Coming in to Port

as if racing to port
excursion boats
leave long white wakes

(in blue mediterranean seas)


white frothy wakes
on mediterraean blue
motion shows emotion

captains racing over waves
a man needs to go faster
than anybody else
 
such joy to be the leader


ancient port walls
help us define the scale

ancient stone helps
keep land from sliding
into an ancient sea


warm days on an island
floating on an ancient sea
everything looks peaceful

such excitement 
but it disintegrates
in my fading memory

Torch Ginger

Torch Ginger

memory fails me
(again and again)
its always been that way

which tropic island
were we on that 
warm and sunny day


when was that sweet day
where did it ever go

we can't relive it ever
we've moved on 
and it has moved away
just out of our reach

shadows on the warm 
white sand (shadows 
on the sunny beach)

it's now a dream
an unreal place and time

the past (they say) does not exist
and time we can't unwind  

old habits die so slowly
we think and talk about our past
as if it was a real thing
(what if that were true)

we can't see it any more it's gone 

if we could go back to there
and then (what would we ever do)

Pathway in the Sand

Pathway in the Sand

      a beach or sandbar
   one hundred million
years in a forgotten past

   still the sand remains
only witness to those days

witness to these days too


   time flows mysteriously on
(sand can be in sand dunes)
      on maybe in an hourglass

sometimes a pathway


      we make our pathways
by repeating our footsteps

   going the same way
day after day for years

      a pathway can be slight
change in the height of soil
   tiny depressions in sand


ancient pathways in sand
      yesterday it seems
somebody's feet walked
the same way

End of the Allium

End of the Allium

some are really beautiful
but never called upon

destined to be seen once
and never really noticed


or noticed at the wrong time
(a time we'd never choose)

when we were no longer
at our beautiful best

we were beautiful babies
(where has our beauty gone)


vestiges seem to remain
of fabulous beauty

often unappreciated
(where does all the 
beauty go
some of us 
would like to know)

if we could find it
maybe we could bottle it
and sell it like an elixir
from the fountain of youth


would you buy or know
the man's selling snake oil

Fantasy Landscapes

   sand and sunshine
made such a sculpted
   fantasy landscape 
(over millions of years)

are these shapes real
   (there's just no way)


      waken to shapes
that make no sense

   curves where winds
have blown away sand

   eddies and currents
      for millions of years
even after a catastrophic
   flood nobody ever saw


canyons and valleys
   out in the middle of
      a desert where it
never rains but even so
   in the weather of ages

sandstone breaks down
      again becoming sand

Monday Bliss

Monday Bliss

look out the window
autumn's cool morning

october beautiful
(it's coming this way)


pulling virginia creeper
out of our cedar hedge

buckets of sunshine
splashing down on us

autumn's cooler noon


thinking of lunchtime
long shadows in the

golden hours of 
morning and evening

afternoon fades
moving towards
cool evening hours


dark abysmal night
comes quietly
gold turns blue 
then black

and then we rest

Hot Summer Day

Hot Summer Day

one hot summer day

   i don't remember
the place or time
      not exactly


riding down the road
   miles and hours

passing trees and fields
   it's a half-forgotten blur


      i recall squatting
beside the highway
changing lenses

making photographs

huge trucks roaring past 
   raising so much dust


a farmer's weathered shed
   falls slowly year by year

i see it clearly although
      i should maybe admit

      that the shed was 
further than it seems


a huge and heavy lens
makes things appear
to be impossibly closer 

(how it was that day)

Flowers in Hawaii

Flowers in Hawaii

a flower cluster on 
      Hawaii's big island

caught my attention


      flowers from africa
   blossoms from india
sprays from americas

   people thought it okay
if anything might grow


      african tulip trees
now dominate hillsides

   i don't remember
hawaiian sunsets

when the sun sets
      in tropical places

it doesn't just get dark
   when the sun sets
      it gets blackout

(you can see nothing
without a flashlight)


   when the sun comes up
   it's just like fresh magic
bright flowers everywhere

Time Before Time

Time Before Time

before the beginning
we wonder what was

before the first light
when time is just a fuzz


at the edge of forever
as far as light goes

is there an edge to forever
or the edge of as far as we see


we can almost see
the beginning of time

such a long distance away

but see as far as forever
is just too far to see


does time travel straight
or twist and turn

how would we ever know


they say that a big bang
billions of years ago

started a universe
(but what made it happen
we do not yet know

or what was there before
nor do we know if there
was any when or where)

Burnt Trees

you find here blackened
bones of forgotten trees

how they provided shade
shelter for nests
for smaller animals

once it was safe habitat
a wonderful thing


before the fire swept up
from a southern hilltop

caused a lightning strike 
on hilltop (we saw it)

it took off like a wild thing
leaping orange lights

running along a ridge


untamed by time or place

it ran like no orange snake 
we ever saw (leaving ruin
behind it) blackened
skeletal tree trunks

making your eyes water

but you are stunned 
by the devastation
and tears don't help