INTO FRESNO

              We ride all day 'till the sun's going down
              I'm gonna be glad to get out of this town.
	           - Charley Willis (“Goodbye Old Paint”)

Into Fresno for the first time in years
to carve cancer off my face

                with the cars and trucks, all makes, 
                all sides, both ways, packed parking, 
                debt-ridden drivers cooped-up 
                in caves and castles busy being 
                where there is no place 
                without more of the same 
                for miles

                and I’m scared—
not of the knife, nor of the scar—
but way too tight for my old heart.

It is a race now, but slowing near the finish line—
time to identify new wildflowers, measure rain
for posterity, data to apply to reason, to a pattern
for those of us who believe not everything is random

chaos, turbulence and tornadoes inside the Capitol
of the planet where the big guns make money
playing chicken, or blind man’s bluff 
for the rest of the resources we’ve about used-up

especially space without trace or track
of humankind—

                 the dogwood creek’s short cast 
                 for snowmelt rainbows where 
                 even a child would not go hungry.

I can go back anytime I want 
to escape or wait 
until the job’s done.