chokecherry
even when a great fat pit
sits right at the center of things
the fruit can still be savored
let sun bake tart into tang
until the wizened sphere
rests against your unsure tongue
nibble away anyway
until your mouth is flooded
with chewy purple-blue
surprising reassurance
there’s still some sweetness left
in this old blasted summer
August First
August sneaks up
just when you feel you’re
safely in the thick of summer
lazing through July
but school and structure
are only a breath away
the days are getting shorter
I feel it tonight
but with the dark
comes candlelight’s glow
and the warmth of the cheery lanterns
strung overhead
these are the days when
I would take my new school shoes
out of their cardboard box
admire them and smell the stiff leather
then close them back in the closet
prepared to suck whatever juice summer had left
from that popsicle quickly losing its color and tang
going ice-grey
at the lake
people bake
in this scene out of Kansas
or Nebraska
ski counterclockwise
the sign reminds
so the boats corkscrew around
this finite refreshment
it’s Saturday
and one after another
the pickups back to ramp
deposit the underclad bodies
perched on beached boats
set them floating toward Sunday
loud music and beer buoying them along
while an uncertain dog
paces the deck
and a gaping fish head
rots on the shore
solstice gift
our boys passed the day
harmoniously
lightening all
within their spheres
solstice eve
today the light still grows longer
spring exhales a last sigh of
cold grey rain
the meadows array themselves
in purple iris, orange wallflower,
golden banner, red paintbrush
blue mist penstemon
hot pink shooting star
readying for tomorrow’s solarbration
the wheel begins to creak and turn
our hearts begin to shift:
how to weather summer’s forge
how to keep calm hearts and attentive minds
when light goes white hot
and the cities burn
how to practice restraint when burning up
and wait like still water
how to have faith in humanity’s
capacity to survive and heal
how to rise up like a storm surge
when our movement is needed
may it be so
Lauca
en verano
wiry fuzzy young llamas and vicuñas
kick their long camel-colored limbs
across the altiplano
like paper dolls with brass brad joints
their more sedate mothers stand by
all four feet gathered to a point
as if balancing on a ball
slanty-eyed supple viscachas huddle together
under peach-colored rocks out of the rain
then sprint straight up a slope
to their next natural lookout
everything goes green
and around each verdant life
there’s an even more brilliant
rough ring of moss
maybe made by fairies dancing
or, then again, maybe just a peculiar habit of its growth
which studs the hills and plains with living magic –
food for all the fuzzies
July on the Plains
you go east
tumbling out of the mountains
just like Clear Creek
but before you hit the malty smell of Coors
turn north
skirt the tilted tablelands
where the ground ruptured
while birthing mountains
and now the prickly dark-ever-green
of forest
has given way
to the stiff serrated-yellow-green
of grass –
you don’t need
the window down
to sense the heat rising in waves
from the baking land,
you feel it inside, too –
setting things on edge
bringing you one step closer
to boiling over
