Kathy Charmaz suggests that if
Grounded Theory leaves me stuck,
I ought to add an "ing" to all the memos
Of all the field notes of the scratch notes of the observations,
and the transcribed notes of the interviews
That I took a half a year ago,
And so....

I'm creating a list,
Starting with A
Accepting (criticism)
Adapting (to change)
Attending (to lessons)
Attributing (blame)
Attributing (success)

Skipping B
Which seems all alone,
I move to the Cs,
With a heart of cold stone....

Caring (from teacher)
Changing (to learn)
Collaborating (in learning)
Comparing (with others)
Connecting (key concepts, and ideas to life)
Correcting (one's errors in deeds or in thoughts)
Conferencing (to see what the good doctor thinks)
(Guess the Cs are nice to look at in my despair),

And on toward Ds,
Those diffident dogs,
Dialoguing (in classrooms, in memos and calls)
Differentiating (myself from the pack)
Disrespecting (my feet up on somebody's desk)
Dominating....(discussion in class or the hall)
(Careful, Ds, talk it out or you're gonna fall).

Es are Encouraging (the work can be done),
Enjoying (the tasks, alone or with you)
Engaging the students, (not too much to ask)
Excelling (the sense of, and actually, too)
(My sense is that E is a place to be dwelling)

F is still Focusing (on the specifics)
Then jumping to G,
Goal-setting (so needed, and powerful, too)
Graduating (the goal, so I've heard, how 'bout you?)

Then H is for Humor,
Amusing for sure,

And on to the I
Interacting (dialogue is our guide)
Identifying (the needs and the shame and the pride)

J stands with K,
Both empty and alone,

L is for Learning (adjusting in change)

M is for Modeling (Bandura's so proud)

N stands for "none" at the moment,
But O is for Organizing, (homework and my thoughts)
And P is Participating, (profs like this a lot)
Paying forward, (so noble, and so seldom done)
Persisting, (not quitting, as losers have done)
And Plagiarizing (May God help us all)
Praying, (we live through the work set before us)
Prioritizing, and
Finally, Progressing (Can we sing all in chorus?)

Q's pretty quiet just now,
But R is for Reading, and
Reflecting, (like mirrors or a pond)
Resigning, (accepting) or consider this,
Risking (daring to risk)

While S, Lovely S is all about Self,
Self-advocating (students)
Self-assessing, (too)
Self-deprecating, (but not much)
Self disciplining, (cool)
Self-motivating, (how often?)
Self-regulating, (we all should do this)
And last, some Struggling proceeds
Before we find ourselves Succeeding.

T is Threatening, (a sense of foreboding)
Teaching, (is harder under a threat)
Transitioning, (moving on, before we all rust)
Trying, (not tempting, but taking a try)
Tutoring, (If you need it, don't cry)

And U
Is alone with the flu.

So is V (guess it's viral),
But W's Writing, (the goal in this study, of course)

And so far,
X, Y, and Z
Are still hiding, no Ings in their view,
And it's back to my coding,
After I get back from the loo.

If I may presume to summarize the concept,
"Eminent Domain,"
The Big P People own the Right of Way
And the little p people
Have temporary possession of the  opportunity
To get out of the Way,
Or to be smashed under the wheels
Of Big P Progress.

Appropriate compensation will be paid,
Of Course,
And living spaces provided
To the little p people,
While the Big P People thunder by on their new highways,
Overpasses, airports, causeways, and thoroughfares.

Reclamation will be done over the torn earth
To re-bury the unearthed little p people's dead,
To restore damaged aquifers,
To "replace" trees and grasses "just as before,"
Never mind the pipelines,
The concrete roadways,
The railroads,
And the power lines....

Eminent Domain...
Rhymes with Capitalist Gain,  
And little p people's pain....

Your brain is plugged and foggy;
Your mind is on the freaking fritz;
The poetry is lost and boggy;
You hold your pen in woolen mitts.

Try a senryu about your life
Or a haiku on the froggy pond;
Cut through bloc de l'auter with a knife,
And slog out of the slough, Despond.

Sometimes it helps to focus long
On a single spot on the wall of life
And see what image comes along...
(I like to think of my pretty wife).

This writer's block's a funny thing
Tied somehow to the lives we lead,
And sterile writers need a fling
To let their stubborn poems breed.

So walk a while, or take a Jeep;
Visit the county fair...
Milk a cow or shear a sheep;
Wear flowers in your hair.

Or be like me and go take a nap;
Read a good book, or call an old friend;
Some poems are babies not yet in the lap,
Developing elsewhere, somewhere in the When....

Be sure they'll show up when they're ready to shine;
They'll trip off your fingers; they'll flow like red wine;
They'll sparkle or spark, or they'll whimper and cry,
But your poems will arrive, and I'm telling no lie.
Be patient, Good Allys..., the block's not an end,
Your poems are waiting ahead, 'round the bend.

It's not that I wanted to step away from the mic,
Nor wander away from the words;
It's this monstrous paper I'm trying to write
That keeps me from seeing you birds.

