drycrikjournal

High Sierra thunderstorm,
pagan drumbeats lifting
from the earth washed

with the heavy drops of old souls
ready to refresh the circuit
of humanity, or perhaps this time

stay to the granite bowls
as a reflection separate
from the watershed below.

Oaks and acorns, buckeyes turning
crimson in thin air, empty heads
of blond dry feed awaiting rain
for another crop of grass and seed—

the old soul that sustains itself
apart from the hazy world below
with its improvements, its notions
of success and progress that seal

the most productive off, choke
and forever neuter fertile dirt
beneath orchard rows of houses,
concrete and asphalt streets

to parking lots for millions of hungry
cars, freeway rivers stalled with debt,
gridlocked daily to pay the bills
to keep all the wheels turning

to more ground to improve, mine
and drill, extract value—suck
life and suffocate its soul into
an empty plate to leave the future.

Adding sideshows since
business has picked-up,
more employment
for carnies and barkers.
We’re doing swell!

We have war games,
hammers cocked
on real bombs—
a geography lesson
all around the world

with money trails
crisscrossing oceans
to island laundromats
for you to follow if
you’re looking for truth.

We have every version
of the latest news—
manuscripts for sale
for first-time authors—
just fill-in the blanks.

Better than reality,
a thousand truths
to believe with heart
and mind for sale:
We’re doing swell!

The earth’s reception
of the sun’s reflection
as august and austere art

beyond this world
and its petty politics,
its busy claustrophobe

and unscheduled urgencies
we must navigate
until it rises behind

Blue Oak silhouettes—
true enlightenment
for a prolonged moment.

Day breaks into dreams of possibilities,
a thousand paths in new directions,
and yet we choose the proven route

under reconstruction. How we change
our ways and destinations depends
on pause and reflection, long moments

cast upstream, over and over again,
where the mind is free to be mesmerized
by the fly as it finds new currents home.

We dug worms for cane poles, watched
corks bob when I was a boy. It’s not
about the fish, but the fishing instead.

We have fences places
no human’s been to since—
no bovine notices
grazing home

to friends and family
closer to good water and
the feed truck’s track
and us. To be understocked

makes good neighbors
best, barbed wire tangles
under fallen limbs
that will rot before

we ever remove them—
an old man’s economy
between energy and need
that native cows ensure.