OUR ONLY FRIEND

                        Beautiful in the world fabric, excesses that balance each other

                        like the paired wings of a flying bird.

                                                – Robinson Jeffers (“Still the Mind Smiles”)

                        It was all the clods at once become precious

                                                – William Stafford (“Earthdweller”)

Is it fear that judges so, good and evil,

or guilt for easy breath, or lackey to politic’s

endless stream of currency?

The creek runs full, carrying deadfall bobbing,

fat limbs lumbering like submarines or whales

to rest upon the banks when flood recedes.

The miracle of rain erasing tracks for fresh

beginnings: for another turn of circumstance—

that wild divergence of extremes that want

control, like taming wolves to lap dogs

that always fail, even in our minds though

dressed in our latest, eco-friendly outerwear.

The devil’s in the details that embrace truth

and trigger memory, that glorious flight

that connects us to time on this earth.