So, summer is ending, and I'm sixty-plus pages in,
With twenty or so of references done,
And a chapter or two I have yet to begin
Before I can rejoin the poetry fun.

I'd best step back out before gendarmes
Arrive to see if I'm even alive,
Locked up in this office with silent alarms
As I struggle to finally arrive.

Dissertation resembles gestation;
The fun was in passing exams;
Now I'm paying the past years' tuition
By proving I didn't just cram.

Can't wait to join you all in a few
...months?

Don

You come to the end of those long roads
You've staggered down,
When you have fallen and can only drag
Your sorry self around;
Remember then that home
Still is the place Frost told us
They have to take us in
When there's no place left
For us to go.

Remember when
You've no where else to turn
Because those bridges you have burned
Will no longer carry you across;
Because you're spurned by friends you've spurned;
Remember then that all's not lost;
A humbled soul still finds
That home remains a waiting friend...
When you remember when....

at the oddest moments
just at the brink of ennui
glimmers of eternity
ephemeral dancing joys
sideways slippings
just out of sight
moving fast
detectable only
to the desiring ear...
to the attentive eye...
faint sighings
murmuring laughter
patter pit of little feet
contented laying of jowls
in a dabble of sunlight
carpet warm stretchings
closing of contented eyes
soft dog snores
laconic life in the moment
this Sunday afternoon....

Before the sun
With his bright face
Puts angles on the shade,
Before old darkness slinks into his place,
I leave the house...
This morning off to work,
But slowing in my run,
I lean to see....

East and high above, a shypoke pair
Take leisure in their flight,
Wings creaking prehistoric,
Feet streaming back on boney stalks,
A trailing nuisance in the air,
Yet perfect for deep water walks.

The chilly air is still;
Dew hovers on the edge
Of giving up on hesitating summer.
Winter is not yet so far away
That crystal forms
Have been forgotten.

Dogwood, leafless yet, and bleeding red,
Begins to glow along the path
The joggers take before the morning sun.

The early light is best
To seek perspective on the world
Before the morning paper,
Before the morning cup;
The early light is best,
As long as we are up.

Thinks she sets aright
Some problem universal
In her leveraged might....

If the ******
Thinks that in ****** rage
Satiation lies...

If the Thief
Thinks in stealing pieces,
She takes home peace...

If the Bully
Considers righteous
His abuse of power...

Or if they do not care,
But run to evil deeds
Because they're there...

They do not think beyond
Commission,
Forget the list of victims
Includes themselves.

Aftermaths & Consequences
Force lives of guilt
Penned in fences,
Pending dooms,
Self destructions...

Perpetrators penetrating
Their own souls,
Destroying their own lives,
Believing devils' lies,
That no one has to pay;
No hell awaits to have its day.

Two Christmases ago,
Morning cold hovers in electrons.
Frost covers the Chevrolet
Backed by whiteness
Under zero degree sunlight
The old farm place sees morning
Bright and calm....

The ancient barn,
**** frosted roof agleam,
Stands downhill to the north,
Below a curving tractor trail
Cut in the snow...

At the other end of those tracks,
Eighty-one and counting,
You are crawling down
the tractor steps,
Pulling battered buckets
from the ancient fodder shack,
Hobbling to the cattle troughs...
Doing what you love to do...
Have done for fifty years....

I am taking pictures at the house,
Amazed at the cold and frost;
An onlooker now,
Somehow aware that I can not
Follow you...or won't,
Wistful still for attentions
you always freely gave
To kine instead of kin.

Could I go back,
Would I go down
To trough the feed?
I tell myself I would,
Or I would not.

The image burns coldly,
Electrically before me,
And only vaguely I'm aware
That you have slipped away.

Leaves have disappeared,
Only the last,
The fallen fruit, remains,
Fading red and waiting frost.

Not yet visible, the latent buds
Hang silent now on leafless boughs....

Summer's work,
Fallen in this garden of the Lost
Beneath autumn branches lies...
Graveyards of apples.

Only the passing deer,
Only the roosting turkey,
Only the raiding geese,
Bend low to pick the last of harvest up,
Quick provender
Before the coming snow.

A farm screen door latch
Should slam with the urgent drumming
Of a man or woman going off
On urgent business:
To see the cattle fed,
To till the fields,
To clang the dinner bell...
Should sing relentless songs of returns,
Not stand and wait for days...
Sagging as the hinges sag,
Lonely in waiting those who've left,
Forgetting to come back.

A door is meant
For entering and departing,
Handles on both sides.

Door latches that see
no leavings nor returnings
Are kindred to handles on coffin lids,
Opening containers only....
No longer home....

(Alone, I wanted love, both to be and to do...
Creation is a dangerous fling when love is on the line.)

Wood carvers' magic lies
In the carving of their knives;
Sticks of wood and cotton strings
Give hardwood imitative lives.

Always, tough, a thing is needed,
Or the living and the dead move only
In surreal dance, a lifeless reflection;
The dead must imitate the living.

