PREMONITION
Carl Walenda used to say
He only felt alive
when walking the high wire
everything else was just waiting
Some rodeo cowboys feel the same way
for eight seconds on a good day
One day in South America
Carl Walenda checked his tie downs
something he never did
He went up on the wire anyway
and he fell
After all those years of butterflies
it’s hard to tell
which is the black one
REQUIEM
“There is nothing sad about an empty shell.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery The Little Prince
My
poetry
is the shell
I leave you now.
It’s spiralled substance
all I’ve known of life and love.
See how it winds, and ever opens
stained with all the colors of my growth
and every gift and every touch of all of you and more
Hold it to your ear
you may hear the ocean
DARK EYED LADY
An instant connection
with richness and light
that’s deeper than centuries
and warmer than life
Though if death’s darkness
is as welcoming as this
no wonder people hurry
to sink into that bliss
And though I’m pretty sure
I’m not ready to be dead
I’d like to sit by those waters
and rest my weary head
And drop pebbles of my poetry
just to watch the ripples spread
DEER GONE
A tough shot, 600 yards at least, running left to right
in the open sights of the 303. Aim to the top of the
third jump ahead, move the gun in a smooth arc
and squeeze slow
It was a kill
I saw it as great skill
a source of blood fed pride
and the deer… well it just died
The Indians used to see it as a kind of revolving door
the spirit of the animal would come back soon
enough in another body if you used the one
he had given up to you with gratitude
There are not many deer in these parts anymore
I wonder if they are trapped
waiting for the gratitude
Indians lost in whiskey
and we never knew
THE CROW
TWO BOYS AND CROW AT 50 YARDS
TWO SHOTS AS ONE THE CROW FELL STILL
WE LAUGHED AND RAN WHOSE HIT WHOSE MISS
TWO HOLES IN HEAD
AS CLOSE AS THIS
O O
THE LIFE WAS IN OUR EYES AND SKILL
TOO FAR FROM DEATH TO UNDERSTAND A KILL
FARM DOG
My dad doesn’t allow pets in the house
they weren’t allowed in on the farm
where he grew up either
Once when he was eight
the dog came up the stairs
down the hall to the room on the right
where his young mother lay dying
Laid his head for a moment on her lap
and went out again
THE LONELY MEN
Their little dark houses still dotted the prairie
when I was growing up
They all seemed to cling to the soil as if their
life force had all been used up in the long and
difficult transplanting, and they could hang on
but no longer grow
Or they stood alone and surrounded by sadness
and the small and smaller markers of what had
fallen to the reaper’s scythe
Their roots, loosened year after year
by the hot winds and the deep frosts
became more and more brittle
Until one by one they broke off
like tumbleweeds
and were gone