Middle America

A river’s leisure

My mother’s home

Where the corn

And black eyed susans

Ear and eye forever

And Chicago

Steals the show

Glimmering

On Lake Michigan night

 

New England

Maine land

Where my ancestors

Early for Europeans

Set foot on

Rocky coast

That watershed moment

Where the fingers

Of the sea

Are laced upon land

Pondering the tide

Where I learned

To be a grown person

To plant seeds

To read forests

That a small farm

Is as rich with lessons

As a hall of brick and ivy

 

Driving

With my second half

In a fishhook

Of the American West

The vastness

The rocky spine

Of Colorado Plateau

The shark tooth Tetons

Afire above Aspen

Populus Tremuloides

Bursting gold

Rustling

The once Oregon Territory

We followed the Snake River

Then the Columbia

Such a work of earth

And fire in the gorge

Tea with my grandma

Gardener’s dream

 

To the California coast

Lost among

Sequoia

Jack pine

Poison oak

Douglas fir

Lone Pine

Snyder’s words

Sinkyone

Joni Mitchell

Internet

Airshow

Music

Hardly strictly

Nothing

Brother

 

 

My brother lives in Berkeley

He is a painter

We worked on his bicycle

And drank watermelon juice

Such nectar

Drove south

Chased by fire

Through Pacific night

Through Salinas

Listening to Steinbeck

Passed LA

At midnight

Into the desert

 

Phoenix sun

Is reborn a day

And grandparents

Illuminate

The good of life

Without ignoring

The bad

 

We ate sushi in Scottsdale

And then gelato

 

The Grand Canyon

A stop too much for

Words

Colorado River

Fertile ground

For the revelation

That made this life

The best landscape painter

In all the Southwest

The mud rapid runner

I just wanted

To wash my face

 

Then home

It still feels like home

Santa Fe

Where parents

Bring musicians

Where clay and chords

Entwine harmonious

And early morning

Smells of piñon pitch

Juniper smoke

Green chile roasting

Aspen leaves

Chamisa brush

I had a fragrant childhood

The Press

Taught me freedom

Bluesky

Taught me infinity

Red earth

Taught me time

 

Nothing in land

Everything inland

Even outland

Is homeground

And I am homecoming