Somehow string life is never quite enough;
True love must choose to stay...
To dance a half step slow or quarter fast,
To jive against a jink and twirl an unexpected twirl.

And so I cried each night and prayed
For genuine, not wooden love,
And life arose in wooden hands;
Pinnochio was born, and stood

Wobbling on wooden feet, but living.
Full joy I felt, to see my son,
My own creation, moving on his own.
Then he, like any living boy, began to run.

Some say a loss is better if love comes first;
Some say it's better yet, to be alone.
Seeing both, I can't determine which is best...
Pinnochio, Pinnochio, my wandering son,
Remember me, your father, and come home.

I think I may be coming
To a surprising change of mind...
After all the drumming
Against censoring of any kind....

I've read some poems on this site
That gave me food to think...
Not talking about explicit *****
That I can skip with just a blink.

The one that someone wrote a week or so ago
Asking what the world is coming to...
That little children grow up to see and know
The things not even adults used to.
(That's the one that made me stop to think.)

We have uncanny access now to things
No one twenty years ago could have predicted
And every sense and deep desire can have its fling
Which leaves our children open, unprotected.

I won't go rated R or X in this, my turning point,
Just want to lay a few thoughts out...
And grow some dialogue around this joint,
So here goes nothing...please don't pout.

Censorship, it's odd, somehow has ***** connotations,
And every person has the right to make a choice...
But children, innocent, don't know the dangers they are facing,
And we adults might raise protective voice.
---------------------

The cells in my fingernails contain atoms enough
Their own whirling systems
To form ordered constellations in layered universes....

Space between solids goes down and down and down...,
Around us mostly nothingness
Down and in and down and in....
On and on and on.

Do we need to look outward
For outer space?

Didn't Robert Burns tell us that fleas have fleas and fleas have fleas, and fleas have fleas that bite 'em?

Infinity runs hard both ways.

Young trees stand in clumps,
Bursting forth in tender leaf,
Chattering in the early fall,
Silent in the early spring,
Tender shoots alive,
A school yard thriving.
Thin bark, food for winter starvers,
Antler rubs for summer bucks...
A stand of youngsters
Waiting to be thinned..

The old trees root down,
Twisted, misshapen,
Root masses exposed,
Bolls huge at intervals
Intermittent.
Solitary veterans of Time's war,
Arms twisted and split,
Cracks in the roughened old skin
Letting strangers at the heartwood,
Grown sponge-soft,
Home for squirrels,
Sleep-seeking 'possums,
Note-leaving lovers.

Sometime early in the year,
Calving drawing on,
Seeders and tractors
Lose their dormant chill,
Began demanding preparation,
Murmuring anticipation:
"Clean the seed for planting!"
"Till the soil and ready it for seed!"

The farmer, wanting rest,
Anxiously awaits first sprouts,
Anticipates the time to till the noxious weeds,
Watches capricious sky for signs of rain or hail;
Tends fences; guards his fields,
Where ripening grain cannot predict the yields.

June scrambling begins:
The readying for harvest,
The hopeful storage plans,
The preparation of harvesters
Expensive beyond budgets,
Soon to lumber out and gather
Dying summer in....

Autumn's chilling breath
Calls quickening to the work:
The gathering of straw,
The hauling-in of hay,
The opened stubble fields for cows;
The planting of winter wheat,
That first must sprout before frost....
(If not the seeding may be  lost).

Gray,
No blue
Anywhere,
Thoughts of
Going on...
Go far
Away.


When the Wind is

Howling,
No shelter
In the lee,
Standing tall
Interests me
Not.

But, when the Sun is

Shining,
Sunlight all
Around,
The dreary days
Go each and all...
Away.

To see this old man shaking here
In rage at boys whose apple-throwing jeers
Reduce him to impotent rage and tears
Is to know Odysseus, home from Troy,
Battle spent, no Cyclops left to blind,
And no more Stygian puzzles to unwind.

The threats he hurls are hollow stones
Coming now from a man whose bones
Once cracked beneath a decking plank
As Scylla searched with serpent heads
For men to crush and swallow, dead,
But ***'dy now remains to save the day.

The hapless tree whose apples green are peltering his home
Is now an oar, pole-planted tall a thousand miles ashore
As penance for the years of taunting gods of wave and foam,
And boys be savages unaware of what an apple's for.

Near frost early morning,
Packed bags squeeze
Into the old Oldsmobile,
Ready to leave for college.

I kiss my mother,
Say good-bye,
Hold her tight.

My father passes us,
Moving over stones,
Carrying two buckets
On his way to cows
And milking.

I can't see his face...
Have no idea.

"Art, are you going to say good-bye?"
I hear my mother say.

The words arrest him.
All movement stops.
Shoulders hunched,
He slowly sets the buckets down.

Turning is an agony,
I see,
As though his efforts
Somehow jar the world,
Disrupt natural order, and
Acknowledge chaos come at last.

I see my father's face
Coursing silent tears,
And watch his shoulders shake.
Then we embrace,
We two,
And both are torn
With leaving.

I know with certainty
My father's love
This morning,
Leaving home.

