God’s Country

 

Painting by David Mensing

 

 

I’ve used the phrase often
not with small purpose
when nature resplendent
unfolds into view
breathtaking with grace
where bluebonnet skies
clutching billowed chiffons
meet with lavender rolls
that upholster the earth
between sepia seams
edging emerald forests
and purple-gray foothills
ascending cool slopes
capped by eggshells and pearls
where air has clean taste
scrubbed by fingers of breeze
and waters clear smell
sparkling salted or pure
to imbibe and intoxicate
quickening species
robust and refreshed
through connection by brisk
elemental comingling
of molecules built from
stray bits of far stars
coalesced by the livening
rays of the sun

 

 

(originally posted April 2013)

Lifecycle

 

“Abstract Evolution Series 1018” by Dina Sierra

 

 

we were born in damp caves
or perhaps came from
under the sea
before planets had names
or a language for teaching us
how to adore them
our tadpole tails twitched
with momentous intense
metamorphosis
standing us bipedal upright
enabling the reach of our
eyes and our ears to the stars
seeking company somewhere
more noble than we
finding only the echoes
of our own beginnings
as ungrateful stewards in heir
to our own earthen womb
left to struggle with finding
the right way to love her

 

 

(originally posted December 2013)

What on Earth?

 

“Green Earth” by Robert Rodriguez

 

how does the bird consider its shadow

react to its passing reflections in glass

can it marvel at knowing its special existence

its place in the animate telltale of skies

I would fly upon free-flowing wind if I could

take particular pleasure in being at one with

the beautiful blue peering down at lush green

skirting mountains and gliding through valleys

whose glistening rivers feed sparkling seas

all to wonder from breathtaking vantage of

high airy precincts so perfectly hinting of heaven

why denizens wingless and seemingly witless

behave with indifference and even hostility

laid to the life-giving grants of a kindly creation

Invention

 

“Machine Abstract” by Mi9

 

 

 

my dandy green engine
just sputtered and coughed
till I gave it a kick and
it licked into stride with
a great cosmic thrum as
it sucked in the carbon
emissions that hung from
the atmosphere cleansing
the blue like an art
restoration recaptures the
painter’s own light but
the off-switch just wouldn’t
respond and it sucked
down the sky with a whoosh
and then gurgled while
pulling the sea from its beds
next the cities went clattering
into its maw and I kicked
it and whacked it to no
real avail as I watched every
landscape and mountain
get swallowed an instant
ahead of the sun moon
and stars so with no love
of loneliness I had no choice
but to tuck in my chin and
dive into my beast leaving
then and forever an old
planet newly made clean and
pristine cold and dark with
one dandy machine that again
seized with sputter and cough

 

 

(originally posted December 2013)

Hobson’s Choice

Burning Shale Photo by Douglas C. Pizac of AP

hollows haunt the deep shale
pools of dinosaur tears
remnant seas sad of time
burned and blackened but sweet
supple skeletons breathe
beneath civilizations
life beats in their promise
the future will come at a cost

 

 

(originally posted December 2013)

An Unpopular Stand

NOAA Climate Data

inside the sound and the fury
the deafening voice of the storm
mocks the hubris of humans
convinced of their power
to instigate change in
formidable habits of history
driven by forces of nature

inside the sound and the fury
the deafening voice of the storm
drowns the whimpering yelps
of a barely significant species

Cabochon

Emerald green glinting bottleglass
Carried by time upon adamant tides
Edges lost along sand-churning coasts

It watches my toes sinking deeper
Alerting the other smooth pebbles and shells
To the threat of my towering interlope

I reach through the swirling bubbles of surf
But the glimmer has gone and I wonder
If earth is now blind to my larceny

Antarctic Reckoning

“Antarctic Painting 23” by Dafila Scott

 

majestic angularities
jagged clean and pristine
antiseptic whiteness
paints prominent peaks
blue virginal shadows
infer ancient clefts
undercutting high glacial
primordial ridges
no man ever climbed
aurora australis
spectacular spectra
electrified ethers
in pulsating waves
emblazon the heavens
sharp thunder cracks stab
sheer vertical slabs
calve loose with a roar
mammoth slices of ice
plunging into the sea
giving shuddering echoes
resurfacing masses
emerge hissing groans
unsteadily heaving
chaotic collisions
debriding deformities
scraping and knocking
until they attain
a transient settle
finding odd fluid plumb
gargantuan monoliths
now floating reborn
timelessness seeps
from crystalline crags
its dominance speaks
with cold condescension
man’s prowess too lean
to succeed ambivalence
motives too mean
and powers pathetic
to reckon with nature
beyond his inconsequence

 

 

From my book Range of Motion

Figments

 

“Red Dragon” by Milen Tod

 

 

the dragons come at midnight
when the guns are asleep
fire rains with the stench of dead angels
humanity thinned of its arrogance
stripped of its guardians
carbonized corpses retaining
no more than stilled shadows of life
fly ash scattered and blown
in the draft of grim leathery wings
man paying the ultimate price for
asserting dominion of nature
what irony unnatural creatures
meta-ethical figments of vengeance
deliver the strike that dethrones him
and yet they find need to come
night after night burning bodies in beds
human hubris so deeply inbred
that acute fears of dragons and death
never last past the morning
each day man climbs back on his throne
spouting same old same vacuous edicts
all lessons of darkness forgotten

 

 

From my books Onionskin and Legacies (vol. 2)

Two Degrees Centigrade

 

“Global Warming” by Dennis Nadeau

 

 

two hundred nations
have agreed to agree
without meaning to

 

 

From my books Onionskin and Riverthink