SNOWMAN
I am a man
I can stand and write my name
and poems in the snow
Spring is a woman
Grass will grow through them
warmth will wipe them out
SNOWMAN
I am a man
I can stand and write my name
and poems in the snow
Spring is a woman
Grass will grow through them
warmth will wipe them out
THE APPLE
And when all had been named
they ate of the apple
and began to name again
And the names were
Good and evil
And our mouths
are yet full of that naming
and the taste of that judging
Spit it out
and you are back in the garden
FOR MARY WHO LOVES HORSES
I have ridden the fence line
without believing in fences
I have been one with the movement of horse
the strength and speed of horse
the grace of horse and the
soul of horse
I have been one with the wind
and the high rolling hills
and the sky
I have stepped down
with my hands filled with staples and pliers
For the welfare of cattle and neighbours
who still have need of believing
in fences
DANCING THE DREAMING
Aborigines on an Austin stage
Dancing the dreaming
But something’s wrong
They dance in stage lines not sacred circles
Men and women dancing together
Even I know that’s not how they did it
My Aussie friend points out that they have
no scars of initiation
Drug store cowboys
in five and dime dream time
The phoniness bothers me for quite a while
They are not really doing the sacred songs
They probably don’t even know the sacred songs
Of course if they did they wouldn’t be singing
them for us
On a Texas stage
in five and dime dream time
And yet there is something happening
below the surface
that starts to pull me in
The didgeree-do is made from a real tree
The circular breathing to blow it is there
strong and free
Something real is rising through it all
Something I don’t understand
Something they don’t even understand
If you listen real close you can hear it
below and through and beyond it all
Fifty thousand years of DNA singing
SUNDAY AFTERNOON
It was a Sunday afternoon about a year ago today
I couldn’t sit, I couldn’t stand I just knew I couldn’t stay
So I took off for Toronto fifteen hundred miles away
Two days of boring meetings,
couldn’t stand to have one more
didn’t know where I needed to be
but it wasn’t here I knew for sure
So I grabbed a train to Windsor
and Detroit which lies next door
Outside spring was springing and calling more and more
and I’d get to see some country that I’d never seen before
Oh, the sheep were soft upon the land
and there was magic in the day
as I sipped my rum and cola
and rhymed couplets all the way
Checked in on Wednesday, wondering what to do
maybe I could try to call a good old friend or two
There was a man I’d met in Banff
just three weeks before
a man of love and wisdom
that I’d like to see once more
And a lady of my poems
that I’d seen just twice before
thirty minutes in an airport
and two hours on the shore
He was busy in a meeting she answered on first try
she had booked off work without knowing why
And when I told her that I was in her town
she said “I’ve got a story and I’ll be right down”
It seems that her grand dad
who had raised her as a child
had died not long ago
and the grief had drove her wild
The family all were fighting for the pennies on his eyes
and there was no one there to hear her heartfelt cries
So she ran from that hospital not knowing what to do
and stood on the highest hill alone in a sky of blue
And loudly called my name
“Please come, please, I need you”
When I asked had she made this cry
and had I come real soon
“Oh it wasn’t very long ago
just Sunday afternoon”
BULL DANCERS OF CRETE
Two thousand pounds of power
thunders toward one hundred of slim youth
No picadors to wound and slow
No red caped cowardice to step aside
They meet straight on
Bull head down, youth’s held high
Horns grasped, the head snaps up
in anger and surprise
They flip in beauty over a broad back
Converting and transforming
twenty to one ratio
power into
grace
Sometimes I toss
the alphabet into the air
making quick note of letters chosen by the sun
Sometimes I push it
around with my toe in the mud
slowly surprised by what turns up
SMALL TOWN – GRADE SEVEN
In a town of six or seven hundred
you get a cross section of the country
One classmate’s father’s suicide with shotgun
splattered walls
One boy my age, drowned
in an upturned truck in a muddy ditch
One with leukemia, white as the snow
One redhead, Leslie French, as beautiful and
mysterious as the language
One blonde, Shirley Long, to long for
She’s only interested in grade 9 boys
One bruised heart
Not yet hard enough to be broken
ICARUS UNBOUND
Within the greater urge
of man to soar and fly
It is not uncommon
that some may try and die
Salmon must return to spawn
birds must south and northward fly
The Buddha and the Christ
give focus to the martyr’s eye
The fault lies not
in these unalterable things
But in the material
with which he built the wings
JOHN HAWK
John Hawk came down
out of Kansas – moving fast
Black Hair and feather flying
Bare feet grip the floor
as
he breaks from the crowd
Seize the mic seize the hearts
seize the minds
Look out world
there’s a warrior out there
A warrior rearmed
with the weapon of words