Summer vision

The twilight etches cliffs in stark relief;
a foreground bonsai focuses the scene.
MDMA inclines me toward belief
that someone understands just what I mean.
The atmosphere is scattering the Blue
to stain the cloud-deck many shades of red.
A vignette shared in empathy with you,
and all the moly coursing through our heads.
If I could conjure such a scene in verse,
I wouldn't so despair that I can't draw.
But knowing that I can't, I feel accursed;
no other mind could know quite what I saw.
An isolated mind resents it's plight
preferring to insist we've shared this sight.

memorial

On moonless nights, the dogs are unperturbed
they know each path, each rock, each root full well.
While I risk injury on every curb,
they're game to navigate, as if by smell.
Sweet prince, some pound proposed to euthanize,
lest someone take his woof for an attack,
intimidated by his lupine size,
was only fierce in loving his new pack.
The squirrels stripping fruit trees in the park
might miss the charm of predators beneath.
The nightmares haunting rodents in the dark
wed 'Tasha's speed to Odin's crushing teeth.
One day, we're hiking; next, he's wracked with pain.
There's scarcely time to bid a last 'so long'.
Eroding tibia can't take the strain;
abrupt old-age strikes hard in one so strong.
The Frisbee she disdained to ever share
lies idle now that Odin's just not there.

rosh hashanah

By equinox, Orion's high and bright
reminding us it's time to sharpen skis.
Free calendar republished night by night
for those mistrustful of technologies.
The StarLink constellation's something new;
Koheleth scowls, but nothing's to be done.
Illuminated just before dawn's due
Aloft, but plainly well beneath the sun.
Few city dwellers ever get to know
that Nature can't be bounded in a park.
Bedazzled by the artificial glow
they lose the wonderment of primal Dark.
A glimpse of sky sets poets' minds ablaze
as much at night as on the bluest days.

edges

Montana sunrise--by the clock--dawns late;
at edges, Man's conventions droop and bend.
In Idaho, it's seven; here it's "eight"
at Mountain Time Zone's designated end.
Jules Verne found drama in the plot device
as picaresque adventures each unfurled.
Whole days get skipped, or must be lived out twice
In circumnavigating a round world.
The arbitrary twelfth part of mean Night
dissects a seamless globe by twenty-four.
A smooth Continuum, like width, or height,
Got parceled out, to every prayer, or chore.
Constructed boundaries tear worlds apart, 

but brute convention dictates where zones start.

Field of Pelennor

"Death!" roared his riders    Eomer led them
spotting his sister               flung on the fallen
king in his noon-years        eager for killing
Rohan's anointed               at the sun's rising

Theoden's fallen                gone to his Fathers Eorl's wunderkind             worthy of honor Slew the Black Serpent     Sauron's surrogate midwinter minstrels         shine his memory shattered by Snowmane    bane of his master When he's embarrowed     women will mourn him Last of his bloodline         crown must pass sideways Son of his sister                starts a new mounds-row Eowyn's brother                eclipsed in battle Theoden's fallen               gone to his Fathers Dropping his home-guard  rode to save Mundburg Bright flairs the sunset     Third Age is ending

Fall

the creeping Dark trims daylight at both ends
each sunset hastens and each daybreak lags
the radiation on which life depends
diminishes as harvest season drags
the change is swiftest at the equinox
between the solstices, more and more night
fair-weather sailboats hauled out in drydocks
acutely conscious of the waning light
new freshmen navigating the old school 
undreaming how much it is they don't know
but sure their generation defines "cool"
seem woefully unready for first snow
the leaves are fading, falling from the trees
as thoughts are turning to rewaxing skis

metaphors

a tilted planet, orbiting its sun
has days that wax and wane throughout the year
a  normal axis sets all=one
a cosmic bicycle in one fixed gear
a metaphor for life's growths and decays
implicit as each night brings on more chill
aligning dimming eyes with waning days
as aching limbs protest to climb each hill

but cyclic functions come around again
each Spring's rebirth's as sure as Fall's decline
so poets sketch an afterlife for men
a lot like this, but of inverted sign
conjecture's free to roam where data's null
to think it's settled fact, one must be dull

glint

the setting sun gilds wave-crests on the Bay
a regal foot-path into the far West
a fleeting vision at the close of day
of Phaeton putting his horse-team to rest
imagination treads where feet can't go
in liminal states verging on our dreams
conflating what's above with life below
what's tangible with what--at most--just seems
before us, in its glory sprawls the night
ere rosy-fingered Dawn lights up the East
where touch and sound must take the place of sight
until two backs conjoin to form one beast
each moment, possibilities abound 
if we'd but lift our eyes above the ground        

flights of fancy

across the sea, a footpath paved in gold
leads flights of fancy towards the setting sun
imagination, if not well-controlled
can slip its leash and take off at a run
might not a ship--despite what's oft observed--
keep straight its course, defying gravity
Cartesian grid instead of one that's curved
could ply the whale-road towards infinity
but then the sun's below horizon's mark
and even as the sky sheds its last gleam
the seeming pavement fades into the dark
just as the upper hemisphere's stars teem
the moment's past, the notion seems insane
and just these cryptic verses here remain