Rain clouds hover in the night
veiling the crystal moon -
spraying steady showers
on the hills and plains below.

The Missouri stirs from slumber
spreading claws of water up its banks
as rain sheets, lashed to horizontal
saturate the fields and valleys.

Illumined by the misted moon
The river’s shoreline grows
by inches through the night -
stealing into ever higher ground.

Daybreak finds new ponds conjoined
and spilled across low lying roads
and TV teasers sound their alarms.
'Stay tuned, tape at 10: 00.'

Downpours to the west and north
saturate Mississippi valleys and
Saint Louis flood gates rumble closed.
Farmers abandon all hope for harvest.

Our screens chant nightmare litanies
of sandbag crews and second floor rescues,
crumbling levies and sunken vehicles -
a twisting farmhouse claimed for driftwood.

The clouds’ reservoirs at last are spent,
the inland sea recedes to lakes
and our weary cousins stumble home
as the Mississippi quietly relearns it banks.

March,  2008

*This poem is a recollection of the great flood of 1993 but as it was written the rivers around St. Louis passed over flood stage and the city flood gates were closed.  While protecting the city, the gates and levees ship the problem   downstream where it intensifies the plight of small towns that are now under water.  Continued rain in the Missouri and Mississippi watersheds could cause the current flood to rival that of 1993.

Poor Viktor Hartmann!
All that remained of his towering soul
were visions pressed on to paper
hanging in a St. Petersburg gallery.

Mussorgsky advanced his lumbering frame
along the gallery halls
searching for his lost friend.

Sonic images formed in the composer’s mind
singing replicas of Hartmann’s icons:

        An old castle,
        Children quarreling,
        An ox resisting the weight of its cart,
        The Great Gate of Kiev.

Mussorgsky’s notes sound and vanish
as ephemeral as life itself -
passing into the ether only to live anew
with each successive performance.

      Viktor lives!

*October, 2006

Resting couched and cross-legged
by the hearth at Old Faithful Inn
I read of fire-seared Montana.
My restive mind roams back
a century and a half
to when flames ruled Yellowstone -
cracking open Lodgepole cones -
spending seeds on blackened soil.

Youthful pines soared skyward:
tutored by seven score seasons
of showers, frost and sun
nourished by leaf-meal and char.

Then loggers came to notch their trunks
and sent them arcing to the forest floor.
Carpenters fixed them to the wall
where the moose head stares me down.

Montana pine cones crackle as I read.
After soaking rains have quenched the flames,
those seeds will rise to giant towers
before yielding to the whine of chainsaw teeth.

A gray haired man will enter
a rustic Montana lodge,
a coffee mug clutched in one hand,
the morning paper in the other
and sit fire-warmed by a granite hearth
set in a wall of Lodgepole Pines.

*January, 2007

Jerry Singing at his Lathe

Slim and mustached
Jerry sang his heart out
in overalls at his lathe –
the Mario Lanza of Kent-Moore Tools.

Curled metal gathered at his feet
as he cut hard steel into usable parts.
He glanced at the prints,
reset the turret to take a second pass
and belted out another chorus.

Jerry retro-dreamed of New York,
of lessons, certificates, Juilliard
and arias finished with outstretched arms –
visions derailed but unforgotten.

Global madness sent him to France.
With a pack and an M1 in place of scores.
Jerry helped set Paris free
yet never left a song on its stages.

Kent-Moore paid him well
and masked by din of colliding metal
Jerry sang and sang and sang all day
for rivet guns and turret lathes.
His voice would melt your heart.

*July, 2006

Barreling through town
in the depth of night,
earth’s colossal magnets
hurled jagged fire spears -
flashing and ripping the midnight sky.

Whirling torrents whistled
and lashed against the glass.
A blinding fire bolt
Shattered an old rock maple -
quaking our shelter to its footings.

Cosmic strobe-lit concussions
stuttered and roared across the nightscape
like a feral timpanist gone mad.

The frenzied cacophony
subsided at last -
rumbled off  in the distance
as the storm lumbered on
like a barbarian horde
off to sack another village.

*July, 2007

San Damiano hovers over majestic bluffs
high above the great bend of the Ohio
curving toward its Mississippi rendezvous.

A soft haze filters the fading sun.
Budding tree fingers,
eager for the coming Equinox,
silhouetted against the rosy dusk light.

After the sun surrenders to the night,
cosmic diamonds salt the sky with effigies
of proud Orion and the two bears.
Venus and Jupiter hang close enough to touch.

Deep in the shadows atop the tranquil bluffs,
Saint Francis himself might be tarrying -
kindly guiding us to concord - empathy - peace.

On a stage too vast for frame or shutter
    an alabaster sphere trails the fading sun
        reflected on the waves and troughs of Estes Lake,
            and reigns supreme above the snow-capped Rockies.

Two white globes - one of gas the other rock
         softly dance around a bluish one.

*March, 2012