Of This immortal Earth
When I die, lay my body on the cold damp ground
and let me soak into the sponge of dead needles
carpeting the forest floor.
Cradled in the bosom of a sheltering fir
tucked beneath its fertile canopy
I'll lie waiting for the arrival of spring,
when worms, and ants, and beetles
will bear me off, bit by bit, in a winding processional
to scatter me throughout the woods.
Grieving tears will trickle from pine boughs
flowing down to the valley; doves will lament my passing
whispering hymns upon the wind.
Just then will I be sanctified as part of this earth
and my epitaph will be known
only to those who dwell in the wilderness.
Outlaw
Dawn's fire eats the remains of the frigid night
when Indian Summer makes a truce with Autumn.
I wander, a strange foreigner to the desert plain,
where sunlight and wind are master over me.
Spare my paper-like skin, once pale and clean, now painted red;
give me oasis beneath the cloudless skies.
Thoughts of last night's lady whose chamber I shared
lift me, move me further away from my dark past.
Papers make me out as a legend of the West.
I shall retire, repent, redeem,
and find genuine peace with myself.
There's A Place I Like To Go
The dam behind the small pond
covered in thorny trees
framed in shadowed fronds
where the winter birds feed
has a view that I behold
a place I've never told
of tiny insects swarming in filtered light
there lies a second larger pond in sight
where I catch a glimpse of a bluegill rise
and recall my Grandfather's joy
teaching me of knotted flies
on a summer's eve when I was a boy.