(1978, leaving for college)

Unshaven, old, and nearly spent,
He slouched in his kitchen chair,
Lungs rattling each wheezing breath,
Radiation doing little then,
To control the mass within, or
To prevent the Mass he knew
Would soon begin.

Hard to believe a man
So tough as Rubin always was
Sat stubble-faced and wan
In that early morning sun.

Two years ago,
At 65,
He and his son
Put a ****** on,
Fought a cop,
Nearly won,
Stayed a week in jail,
Paid a $7000.00 fine,
Then bragged it all
Was worth the time
And memories.

I saw him jump,
At 66,
From a moving van,
Six feet up
Like a younger man,
Hell bent to take his fill,
Shovel hard, cursing still,
Cigarette hanging loose
Even with a rattling cough
(He shrugged it off)

And then,
At 67,
His last remains crave no nicotine,
No *****, wayward fights,
No carousing old man libertine
Out with his son at night,
And we who watched Old Rubin's days,
Paid our respects and went our ways.

Acid notes have just begun;
When the mellowness is gone,
Acrid memories linger on.

Embrace the rush into unknowns,
Treasure pleasure's fleeting tones,
Know sorrows come when they are gone.

Pile up the dulcet memories;
In summer load your treasuries;
Lay up the sweetnesses of life
To feast upon in coming strife.

I have known enough of life
To speak a word on the value of love,
And the quickness of a final breath,
And the separation caused by death.

I have bent to tie a shoelace,
Been overwhelmed with realization,
That when I stand again to look,
The loved one who came to mind
Has long been buried,
Will not hear me speak,
Nor say my name.

This morning, as we readied
Ourselves for work,
I stopped to pick a thing up,
Realized the joy
Of hearing my wife's sounds:
Cooking eggs,
Running water in the sink,
Putting things away,
And felt a rush of love.

I stood and walked to her,
Kissed her on the nose.

"What was that for?"

"I was overwhelmed by love just now."

Starbucks cups of Kenya (fair trade)
Academic palaver and ennui
Interrupted by a hovering sparrow
Just outside our glassy corner
“Sparrows can’t hover”
An ornithologist told his class twenty years ago…
And here’s this sparrow,
Uneducated, I guess…
Hovers above and between us
On the other side of the glass…
Just hangs there
Maintaining for a count
One, two, three, four…
Slips down and then back up
And toward us, just above the glass,
Neatly picks a moth from the brick casing.
The helo-sparrow descends
To consume the pinched moth,
Its dusty wings
Resembling sunflower hulls
Shucked and discarded
Near bleachers after the game.

How does the rancher learn to dance
The annual rhythms of the land?

When do we bring the cows, bawling,
From open summer to sheltered winter pastures?
When is it time to bring the stubborn bulls
To the empty, urgent cows,
Or to remove them from contented cows,
Grown placid in the heaviness of calves?

How do we know the time
To round up the sweltering herds,
Bringing the bellering calves to brand?
Or when do we cull the frightened heifers,
Lucky in their selection, but uncertain?
When should we pare the weanlings,
And when call we the buyers?

And, when is the time for hiking forty miles
Of rusting fence,
Replacing posts,
Mending broken wire
Before the changing of pastures?

And when is the time to come to ease,
To sense the satisfaction
In seeing grazing cattle,
Tails swishing away the black flies of June,
Moving through gray-green prairie grass
On their way to cool creek water?

We meet again;
No thunder, lightning,
Nor no rain,
But awkward,
Just the same...

Conversation turning dour,
Work complaints
Almost an hour...

Birthday wishes?

Realize a party's
Not for sighs,
Not for damning
Others' eyes,
Not a time to criticize,
Nor office lies,
Nor padding chubby thighs.

Times like this,
I realize,
It's office parties
I despise,
And pine away
For open skies.

Awkward.

A hopeful romantic whistles
His two note call
Outside my window,
Down toward the open pond
Flaunting winter-killed carp.

A raucous crow caws
Derision in black and naked trees
Though in the stillness
And the damp of spring,
His mindless clamor
Doesn't mean a thing.

The chickadee knows only life,
Anticipates the nest to come,
Sings a two-toned song
And beckons to his mate,
For which, libidinous, he
The air with amor fills.

When the clouds below turn to into carpet
Up there in the cold morning light,
The VFR pilot jitters and frets:

Time to check fuel, to come up with a plan
To search for a hole in the billow below,
And bring the craft in to land.

So it was when a pilot coming back from a lark,
Flew in a circle somewhere over Williston,
Above clouds turning thicker and dark.

In his office sat Phil, across the state line,
When the radio crackled, pleading a break:
"VFR practice," he thought, "He's probably fine."

Phil headed to lunch, had an errand to do...
Drove downtown for a couple of hours,
Returning somewhere around 2:00.

The radio tone carried tired despair
When Phil walked back in from his break
And heard the pilot, still stuck in the air.

Phil knew that the fuel must be drained
In the old Piper Cub overhead,
So he logged a flight plan and ran for his plane.

