https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1ST9TZBb9v8

Turmoil

I lose hope, 

But since I am wired with 

An optimism people born on the plains 
Have to have,

The sort of optimism they have to have 

When they won’t let shit bury them, 

I won’t say that I lose hope, 

I say I have become 

Less optimistic, 

It’s easier that way. 

Churning from gold post-harvest

Into the sturdy stay of winter, 

Some muddy stubbled fields 

Are plowed and planted 

Into winter wheat, though 

Other years they’re chuff for cattle. 

I’ll watch these fields around me 

In their indescribable deepness 

Return to what they do,

Snow piling, ground recharging vibrant,

Life of winter, as it reaches

Toward the spring.

Oh, Creator, oh life-maker

I am listening as I turn to you, and 

Watching while outside my windows 

Early snow comes on

In an autumn just a bit too green,

Though when I cast my eyes to heaven 

Some mighty trees bare perfect 
Architecture, glowing up 

My vision to these still lighter skies.

The garden newly put to bed 

Might grow, might even bloom again,

The ground not sure, in her new truth 

But what that all the life out there 

Might grow and bloom again, and so 

If that’s the way it is 

Why not, I say, so what? 

I’ll just have to figure these things out, 

The way I always do.

More to the point, a somber feeling

Casts shadows and I ask myself just 

Where do I fit in 

In such a new earth coming 

With her changings as she makes the 

Imbalance in a perfect

World her perfect? 

Where shall I be out there? 

For now, the clamor and the turmoil 

Quiet into contemplation, into sleep. 

I remind myself that I can’t do 

Much more than try, and, giving in, 

I tell myself

That has to be enough. 

Look Ahead

On the way home tonight

I had to drive to Montour Falls

From Ithaca, not my everyday

Nor unfamiliar, and what I 

Noticed on a southwest drive

Was that there was half moon glowing grey

In a light blue darkening sky

Wisps, cirrus, poofs of palest pink

Top dressing not-vibrant autumn 

Woodlands, almost more sage and grey, but 

Beautiful. 

Cresting the top of some long hill

Maybe around Alpine, a plains opened, 

The sky exploded, but low, 

Wrapping horizon, streaks

Of blood red, I said to myself

Sangre de Cristo, 

And then gold blazed before gone 

And then flash of memory

Chasing sunsets, 

With my brother

One long ago cold January,

From Fort Robinson into far

Wyoming, chasing sunsets,

And then down through Boulder county.

So I wondered why that road of

Many colors made just so much sense

To me, driving home tonight, and it was 

About our possibility, chasing 

Our vast and opening spaces.

I hope this is where 

We are waiting. 

Reckon

It is already winter coming on. 

Hardly even had the time for

That spring.

Worlds collide,

Not just one thing and

Everything as well. 

These are not easy passages, 

In the same way that 

When worlds collide

There is some sense that

Must be made, otherwise

Without one’s own brimming

Scary magic,

(We all have brimming 

Scary magic)

There’s just a long

Dutiful slog through to a grey end, so

I tell myself feel the 

Newness everywhere, and

In the swirl of it all,

I find myself becoming mute

Sometimes, 

Trying hard to listen to 

Myself, not having much to

Give, as I’m taking it all in

I listen to my returning language,

To what wakes with me, what 

Speaks to me, and

I am very quiet listening 

When the night comes on.

All of who I am is whole cloth.

Now, I’ll call these fraying edges lace,

I’ve the feeling that my wings have lift,

I’ve got to think that everything I’ve 

Thought and pondered on is part of

My reality, the bundle 

Of my own life light, and 

The glittering scary magic when 

Those brimming worlds collide ...

It’s the winter part that slays me.