Standing before her
on one foot,
as though surveying
a Renoir,
he is overwhelmed by splashes
of red from her nails,
her lips.
Shifting to level
he is entranced
by her blue, twinkling eyes,

His gaze is one of awe.
Uncritical he hears
her hair sweep
across her shoulder,
as rustling wind blown
across West Texas
fields of barley.

Her words
cool his bare toes
as though dipped in
Box Elder creek’ s flow through
rocks, eddies and fallen limbs.

Her moves
have the grace of cirrus skies,
he thinks
this is my picnic spot,
my settling spot
fit to build a cabin.

Then he knows,
love is here.

Falling leaves confused
With a darting hummingbird,
Time to change my clocks

Flickering blast forth
"It is broken.  It needs fixing"
We know, we broke it

What do you do all day

said the spider to the fly

Fly one said, I play

Fly two said, "Mostly I fly"

What do you do all day

said the lady to the guy

Guy one said "I pray?

Guy two said, "I while the day away"

Beneath shade from tall poplars stand
markers: rows staggered hand-in-hand.

Rock slabs like soldiers on review
symbolic nameplates capture dew.

Planted deep, mounted in red-clay;
lean to and fro like mimes at play.

Weathered by icy winter frost
and torrid heat near sacred ghost,

echoes resound of beginnings
while dust sifts across the endings.

Stark among the lush of youth

tall, unashamed

no leaves twirl downward

no fertile blanket of rot

to feed saplings

fresh with green sprigs.

Many seasons

they have tasted your sustenance.

Do they regard your wisdom

whispered in the mountain breeze?

Do they believe tales told of

life on the hill,

of cycles of torrents, droughts,

penetrating frosts and mountains

of drifted snow?

Do they devour the lore

falling among the leaves?

Watch this weathered being,
lean, hiding toughness beneath
a pale denim shirt marked with
oil stains near the collar and bare threads
across the elbow.  Blue eyes
peering from below sweat-stained straw brim
reflect the afternoon sun.

Consider words through
wind chapped lips "that's good enough"
to announce job completed, for now.
Simple words destined to ring
loud as though from a pulpit.
Clear remarks, a catchphrase,
to temper any drive toward excellence
or the disease of perfectionism.

Notice the softness of the voice,
amid rut of the sow
and cluck of the hen,
unintended philosophy that
drifts though eastward wind
spoken to convey
the end of a daily task.