Poetry

Luminous afterthought of dream?
It vanishes. The body's still.
An improbably big balloon
tied to the manchild's wrist with twine
bobbles in bright air until,
unless the string breaks and it floats
away and leaves us standing here
gaping at an empty sky
in which a pale and waning moon
dims in the deepening blue of day.

Nostradamus in Hempstead

The Way It Was

The West

I. Front Range

Lean men prone to heroic understatement,
they have a drawled, laconic way of speaking.
They know that for their debts there’s no abatement
nor boundaries to the vistas they are seeking.

No, there’s only the Front Range of the Rockies
behind which the westering sun is setting
on stallion breakers too strong to be jockeys
and water rights the Judge of all is vetting.

II. Jornada del Muerto

Tete Rouge Cache

Had I a wooden ship
to bear my love from me,
I’d fire it at its slip,
then warp it out to sea.
Or must I strew his ashes
on wild Wyoming passes
climbed in the Seventies?
The thought of that abashes
me and my aching knees.
He’ll sleep in prairie grasses
under his apple trees.

Two Climbers

Shedding our heavy packs,
we thought it no great feat
to storm a vertical mile,
then beat a steep retreat.

Our trails? Now needle tracks
from an infusion chair.
Gamely, he feigns a smile
just to ascend a stair.