Thanks.
The Riffle
He runs far and stays away on school nights
Grass stained knees and orange blood on a sleeve
The fields stare back at him from class
Teacher stuffing letters into the pockets of the good kids
Whose parents dote
He runs far and listens to the old timers
Spinning yarns on benches built by their fathers
Making light of the broken systems
That allowed the fishing to get so bad
He punches the boy from lunch that pokes his ribs
And scratches his eyes in a bloody fight
Banging skulls against the gymnasium door frame.
Teeth in knuckles and hair between teeth.
He ran to the riffle in old Jensens creek
To burn and drown the note home
That he wasn’t afraid to die.
The Meadow
In the meadow a cow has broken its leg.
She howls in the night like the moon is about to break.
The farmer cannot hear her.
He's drunk at the bar and my dogs begin to whine with the sound.
A cruel cacophony of the canine and bovine.
Dogs recanting urges buried since they joined us at the hunters fire.
The prickly hackles stand up as the coyotes circle and we can almost see them through their yelps and blithe laughter.
The dogs seem torn for a moment
Lost in the foray of their ancestors.
The silence takes hold and I'm alone by the fire.
Crooked
I watched a siege of sandhill cranes
Saunter upon a reborn patch of the earth.
The deep tilling furrows cut back like black corduroy
The symmetry of modern man is an abomination.
Where sage once stood around the indians
Returning from the grinding mills high on the bluffs
Their paths were much more crooked than the cranes.
Left overs from the dinosaurs and the land before humans knew
Still stalking the meadows
Made in our image.
