Monthly Archives: September 2017

In the afternoon, the hills are yellow now,
turquoise oaks, the buckeyes’ tan leather brown
claim equal space high up, but daybreak clear

but for a rosy raft of smoke on a monsoonal trail
alone, last of fires let run to consume the drought
and bug kill: scarecrow cedars, naked pines

pitched for flame. My eyes climb to the near
ridgeline for clarity—for a sign of what’s to come
within the hazy world affairs well beyond us.

@ 70, you try
to save steps, weigh
pick ups and deliveries
against carrying capacity
and memory hoping
not to forget
the grand plan
along the way—only
to find repetition
a good mental and physical
exercise in reality,
like it or not.

Shuffling his Florsheim wingtips
towards the hospital doors,
my father quipped, “A man has to
               get used to being
               not first in line.”

Change has not run off
and left us without humor,
without our backwards perspective
and subsequent syntax,
but thinking too far ahead
to save time, to insure
efficiency, we may miss
the moments we have
chosen to live for.