Tag Archives: poetry

What sweet perfection, this planet blessed
to feed itself, whose wildness beckons men
to tame her, to milk her flesh for comfort,

for the glory of brief accomplishments—
lost cultures and civilizations, our crumbling
emulations of rocky crags with razor teeth

scraping stormy skies as man’s connection
to heaven. We have been fruitful, hungry
for her bounties hobbled by ignorance,

arrogance and greed. Mother to us all,
she is a stranger to our children, a far cry
from the hard and generous woman

she once was—her distant whine
on the wind from town begs relief
and a certain change in direction.

I don’t expect to see
in the same way now
and I’m not the wise
old man I wanted to be—

after all, this new ground
hasn’t changed much,
the rain still drains
down the same canyons

in my brain, a ruffled
landscape come alive
in my skull that I must
work around, it seems.

The solace of ridges
I cannot reach
but with my eyes,

I have shared
with generations here
put to rest before me—

while the lower ground
churns with the business
of getting bigger,

milking the earth
for all she’s worth,
building fortunes and cities.

We are not prepared
to go hungry, thirst
without water to irrigate

a meal. We must learn
to look beyond ourselves
to see our children’s

future, work together
to shape a world
that’s not a living hell.

Evening conversation dwells
on a thin cow, vaccine
protocol and the dog’s limp

without a hint of politics
beyond the barbed wire—
beyond this ground and grass.

We don’t want to know
what makes the news—
what makes the outside world

tick with greed and power.
Evening conversation dwells
on more important things.

It could be heaven
if the girls across the canyon
cared, if they worried

about the time of day
or year when green
turns straw-blond dry.

They are spared
the human condition—
graze until they die.