Monthly Archives: April 2013

Can we call it just
another day, another passing
of the sun overhead
to get things done, one
to measure, fill the seasons,
months and years
facing first light
from the same door
through which we retire
to our sweet gloaming?

Looking back and forth,
Janus has nodded off
with each new plan
to work around the weather
when it doesn’t rain,
cattle in the hills—
like counting blades of grass,
we can bale them now,
box them to gather dust.

Young men play so hard
it almost hurts to watch—
remembering: time shot
one moment to the next
like endless ammo
through an assault rifle.
Young men figure
they’ll retire
just to play harder.

That old saw
about taking better care
if we’d known
we’d live this long
cuts true and deeper
than when I first heard it
from the old men betting
I’d never see thirty—
but luckily I played
on credit.

Wikipedia

                              Clouds and rain on the tips
                              of mountains prodding the sky,
                              music pouring from some well,
                              I stepped into the light.
                                        – Quinton Duvall (“XII. Testament”)

Too much moon to sleep,
coyotes make contact.
Break dark silence. Call
from every draw that falls
into the shallow creek.

They need no code
to translate, to decipher—
no allegorical symbolism
to paint in pastels,
no words at all, singing

to one another like poets
tend to do trying to reach
a high note, one last pitch
at heaven with no one else
to listen but quiet darkness.

It’s what they do at night
in the spring, stirred
from dreams to yip and howl.
But to truly call it music
is only a matter of taste.

                                        for Paul and Quinton