He flew to the east and banked to the north,
Rising above the gray carpet below,
And spotted the wanderer holding its course.

Coming in fast, cutting his distance by half,
"Super Cub over Williston, this is Bonanza
On your left. How much fuel do you have?"

"About 30 minutes," came a despondent reply,
Standard answer, but gauging the hours,
Phil calculated the response was a lie.

"I am going to fly by your side.
Follow me and dive when I dive;
Keep contact and enjoy the ride."

The planes in tandem turned around;
Phil flew by IFR to find the runway end,
Backed off the throttle, and led them down.

The tail dragger followed, did not complain,
Dropped into the soup gliding blind
Except for the strobe on the faster plane.

The old Cub flared when Phil said, "Land!"
Settled onto the runway end as the propeller stalled,
And Phil had saved a desperate man.

On the hangar wall now hangs a plaque,
Though Phil himself is gone,
The Governor's gift for bringing a flyer back.

--------------
My brother once watched Phil Petrik of Sidney Aviation fly off the Sidney runway, disappearing into a pea soup fog, carrying our father and mother on an emergency flight to Billings, to save my father's life.

I lay this poetic rose upon Phil's grave as a slim tribute to a man who earned my admiration and life long gratitude. Rest In Peace, Phil Petrik.

A hundred-forty west-bound miles of
Montana Highway 200 see a summer
Traveler somewhere between
Grass Range and Jordan,
Deep in grass and antelope.

Waterless miles of meandering
Dry creek beds and barbwire alleyways
Herd the occasional car or truck
Down narrow asphalt chutes of road.

Speed limit signs stamped "70 mph"
Stand mortified and silent at Speed
Demons hurtling westward to Great Falls,
Round Up, or Flowing Wells, or east to
Jordan, Circle, Richey, Lambert, and Sidney.

Extreme heat and cold on the open plain
Demand courtesies of the West;
Travelers always stop to
Help the stranded.

So it was I came at speed to Sand Springs,
A sultry July day, heading to Billings,
Sad to be leaving my lover and my bairns.

A long way off, I saw her car,
Hood up and steam rising.
I shifted down and idled to a stop.
"Can I help you?"

An older woman,
Crow, I think, looked out,
A bit confused at first
Until her eyes cleared.

"I need a ride," she said,
And so began our adventure.

I made room in the truck
And turned around to find
The ranch where she cooked.

Ten miles back, we left the road
To take a trail that wound back
Into hills, dry with early heat.
"About five miles in," she said.

We found the place,
Resting in a scrap heap
Of old vehicles and broken corrals,
Middle of nowhere,
But she was home
And opened up the door.

She asked me to wait a bit,
So I sat, wondering what was next,
While she walked in through her door.

In a minute she returned
Her offering in her hand.
"Thank you," she murmured.

Nodding, I took the gift,
Shifted into reverse,
Left her there.


The braid of sweet grass,
An unburned prayer,
Rode on my dash
All summer long....

Incessant, nervous breeze,
Gray mornings scudding in,
Branches, stark and thin,

Rain and flurried snow
Blended now, as if they didn't know
Which way the sky must go,
Warming now, but slow.

Bleak skies and weathered land
Beaten colorless by Winter's hand
Seem silent in these days of gray,
But I know fair Spring will have her say.

A neighbor rang, reporting her first robin;
Two trumpeters flew north without stopping,
And geese stand waiting on the icy pond,
Rememb'ring open water just beyond.

This is the time when old ones sigh,
Wondering will winter ever die?
And some decide that it is best
To turn toward eternal rest.

So left my friend this early spring
Before he heard the robins sing,
And I remain to live the winter out alone,
Awaiting green and coveting bird song.

I remember reading
Martin Luther King, Jr's
Letter from Birmingham Jail
Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom
Mark Twain's Huck Finn
DuBois' Souls of Black Folk,
Adichie's The Thing Around Your Neck,
Sherman Alexie's Part-time Indian tale....
For the first time

The words of Chief Joseph
Sitting Bull
Tecumseh
James Welch
and Alexie Sherman
And others of indigenous kind
Linger like arrows in my mind.

Of course, there's
Gilgamesh's forlorn quest for Enkidu;
Osiris, Amun, Ra, and Seth,
Homer's  Illiad and  Odyssey,
And Virgil's Roman treatment -
(For whom the gods destroy
We all must learn bereavement).

I remember reading
Milton's Paradises (lost and found)
And Dante's Infernal quest for Heaven
Through the bowels of Hell with Virgil's spritely guide
And up the Devil's staircase with Beatrice by his side.
John's Revelation of Times' End;
And LaHaye's money-making Left Behind,
Collin's Hunger Games and Dashner's Maze Running
Apocalypses enough to chill my mind.

I have surveyed Dead Presidents
Washington,
Jefferson,
Lincoln
Both Roosevelts, Ted and Frank,
And Reagan
And smatterings of others...
Then hopped the bookish pond to read
Sir Winston and some others,
Not the least of whom is Gandhi G,
Taught by the Queen to free his brothers.

