Poems XII

"At North Lake, Where I Did Not Mean To Go"

I took the path less traveled by,
The air cold and crisp and light,
The fall sun casting shadows,
The rocks and trees in darkened sight.

To look left at the leafless aspens,
With their amber cousin down the hill,
You could think they would squabble for life,
But they are one as the lakewater still.

A fish hops, brings a single ripple,
A southern breeze on calm North Lake.
But the aspen's stalks stand tall and clustered,
No telltale shiverous shake.

The fishermen across the water
Can be heard, what do they say?
They see me as I am quiet, on this
Lovely autumn day.


"Down In Sunset"

A pale silhouette of the burnished sky
The reflection shines brighter in its gray
My sight
Flies through the aspen ghosts
To watch a shimmer of refraction fade.
Fleeting, and gloriously so,
The ashen flow
Peeks through to me.
The mountains have their flipped counterparts,
But it is
Sky Father
seen in himself upon
Earth Mother
who stops my descent.

The sun dies
And my subject is cold and pale,
A silver farewell.


"Knives In My Room"

Three knives
On the wall
Coming in at Angle
Down & In
Down and out
A triad, trifecta, triangle,
The glided red, a royal's blade
A peasant's of hide and leather.
Nondescript and ceremonial,
The third tilted on its tether.
Knives for grandfather,
Knives for me,
Brothers of blood and those across borders
"Uzbekiston"
The cougar says
In fantasy scripts out of Mordor.

"Untitled"

I went to see the fall colors at Lake Sabrina
A friend
I don't know very well
Told me it was beautiful.

Why is it that someone always gets there first?
I was too late
Too old
To see the red-topped sprouts
The way my heart felt it should.
I went the wrong way more than once
Dead ends so full of hope
I thanked myself that I told no one
Brought no friends for my journey
But wouldn't it be wonderful

To share the sorrow,
For them to know my mind?

Rust still stood, here and there,
But I dismissed it as not my Muse,
Rocky islands, so many stones
Needing water
Needing snow, not shallows.

I see the waterline.
What could be.
The folly and fall of any romantic.

Possibilities linger and tempt.
So I'll try again.
I'll climb the mountains.
Find a new lake.
One higher up.
One that was there the whole time.

A few weeks, or months,
Time flies even when you want it to, when you wait for it.
Who is next?
I welcome winter
The harbor's closed.

An auburn gully tantalizes,
Moving on to what I cannot grasp.

But O!

The azure!

A different vantage,
Of a higher and nobler sort.

Breathtaking views from
Hard-breathing heights,
A powder sky,
Verdant shallows where I see
No fish but know he is there.
The lake, she opens a cerulean depth over there
Over. There.
There!
The word that's been missing.
What is, not what could be,
The is, the there
Bringing presence to the present moment
For this present soul.
Why harp on the nonce?
I see a second me belong
To the lady of the lake, so clear.