Author Archives: John

                                    i

The near-world of humans sleeps in,
no engines moan up the road early
on a summer Sabbath dawn, long
in the half-light pausing between
day heat and darkness, sky white
with the coming of the sun like
headlights over the rise of the Sierras,
buying time to inhale the morning
with their shadow, all that remains
to shield me now, parents gone.

                                    ii

These modern times of ease
and magic, of speed and gain—
prolonged instants complicated
with deceit and the juvenile in men
fall away, exfoliate like granite domes
a little everyday, as souls exposed,
storied landmarks from another time
that wait their turn to speak,
to whisper ways to shed it all
and breathe-in this hour’s peace.

                                    iii

God has abandoned this canyon,
left it on its own for early emergencies,
spread thin and stretched from steeple
to spire for quick apparitions
high in the shadows and stained
glass, glimpses of the light distorted
for the sure and self-righteous
in regimented towns. It is His cross
to bear, busy on the Sabbath
with the most basic flaw of all.

                                        i

In this dark moment, the East coast rolls
against old sheets, yawns and stretches
out of a million dreams at once, leaving

them to hang like ripe peaches for another
savoring—a great tree bent, limbs strained
with the weight of all that wishing. Yet

how many can be saved? The landscape
changes in a day with drought and hurricanes,
with once good men disguised in Washington

and we can’t seem to find our way back
to the orchard, to the tree before the fruit
falls and bruises, swarmed by feeding

gnats and yellow jackets as it decomposes.
If we could drive a stake, blaze a tree trunk,
leave bread crumbs and pray the pigeons

won’t consume our trail, the world
would be a better place—regularly revisiting
our secret fishing holes in peace.

                                        ii

When I was young I loved to hunt,
outthink the wild, read sign and project
trail’s end. I craved skirmishes with greedy

men, rebelled against almost anything
dishonest or unfair. But I am too old
for trouble now, weary of a game

to win, of chance or luck, of reaching
beyond mundane routines that offer
fleeting satisfaction, like a poem

tossed to the wind, like a mowed lawn,
mended fence or a freshly weeded garden
in the gloaming waiting for the dawn.

One of these days I will come back,
step down upon the peak of Sulphur Ridge
and let my feet slide upon the dry wild oats,

inhale their ripeness on my two-mile glide
to the creek and nap among the dark green
sycamores, be unseen in caves of shade.

Or should it be a rare November day
after a rain when it is gray and still, mist
clinging to the bare oaks on damp hills,

earthy perfume of wet dry grass in decay
that will bring seed to feed, that vital
beginning to every season annually.

Or Belle Point in the spring when I had you
captured in the pickup to look at cattle,
so proud of my colored cows standing

on the slope for big, long-eared calves.
The air is full of magic then towards the end
of March. We fell in love like April fools.

One of these days I will come back
like a rattlesnake, as the eyes and ears
of Tihpiknit waiting, deep in his dark den—

or a Canyon Wren calling, calling, calling
every wonder back to me. One of these days
I will come back for a poet’s guarantee.

Blame the bugs
on late spring rains—

clouds of leafhoppers,
grasshoppers in the house,

dawn’s flock of crows
on tall blond feed

armies of starlings
rising and lighting

in loose unison
to the gloaming—

but don’t dare complain
about late spring rains.

He will be hard to ship,
push up the chute, sun
glinting off the aluminum

some early morning soon—
to prod with whistles,
pokes and hollers,

confused for the first time
since he was a calf.
He wants to be

our pet forever, all
eight hundred pounds
within his blue roan hide.