such courage
Til a manic scramble
Across a lap
A grabbed tail
This is a boy cat
Oh.
You can get him nuetered.

I was supposed to be
A warrior,
The son and heir,
To the old crusader.
But motivation is not in our genes,
And a man’s determination
That the next generation
Will be different,
Sometimes wins out.

Mars was bright that year,
And reflected off the lonely lake,
As red as the belly of my upturned canoe.
I stood naked by the lapping waves,
Washing off the stale bug dope,
In the smoke from my campfire,
(The mosquitoes, too, were bad that year.)
The accusing war-god eye
Looked up from the dark water
And asked
“What if you broke an arm out here?”

An old man
Sat on the rocks
And scowled
At the boy with the blue hair
And baggy shorts
Who was swimming in the rapids
Daring the others to jump in.
The old man
Remembered,
And smiled

The gas can can't stay in the car or the tents,
So it stays by the post where the lantern is hung.
It cools in the shade and the vapors condense,
'til the flat sides cave in,
And the gas can goes "Spung".

Then the sun slides around, and warms it anew.
The pressure increases like an inflating lung,
'til the roiling and boiling gaseous stew
Pops out the hot metal
And the gas can goes "Spung".

The day settles out and the night does abide,
The fire burns to embers and the last song is sung.
The wind in the holler cools down the tin sides,
The pressure drops off,
And the gas can goes "Spung".

Then, late in the night when the moon shines above,
And none but the whip-poor-will raises his tongue,
The silence is heavy and the air does not move,
No reason calls,
But the gas can goes "Spung".

Blue stilt bird in a tree
On the green
Promontory.
When he tired of the view,
He flew.
I, too
Flew,
Or, so it seemed,
In dreams.

A Tuesday I should have been in school,
Sitting in the basement,
With my father,
And my grandmother,
And my brothers and sisters.
Dad reading from the Bible.
I looked up through the window,
And saw the gurney wheels roll out the front door.

A woman with three children
Lost one.
He ran away laughing.
But a woman with a teen-aged son
And a big smile
Swooped in a like a low-flying aircraft
And caught him between her mother’s *******
And took him back.

Breakfast in bed,
And idle pools,
And fountains spreading rainbows in the sun,
Which mostly shines.
An hour at the mill and back
Wiping the hands on tissue
That is never seen again
Perfect hands
Soft and White
For holding flowers
An island, not in the sea,
But in tumult.
A seawall weary and straining
Lamentations bitter and loud
Not from without
But within.

It hurt too much to cry for Mom,
But I had a fat old yellow Tom
Those days it seemed I never sat
Without that furball on my lap.
When I had to leave him at the vet
I wept
A funny fat old yellow cat
The straw that broke the camel's back.

My friends call it a transition
A new phase of life
The guiltmongers scowl
"Not everyone is as lucky as you"
I sit with drink in hand
And watch the setting sun
The transition from this phase
Is death.

You'd take my hand and wait to see,
What I'd say when you loved me.
I know you must have wondered why,
I never gave you like reply.
But lady, you must understand,
Why I only squeezed your hand.
Love enough was only there,
To be important to be fair.
I told my self to be beguiled,
I only needed wait awhile.
But before that time you set me free,
Was the problem you, or was it me?

They freed the river
A steam shovel on a barge
Gnawed the dam down to bedrock
And the river ran free
Now alders line the banks
The salmon have returned
The holy men’s prayers are answered
But a flood washed out the road
To the dam
Last year.

The dam on the Grand Coulee
Was awesome
The wildflowers on the mountain
Were indescribable
So, according to the box
Were the crackers
I had for breakfast.

My wife knows what a Dobsonfly is.
She tenderly plucks him
Off my fleece jacket
And coos how pretty
His red eyes are
Indifferent, he flies away
To mate and die.

They call in blue shade
The kind they don't like
Nothing grows beneath the tree
They like green shade
The kind that shares
But the hemlocks still stand
And the pines are dying.

I found a little fish
In a little pool
Halfway up a cliff,
Jumping bravely up the trickle
To the next pool
Which was not there
That little pool is the measure of his life
unless he jumps too far
And dies
flopping on the rock.

I keep thinking about the lion
who could pull down a buffalo alone
But when they shot him with a tranquilizer dart
And weighed him in a canvas sling
He weighed only 400 pounds.
Too small to ever win a pride
He ended as a pile of bleaching bone
He died as he hunted – alone.

Trees, so green and reaching high,
Staples twixt the earth and sky.
The branches hold the heavens down,
Even when the winds sweep round.
The roots which we think feed the tree,
Keep the ground from falling free.
If we had not these doughty ties,
Holding down the flighty skies,
Sun and dirt would rip apart,
Each their lonely courses chart,
And we would curse the name of God,
For not attaching sky to sod.

There was a secret sidewalk
In my hometown
That we walked every day
Coming home from school
Despite the shroud of hanging inchworms
That veiled the path
Through our little wilderness.
I went back last year
To find a row
Of swimming pools.