Poem: Vale

 

Vale

 

eldritch oak

and incense of sage,

the foothills so serene.

sweet silences

of sumac and tiger lily,

and the luscious clarkia cross,

and the ceanothus

imbued with dashes

of last moon’s rain,

they rejoice;

and the deer weed and

the desert chia and chicory,

they too extol

a mountainous Earth

tumbled to these fissured gardens,

hanging woundless

to conjure moist shoots.

 

a flint of scant vulture

sharpens the blue.

 

banquets of pollen

and bees down below

leaven meadows with the swell

of a golden zephyr.

and the mustard grass rustles,

and the willows

their frondy songs,

and the notes of a stream

which weaves to combine them,

while counting its gurgles

in clockless, giddy zest.

deeper still

the unseen fossils,

the young green hopes,

such never-dead bones

and ravenous youth,

with immeasurable circles

and impossible trysts

play on.

 

 

========