I have studied
Moses
Job
David
Ruth
Esther
Isaiah
Jeremiah
The Disciples
Paul
and James
(Ironically,
Since Jesus is the "Word,"
Through men He penned).

British poets's thoughts,
Tale tellers long-dead
Have found their way
Into my head:
Beowulf and Chaucer
Old moral plays
Shelley and Keats
Cavalier Poets
Scott and Brownings
Burns and (not) Allen
Spenser and Shakespeare
Dylan and Tolkien
Lewis and Auden
And so many more
That I leave on the floor

Western Americana I have loved
Hemingway and Steinbeck, all worth the time,
Mari Sandoz' Old Jules, and
Rolvaag's Giants in the Earth,
Keroac went on the road, while
Joseph Kinsey Howard showed us the West
Lewis & Clark in journals scribed
Their journey west and back again

I can't forget psychology
And so I will digress
Or Sigmund's accusation stays
That I have but suppressed:
Ellis, Freud, and Eric Berne,
Pavlov, Skinner, Thorndike, Watson,
Wundt, and Wm James, Piaget and Chomsky
Then Vygotsky and Bandura put a social spin
on cognitive psychology, and Everybody's in.
Diverging and Converging, psychic students, all
Could never make transaction
'Til Rogers tried to make some peace
But Ellis wouldn't have 'im.

And then, of course,
The lighter stuff,
The popcorn of the mind:
Clancy, Rankin, Carole Keene
L'Amour  and Will James
Stephen King and Poe,
Cruz Smith and Leon Uris,
Grisham, Deaver, Cornwall,
Asimov, Bradbury and Herbert,
Carroll and Baum...

The list goes on and on, and will, I'm sure, expand beyond capacity.

Under frizzed hair,
The Conscious Operator,
Smacking gum,
Waits with her tails of living wire
To make connections
At Synaptic Central.  

The reader
Tilts a page to catch the rays,
Scans for symbols,
Begins to send
And to receive
Electric fires of thought
Traveling in from
Senses Five -
Traveling out from
Schema Library's
Data files -
To meet and
To commingle
At the Board.

With octopal finesse,
The tireless Operator
Plies Neural Central,
Sending quick myriads of thought
To rest or to revive in living files.

Neurons snap and arc;
Their coded leaping fires
Surge message-full
Through cables sheathed
To Synapse Central,
Where in her nimble hands
Fire Control finds slots
And coordinates connections,
During and Long After
The Outward Reading's done.

Even when the Blinds go down
Synaptic Central's work goes on.
The frizz-haired friend steps out to rest;
Sub-Conscious moves into her place
And with unsteady hand
Plays seeming havoc at the Board
Rearranging and Deranging
Delightful dreams, or horrid.

The Reader
Experiences Text:
Tastes the corners,
Chews the middles,
Examines the ideas,
Turns them over and over -
Lozenges to be mulled.

Unique to each Reader
The Text must pass
Each Reader's senses:
His eyes,
Her nose,
Their tongues...
And so begins Digestion,
A complicated process producing
pleasant dreams in one,
Nightmares in another.
Soothing sleep for me
Dyspepsia for you.

Ideas have their routes to pass;
The dross is left behind or lost
And what remains is fiber to our souls
(To steal Walt Whitman's term).

The Author,
Having said
What is to Say,
Submits the Text
And Steps Away...

What's to be Read
Or Heard
Or Seen
Is Said and Done.

Then Comes the Fun.

The Reader
Ambles In shuffling,
Struggles In fighting,
Bumbles In stumbling,
Forges In determining,
Skates In gliding,
Rides In on a horse named Fluency.


The Reader wears the Text:
Tries it on for size,
Shrugs before Self's Mirror,
Stretches,
Shrinks,
Dyes,
Preens,
Thinks s/he sees the Whole,
But cannot even see the back
For lack of some connection,
Then ambles off to share
The Text with others.

Later, at the Readers' Circle,
Each wearer of the Text,
Each Poem Creator/Holder
Whose individual Poems differ
After putting on the Text,
Compare.
And though they twirl and dance,
Though they stretch and pose,
Though they must adjust,
No one wears the Text
The Same.

I know what you are thinking;
I know what you were thinking;
I know what you will be thinking
When your end comes.

When the end comes,
I will be waiting
To pull you through into
Always.

Wasn't it I who pushed you,
Unaware and blinking
Groggily into the light;
Wasn't it I who pushed you
Forward into Time?

What kind of man is this
To report his mother for begging him
To abandon hateful folly?

What son is this, so depraved,
Would shoot her in the public square
With jeering blood-seekers cheering?

What kind of god must this man seek,
To end the life of the one who gave him life,
To what end would such a god demand obeisance?

Perhaps a god this is,
Whose thirst for blood would raise
The dripping flags of war
And bathe the world neck-deep,
Up to the horses' bridles in gore,
But he's no god of mine.

This god is not the One
Who sent His only Son
To give His Life in the name of peace,
To save His friends and love His enemies.

