Under Moon

Under moon
a silver shadow
painting greens and browns
black and gray
across the hills of the Palouse
I think about where I am
how my heart
still yearns for the smell of sage
carried by hot current
dried sweat.

I will be ok here
it's taken me a bit
to get used to
and I can always run home
if I really wanted to.

Unnatural

Rust-brown bars
stuck into the earth
like thick bristling hairs
on a man who hasn't shaved for a few
draping electricity
to home
school
and traffic light.

It's easy to forget
that they really don't belong.

Yield

To yield a heart
a mind
a soul
to Someone Else
is agony.

To strip away
from vein
artery
and muscle
tearing tissue
ripping flesh
the wheat and the tare
share roots after all.

To present
a bleeding heart
with holes ripped
once filled with appetite
and lust
not a gift I would want.

But Someone does
I still don't understand why.

Veterans

I honor you
who do what I cannot
and leave family
for country.

I honor you
who take each day
and live for something greater.

I honor you
and pray
that we can figure out something better.

Map

A million things to do
and I write poems
not for you
but for me
to teach me how to talk
what I am
where my dreams lay down
to sleep and dream themselves.

A map guides my feet
with roads
an contour
but what guides my heart?

Exalted

I struggle with my thorn
but I feel
with or without it
I would not be exalted
I'm too close to the earth
the warm brown fills my nose
like the North Carolina summer
the screaming of cicada
doesn't bother me a bit
because I'm too tired to care.

Keep my thorn
if anything it pulls me up
not like a tether
but a fishhook
tearing in until it's deep enough
to plop me on a boat
flopping for air
a fish out of water.

Yeah
I'll need some work
before I get my harp.

Forrest Gump

You carry the name
of a sheet-laden hooligan
wore the braces
of a rocky society
until you broke free
to become that which those who mock
wished most to be
whisper to your grave friend
you will be together again.