WAIRARAPA
The road
from Wellington
up into the Wairarapa
is a steep and winding road
through green as green as Irish envy
If you keep your eye
on the center line of the road
your breakfast may stay where you put it
If you look down
along the cliffs and crags
all the hardness wrapped in soft
to count the valley cows and sheep
your stomach will forgive you
tomorrow or the next day or the next
and you will always have today
MOONDUST IN THE FOOTPRINTS
for Jane on our fiftieth anniversary
Almost fifty years ago
Armstrong landed on the moon
He isn’t there now
but we celebrate it yet
And since
the past is not the past
but in the moment we remember
I remember
you and us
I remember
EXPANSION
Poetry is expanding
Like the universe
and God to contain it
So shout
whisper or whine
as long as you can
into that big blue balloon
THE TURKEY SHOOT
Small town Saskatchewan
raising money for the curling rink
Targets fifty feet away
and old bent-sight 22’s to shoot
The trick to bringing a turkey home
was not how well at the bullseye shot
but how fast you learned that life
is sometimes three inches down
and two to the left of where you aim
November 22, 2017
LIGHT
The thing about light is that it never gets tired
Three million years at the speed of itself
from that star to here
without a slow day or a stop to complain
On the days that I remember
things move pretty well as well
THE GREAT CIRCLE
The children are piling the leaves again
ready for the next bare-limb leap
life into death and back
Beavers’ teeth never stop growing so they chew on wood to keep them at a manageable length. If they didn’t maintain them their teeth would eventually grow into their brains.
I shot a beaver in my youth
who cursed me with this curse
My teeth
will be your poems now
remembering our gift unused
grows fatal to the brain
Mary had a little lab
his coat was dirt and roll
and everywhere that Mary went
he wagged his smile behind her
WINDMILL FARMS
How many will it take to keep this thing in the air
COPPER LEFT HER LAUGH
Copper Love