A Boy Chasing a Ball in Worthen Park, Utah, 31 January 2017

I read of a competitive lumberjack who said,
Of a fall from a tree, "The only way I knew I wasn’t dead
Was when I heard a lady in the audience yell, ‘I think he’s dead.’"
Recent mornings, sometimes, I first realized I was still alive myself
When an unlocatable voice in my head uttered some similar cry.
Then there they were, in the clear dark, the usual bright stars,
Offering their usual absence of commentary on our lives.
Thus things continued, typical rituals typically executed, which meant
No execution yet. Bizarrely over-confident and cheerful,
Body's innate response to a fine day in the sun couldn't be
Overcome. I had no good idea how many times beforehand
I had sat in the same position, more or less, more or less
The same body, in the same little city's same park, more or less,
Eating my lunch and thinking this world might yet turn out to be
Something I could seize, as if a dreamy nonsense quest could go on
All day and night, no fall at all. It could you know, and it just might.

Cedar Pocket, Arizona, 30 January 2017

There was a big, black rabbit on its hind legs, forepaws up

By the abandoned farmyard in Hurricane this morning,

A big, black rabbit that turned out to be a charred tree stump.

There was a card gone missing from the Italian tarot

That turned out to be La Fortuna, lying on the floor.

There was a small gamble on unimaginable wealth,

Literally unimaginable, odds know I tried,

That turned out to be a peaceable hour in a closed loop

Within the narrow defile where ravens chortled and trucks

Of interstate construction workers parked for lunch. What luck.

Winter Day in Springdale, Utah, 29 January 2017

The world was full of things it was not full of.
It was normal to know of the abnormal, common
To know of rarities. That there were things unusual
Was the usual state of affairs, and yet the weird
Remained just that and there was no ordinary didn't
Contain the extraordinary that defined it. Hard frost
Silvered the garden gate and split the irrigation lines.
Hard frost gave way to sun and wind, then only sun
And tourists eating lunch at Oscar's Cafe, including
The fellow who asked that the onions on his burger
Be put through a blender as he could only love them
Puréed. "I'll bet no one ever asked you that before!"
He fairly boasted to the bemused server whose face
Bore an expression suggesting many weirder unique
Requests had been made. Uniquely weird is not so
Special, pal. We took our snacks down to the river,
Fine sands redistributed over sunwarmed sandstone,
The once and future dunes. A thin dime scraped
From the mud dumplings body and daughter made
To throw in the water bore the unlikely date 1956.
Had you predicted a dime of that date would emerge
From the sand of this afternoon you would have been
Wrong except when you were right, quite implausibly,
To say the least, yet nothing in the slightest extraordinary
About a warm spell in this canyoned desert in January,
A tourist with a goofy demand, a dime minted
Sixty-odd years ago popping out of the sand.
Body made a wish, highly unlikely to succeed,
And threw the dime in the stream. The world remained
So full of things it was nearly emptied of.

Mukuntuweap, Utah, 28 January 2017

A day like a life, begun in the dark and ended
In the dark, with in between a number of joys
And minor frights, so much for today. I wasted,
Savored, and recycled. Mid-day, my daughter
And I loaded up the back of the car with every empty
Glass item the house and garage had accumulated
Since our last trip to the community bins. Clear,
Green, brown, well-rinsed or slightly funky,
We tossed them through the hatch and winced
As they crashed and shattered out of sight. The sun
Shone brightly on the muddy, littered ground. The snow
On the dun cliffs and peaks surrounding our homeliness
Had thinned to an exquisite lace hand-tatted
By thermodynamic gods. Daughter ran into a copse
Of nearby pines in search of a missing fairy book, narrating
Madly as she went, reemerging with a holy grail
Of scuffed scarlet shotgun shell casing that she said held
The lost potion that could make magic reappear.
What else? Later we invented a game with wood chips
And a chain-link fence, another game with ropes
And a wooden swing. Recycled, savored, and wasted.
No good news came. Bad news whispered a refrain,
But kept to the periphery of the cliffs hissing with melted ice.
The benefits of ignoring the inevitable ignored the cost.
We played a board game with clues when it got to be night.
In bed at the end, body thought of the scarlet potion lost.

Zion, Virgin, Hurricane, Utah, 27 January 2017

This date began with someone else's body entering
The room, the bed, leaving the door ajar, leaving again
And then returning, pressing up against body, haunting
And preventing much or any more sleep from happening.
Dawn was an alarm in a black morning under the stars.
By the time the day had turned into a sunlit passage
Down the canyon between the lava wall and the river,
Body and someone else's body had fallen apart.
Children bundled their own bodies and backpacks in the back.
Snow mountains shed clouds. A ghost only proves someone's missing.

Children Counting, Canyon Route, 26 January 2017

When I remembered to look more carefully, I could see
That all these patterns returning around me that I gave
The same names were never the same, not even the names.
Body studied the outer wall where the lava flow had slowed,
Now the curve the highway nestled, river opposite,
While daughter and friends discussed their teeth
On the way to school. "I've lost nine." "I've lost two."
"I have twenty-three right now and a hole. That's
Twenty-four." "I have twenty-eight, all told." "Liar."
Tooth counts too slippery to count on made the case.
Cows and ostriches threw shadows in the valley shallows.
A little similarity was a dangerous thing. These were
All dangerous things. What was changing, then, if
Everything was change? Nothing changed.
What was was not what it was, not ever. What was it?
In the evenings, returning home, the black wall
Sometimes glowed to let me know it moved still. Liar.

Mozart's Starling, The Butchershop, Saint George, Utah, 25 January 2017

"After his death, he was further disappointed"  ~Amazon reviewer

I led a life that laughed for joy and trembled
Often for dread. In that I was as ordinary as any.
Mozart had a pet starling he bought for ten bucks
And kept for three years that could whistle the opening
Bars of one of his piano concertos. When the starling
Died, Mozart buried him in the garden and composed
A poem for epitaph. When Mozart died, he was tossed
In a pauper's grave without a stone. I would have rather
Been the captive starling, I think, since no bird cares
How it might be wept or disregarded after death.
A human eulogizes the losses reminding him he's lost.
It was Mozart he was weeping. Yet, the happiness
When he brought the little prisoner home and jotted
The bird's notes replicating his own music, error
Of G-sharp notwithstanding, noting "That was fine!"
That I felt, centuries later, that cosmos-created human
Delight. I recognized that delight. That was fine.