Truth is as a game,
Full of ambiguity
And nuance at the edges,
Requiring too many rules
To specify everything
That might happen in the game.
The swarms of painted ladies
Have reached the mountain meadows
Ascending on tides of flowers.
I know just where I’m headed
And intend to take my time,
Even after I’ve arrived.
When the brace of wild mustangs
With glossy, long chestnut tails
Appear from the east
And canter across the greasewood
Through the scattered junipers,
I will nod at them.
When the wind spins dust devils
From the west, I will nod at them.
When a white pickup raises
Dust clouds of its own,
I will nod from my distance,
Nod passing or arriving,
Both always happening, both,
At my most patient,
Nearly stationary, both.
sunset
Probability requires
A most fortunate person
At any one time.
Probability does not
Require a construct like me,
Who’s been called, “the luckiest
Unlucky bastard alive”
By friends and colleagues.
If true, no such thing as me.
The horizon lifts to kiss
The sun, and a meadowlark
Stakes a fence post for a song,
“Behold this hybrid sunset,
Somewhere between poetry
And what used to be science!”
No, the bird sang no such song.
I gave you an easy move
In the game of truth,
As when I showed my daughter
A checkmate for the first time.
Wisely, she hesitated.
Harder moves are not the things
Things are never known to do,
But subtler, like the sun’s moves.
Meadowlark winging away,
Clouds the only mares’ tails now,
No traffic has passed for hours.
twilight
I set myself out
Alone after dark
So I can feel it,
That still, small voice from the past,
That savannah twinge of fear,
That crossroads realization,
I’m alone out here.
Other things belong out here.
I’m alone and I can’t see.
Papa Legba shadows me.
I need to feel it,
Even if it’s not all truth,
Even if I have supplies—
A car, a coat, a bedroll,
A little food and water.
I need to know the echo
Returns from the tuning fork
Still—my ancestors’
Ghosts are the gifts that they were
So often selected for,
Traits now hard to conjure forth,
A loa on his crutches
Leaning on a fence,
The yip of a coyote.
For a little while longer
I have a shadow of my own,
And then it’s gone.
star rise
A crescent moon low
And headed to bed,
No lights on the ground—
Time to watch the stars come out,
Give or take a satellite
And infrequent running lights.
All nights are rife with liars.
So many lights look like stars.
I await the actual.
I’m told I’m a patient man.
Let’s find out the truth.
Night can be so gradual.
The number neither nothing
Nor less than nothing, nor one,
Nor any of many ones,
That is the number
I would like to count,
The number not a number
Sunk in the wavering stars.
Orion has shot the moon
Or was the moon the arrow?
The wind ebbs and roars
Like surf across the meadow,
As lonely and as lulling.
Memory tells me these lights
Wave to me from the deep past.
There is no telling.
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