This god is in rebellion,
Denying his own creation,
Lying to himself,
Reviling peace
Because it bears the image of
The One True God.

Enviously manipulating,
Beguiling the children of Eve,
Desecrating the human form,
Dividing the human race,
Heaping doom upon doom,
Calling damnation on himself.

Just up ahead is a trail
Where people seldom go,
Sidling down the gravel hill
Into growths of ash and birch and elm,
Thickets of wild plums,
Chokecherries, leaves turning dusty,
Verdant armies of stinging nettles
Protecting coveted stands of juneberries.

Bittersweet vines entangle aged elms,
Siphoning life, to produce four petaled reds
As summer goes down to autumn.

Leaving the wind above
To batter the old truck,
I descend into the silence,
Trees stand tall, but low
Below the breeze.

Down in this steep place
The wind cannot come,
The sun, when it finds its way,
Warms gently on the coldest day.

The spring my father dug
Before I was born,
Set into the weeping gravel hill,
Runs steadily,
Strong enough
To fill the battered tank,
To keep a goldfish or two alive,
To host strange crustaceans:
Tiny shrimp, just larger than ants,
Pebble crusted creatures
More insect than fish,
Frogs in the tank,
Toads out...,
Mosses and mud
Thirty years or more
At home.

Deer come to this tank,
On hot days or cold;
Coyotes, too.
Porcupines dine on treetops
Swaying quietly
A hundred feet below
Wild Montana winds.
Cattle in winter find life
In the quiet, constant water
Flowing here.

I am taken back
To a stifling July afternoon,
But cool here in this protected place,
Dragonflies floating
And cicadas sawing in the trees,
My mouth full of juneberries
As I circle my way,
Eating more than picking...
Coming face to face with a coyote.

Was he dozing?
Passing through?
Or, do coyotes eat
Juneberries, too?

We stop hard,
Stunned.
Then bolt in opposite directions,
My juneberries flying
From the milking pail;
His tongue between his teeth,
Tail low,
Feet flying into the brush beyond.

When Esther Smith and Stella Prue played a prank,
The community speculated who-dunnit,
Quirky, yes, and funny, too, the spinster pair created
Minor havoc in the town and were permitted,
By one and all to set the pace for jokes committed.
When Jebediah Olefson's oldest ward,
Tommy, and his girlfriend, MaryLou,
Moved in together, no one spoke a word,
At least out in the open, but the village knew
A prank to fit events would soon be witted.
One Sunday on their way to church,
Towns people passing by the couple's place
Beheld a sight to make the elders smirk.
A hundred diapers, white and in disgrace, were hung
Upon the couple's drying lines, a piece of work.
No surprise, the two were wed within the month.

It's Christmas 2015,
And I am here to ask,
When will you and I be younger,
When will we have more life ahead to live,
And if we don't choose to fully live right now,
When will we?

Life is a precious gift.
Hellish?
Yes, sometimes.

Wonderful?
Yes, often!

Beautiful!
Certainly, and ugly, too.

Look up from ennui.
Rise from the ashes of despair.
Take hold of Hope.
Seize Forgiveness.
Embrace Courage.
Stumble or Stride into Life.

Do you know there is a Savior
Who came as a poor babe
Through the ****** doorway
Of a ****** to set His mortal path
To the ****** doorway of the Cross,
In order to lead us through it to Joy?

To travel that path to Joy,
You and I must do only one thing....

Receive the free gift;
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ...
And be saved.

The rest is the infinitive
TO LIVE!

Life in Christ is a struggle;
No secrets there,
But that Life is worthy
The Sturm und Drang,
And don't we all have
Sturm und Drang
Anyway?  

So, LIVE!

Merry Christmas!

The summer had come and gone,
And tomorrow, she was leaving,
Going back to the city to wait
The warming spring's returning.

At 88, she had decided it best,
Husband gone four years,
Two hips healed, but stiffening;
Ice forming on the ground
To keep her from walking;
Time to go back to the city to rest,
Hopefully to return when whooping cranes
V'eed north again in spring.

She'd packed her things
In two suitcases yesterday:
Simple clothes,
Her Bible,
A pair of shoes, or two;
Not much now,
No need.

She wondered if he'd do one thing
Before they drove away.

"My nails need a trim."

So, here he was,
Bent low to hold each foot,
To trim his mother's nails...

Memory, returned then,
Reversed four years
To this same chair,
In this same house,
His father struggling for air,
Needing help to dress.

He saw again his father's feet,
Frail and white and cool,
The nails long and needing care.

Embarrassed, the old man,
Despite the lack of breath,
Wheezed he couldn't bend
To reach his feet.

And the son had bowed then
To trim his father's nails,
And dressed him before
The three of them began the journey
From which only two returned.

And now, the week before Christmas,
The mother and her son,
Focused on the nail clipping,
Knowing certain chores,
However poignant,
Must be done.

A grey goose above me
Calls strident-high,
Alone and looking down,
While I walk toward the lake,
Looking up to find
His silhouette against gray sky.

We're miles from town
On a middling winter day,
Shortest hours of light
Within the year.

