GOING WILD

                                                 The world looks
                    tame, but it might go wild, anytime.
                              – William Stafford (“Torque”)

One can’t blame the planet
trying to find its balance,
or wanting to buck loose the load:
daily megatons of consumption
and our never-ending refuse.

Always the would-be trainers
picking at a colt, raking a rowel
and hard in the mouth, always a hole
to escape to. “If he don’t buck,
he sure ought to,” Earl hollers
across the pen to an old showoff
mounting on a loose cinch humping
into a tangle of rusty barbed wire
frozen around its forelegs.

At the heart of this world, wild
and dark extremes are listening,
waiting to fill new holes in the light.
One can’t blame the planet,
or even humanity—it is a perfect
balance of imperfections, just
waiting to go wild, anytime.