When They Gather

A flock blusters in,
out of the winter flurry,
amid the squawk and flutter
the crows find their gathers.

The men place bets
when they flock by the TV,
and the women drink
when they gather in the kitchen.

The TV-gather struts and blusters,
makes noise, flaps their wings,
throws food in the air,
and the women drink
when they gather in the kitchen.

Bull Under A Peach Tree

By a dirt road an orchard’s remnant
stands in a pasture’s corner and produces
an old crop. Alluring pink blouses
on the breeze draw careless insects.

The blouses have long shed their fragrance
and dropped onto the moss bed,
leaving bulging-belly fruit basking in sun
until they too lose their grip.

I sit under the tree and watch a bull
glean the fallen fruit, the sweetest
with a tang of fermentation

Watching For Sasquatch

Debbie is flagger for Great Basin Pipeline,
she puts up a sign that says SLOW
on one side and STOP on the other,

she spends the summer on Crane Mountain
making do with a tedious series
of brief and irritating relationships,

feeding the chipmunks, swatting insects,
watching for sasquatch.
Debbie spends the winter in Elko

at the Four-Way Casino,
feeding the slots, swatting cowboys,
making do with a tedious series

of brief and irritating relationships,
she puts up a sign that says SLOW
on one side and STOP on the other.

Debbie spends the night
watching for sasquatch.

Trouble in Mind

I walk down the beach and find a flat spot
between the driftwood and tufts of beach grass,
a good place to escape the frictions and nagging
irritations of life, the placid ocean

is three shades of green today, and foggy grays
that reach up and merge with the sky, wave tails
slide up the beach, seven sanderling skitter along,
pick, picking at the sand like pestering three-year olds.

Four miles down the Pacific Plate is rubbing
the North American Plate the wrong way,
and the Juan de Fuca Plate is push, pushing.
North America has no place to go, no walk in the trees,

no tavern with a stool and a beer, no quiet beach
with sliding waves and picking sanderling.
North America double kicks Pacific in the ribs,
Pacific shoves along holding its prickly side,

making achy noises. North America jumps up
and Juan de Fuca slides twenty-three feet under,
flat on its face, North America stomps back down
on Juan de Fuca’s neck in violent rock-melting rage

that troubles the placid ocean and sends the sanderling flying off.
North America stomps around until the fury subsides,
the sanderling find new picking grounds, the ocean quiets,
North America and I settle back with trouble in our thinkers.

To The Quail On The Highway

My sincere and deep apologies
to the quail on the Ravendale Highway
that scurried to safety in brushy shadows
on the right-hand side of the road

and then, for some inexplicable reason,
flew into the path of my truck,
and vanished in a burst of feathers.
I apologize to your children, your lover,

I apologize for not slowing, not stopping
to show respect for lost life.
Some day I too will fly
into a burst of feathers.

Don't Know Jack

The Army took my Jack, my loving man,
sent him to Iraq to play in the sand,
now he sleeps on the rocks in Afghanistan.

We used to let our passions boil
now he sleeps on foreign soil
protecting my share of the foreign oil.

They used him up and sent him back
with his busted ass in a gunny sack,
I don't know Jack.

My Deal

On a summer evening when the sun
has quit and the air is cooled, I enjoy a glass

of Port and stimulating conversation
with a thoughtful and well-informed raconteur,

a tricky exchange of views
with my intellectual equal,

a Port and challenging game of strategy
with a like-minded schemer.

Deep in the night ideas ricochet
around the room like insects

on the screen, no insect too small,
no fantasy too cosmic, I pour another glass,

get in touch with my inner fence post,
deal another solitaire.

The tricky exchange goes on till dawn.

Silent Ku

the placid ocean –
tectonic plates
ponder a move

~

Westport Marina before dawn –
the scent of crab pots

~

between Forks and Kalaloch
I tune in the radio
and listen to the static

~

to Jennifer I say
never-ending love –
quiet skepticism

~

at three in the morning
I listen to the moon

~

I have beans with my rice
and break the silence

Painter Spring

A generation of crickets hatch and swarm
across a road, across an alkali flat,
all in the same direction
even if not the same place,
crickets answer to a higher power
embedded in their every cell,
an inner voice that says, ‘not here’.

At Painter Spring there are no homeless,
every reptile and mammal finds a ledge
or tree to curl under, across the valley
a light snow falls, obscuring the salt flats,
crisp air replaces smells of juniper,
sage, alkali dust, it gets cold here,
some turn back to wait the winter in Stinkwater,
the rest pack up and head west in a swarm
that doesn’t make it across the playa
to the way station at Marjin Pass.

In a couple months the Russells bring a sled
and take the debris back to Hidden Canyon,
a wagon with a broken wheel, two buckets
and a shovel, a piano, five boots
with torn-out soles, blacksmith tools, a transit
and tripod, three ghosts and a poltergeist.

The sled glides over dry snow in starlight,
horses vent into the still air,
Brenda Russell blocks the cold with a blanket,
she can’t block the disquiet, not here.

There’s no room in Chicago, Sadie is turned out,
she gets cold, thinks ‘somewhere else or bust’,
packs her bag and buys a one-way
to Saint Jo, turns her back on the east
and faces the great western blank spaces.

Early next summer Sadie’s at Painter Spring
watching a mirage over Swasey Ridge.
She crosses the playa, then Marjin Pass,
gets stuck in Boyd for a decade
before she catches the next swarm.

Get By Legal

I learn to get by legal with math and writing
and art, I leave school with no hat,
no hammer, I get work at the mill,

factory, the plant, mine, warehouse,
I line up uniform with the other schmucks,
I get along because I fix things,

my special skill is sucking up,
they pay what I’m worth, I get by legal.
Buddha even cares about one like me.