We two are lonely here.

Skies gray promise
Neither rain nor snow;
A warming wind is blowing;
Perhaps the silver skiff
Will melt again,
And let the grey flier in.

Where are his loved ones?
I'd like to know;
And why he flies alone,
Scanning from his skimming height,
And yet I think I know.

I used to hunt his kind,
To lie in wait beneath a blind,
And rise to meet
Descending flocks,
Wings set,
Until I knew
The goose I'd brought
To ground
And the goose above
Remained inseparable,
One mate for life,
Death do them part,
And after, live alone.

A chill is setting in tonight,
And I am heading home;
A fire and my wife waiting.

Some comfort as the evening ends
I hope the grey one finds,
In the company of friends...
I'd see he weren't alone,
If I could make amends.

Had they known the kind of man he was,
While he was retching
Into the oxygen mask,
EMTs might not have been surprised,
But they were,
When he tried to clean himself,
There in the life flight bay
As the rotors beat their way.

Stubborn to the nth degree,
Prouder man I never knew,
Fastidious in most his ways,
Embarrassed that a stranger
Should clean up his mess.

"I'll take care of it, Art,"
The flight nurse said,
"It happens all the time!"
He kindly lied,
And cleaned the old man's face,
And fit another mask,
And dialed the oxygen to full.

What he thought then, I cannot tell;
I hope he dreamt of going home,
Or heading to the barn another time,
Of being strong and well,
Or McKellar singing Handel's masterpiece;
I hope he felt a little wave of peace
Before he left his body, tough and old,
Before his mind felt coming cold,
I hope his final breath was a sigh
Of going down to sleep,
Of going down to gentle sleep.

He died...
Truck slammed into
An off-road approach,
Thrown clear,
Head folded back
To touch his spine,
Bruised and scratched,
But unable to breathe,
Unable to bleed.

No longer able to regret,
He made no attempt
To take a long look back....

No use reminding him
The futility
Of driving drunk,
Even in celebration
Of graduation;
No need to send
A congratulatory card...

No need.

The Monday after,
I stood in a classroom,
Hands upon the lectern,
Voice tense and low....

"Don't ask me to cry
At your funerals
When you die
This way....

"I spend too much
Life and love in my students
To waste my tears,
To howl in rage,
To whimper in disbelief,
To wrack myself with grief."

The class sat,
Numb as I...
Until they saw me
Cry.

These grumblers,
Enoch said,
Walk in their own desires,
Arrogant flatterers
Taking advantage  of others,
Attempting to divide the family of God
Because they do not believe,
Because they do not have the Spirit.

But you, the Body of Christ,
The Family of God,
Continue to build in holy faith,
Praying in the Spirit,
Keeping in the love of God,
Expecting the mercy of the Lord,
Jesus Christ,
Who gives us eternal life.

Have mercy on doubters;
Save others by snatching them
From the licking flames of Hell.

Fearing for others,
Have mercy for them,
Without allowing yourselves
To be made filthy,
Keeping yourselves
From being drawn into
Their addictions and their sins.

Glory, Majesty, Power, Authority
Are HIS forever:
Before time began:
Past, Present, Future,
And He is the only One able
To protect you from falling,
To provide you legs to stand
In His Glorious Presence.

He is the only One who makes
You blameless,
Who fills you with joy,
Who is able to save you
Through His Son,
Jesus Christ,
Our only Lord,
Now and Forever.

Amen.

Scoring at the genius level,
Never a thing he did
That was worthy of his high intelligence.
No teacher whose IQ could match,
No vocation and no calling
Worth the time to spend in college.
What could they teach him
Anyway he asked,
In his superior knowledge?

A depressing world to one so keen
And so he focussed inward
At his liver and his spleen
An alcoholic blizzard
To numb the boredom and the pain
Of such imperial wit
As years rolled by the bar door
He wanted none of it.

And now he's old and hasn't been
And likely isn't going to
Because a fool so long ago
Bowed low before his IQ.

Enoch, prophet of the Living God,
Enoch, walker with God,
Seven generations from Adam,
Prophesied,
"The Lord,
With thousands of holy ones,
Came executing judgment.

"All unjust and ungodly ones
Whose unjustified castigations
Against God Himself
Have reached His ears
Stand now in judgment."

Their motives are exposed;
Their grumbling arrogance,
Their cavilling fault-finding
No longer hide
Their flattering lies,
Their avaricious lusts.

They are exposed.

Beware!
Your love boat feasts
May smash upon the jagged reefs
Lurking among you,
Within your ranks,
Fearless, they lie,
Brooding and biding,
Content to feed on you
As you love everyone
In innocence.

Waterless virga,
These empty clouds
Promise and pretend
To be more than wind.
They are dry.

Thickets and groves
Promising fruit,
Their leaves will soon fall,
No nourishing yield
At all.

They are wild waves,
Unpredictable,
Huge and swelling,
Frothing with folly.

Stars, these wanderers,
Hurtling in their burning light,
Hell-bent toward
Oblivion.