Morning Moon

Moon won’t wait.

She calls to me

to watch her,

liquid gold,

slipping down the west

and peeking one last moment

through the trees along the river.

As birds awake in song,

I think I know her,

even tell myself that I remember.

But then I see her,

really see her,

and she reaches in

and takes me by the heart.

Skipping Rocks

Sandbank treasures,

washed and smoothed by time.

Perfect instruments of wonder.

Low above the water,

we side-armed them

one by one,

skimming them over the shallows

and out across the deep.

I counted as each one danced

between water and air.

“…thirteen, fourteen, fifteen…”

faster and faster,

closer together,

before gravity took them under.

On those days, we were

champions of joy,

masters of such necessary frivolity

as keeps a boy alive

inside the later man.

Great Hoop

“Almost thirteen,”

and proud to be on the river for the first time,

I built a low fire close to the end of my tent,

cooked my dinner,

and later, watched the licking flames

as I drifted off to sleep.

And in the drifting,

followed the smoke-enshrouded sparks

rising,

merging with the stars.

“The same,” I thought,

sparks and stars, smoke and Milky Way,

the same.

I had seen what I could not explain,

and knew that I was right.

And know it still, yet deeper.

All of life circling in a great hoop,

spiraling,

hanging in the languid morning mist

that drifts above the glistening river.

In The Live Oaks

After twenty years of watching from the road

or standing at the gate,

today I crossed the fence

and walked among the live oaks,

aging guardians of the open plain.

I know the rancher.

He knows I come to visit

and there is trust.

Walking around them,

I touched them and counted aloud,

“…eighteen, nineteen, twenty.”

For so long, I thought them ten or twelve.

I laugh at what I thought I knew.

And they are older than I thought by far,

showing the passing seasons in crack and crash,

in twist and gash and cow-rubbed bark

that has laid bare the outer trunks.

Hoof prints and manure tell of shelter and shade,

of sanctuary, of hollowed ground

where calves have slept unafraid

beneath the strong and spreading arms.

Yet, in what seems a placid place,

violence.

In bits of fur and feather and bone,

strewn about the cadmium green of soft winter grass,

nature’s balancer has left its calling card.

Her Secrets

The barn is long abandoned,

yet holds her eaves outstretched

like a hen’s spread wings

to gather her scattered chicks.

But there are none to gather.

Who will tell me where they went

who cleared this land and built and settled here?

Or of their efforts, their losses and successes?

That loud wren cannot.

That swooping swallow cannot.

That high-circling hawk cannot.

The distant cows cannot.

They all go on about their business,

leaving me to wonder.

And what of the passing of time

since her beginning?

Of cattle drives and wars?

Of the Great Depression,

and the greater promises

in Fort Worth and Dallas

or cities farther yet then they?

Who will tell me?

Not this barn.

Surrendering to her own winter,

she keeps her secrets

more closely than she once held hay or grain.

What Emerges

Today, only silence.

Not because the muse has left.

She has placed her finger on my lips

and bids me listen—

to the stillness,

to what is in-between,

to what is not said,

to what is more clear,

more filled with possibility

than words or sound.

She bids me watch—

to see what is beneath the surface.

To watch and wait

for what emerges on its own.

Today, silence

and sinking deep

as I walk the river’s edge.

One Ray

One ray,

one slender thread of hope,

pierced the clouds

and touched the

western horizon,

turning it to gold

beneath a darkened sky.

One ray,

one angelic voice,

rose high above the chorus,

clear,

strong,

beckoning.

One ray,

one incandescent embrace,

fleeting in its passing,

yet warming me

even now.

Black Berries

Stepping through old oaks

and the sleeve-catching twist of brush and briars,

I stumbled across them growing in profusion

along an abandoned fence—

berries,

black as crows,

larger than the end of my thumb.

Don’t ask me to tell you with certainty

if they were blackberries or dewberries;

I still can’t tell them apart.

Ask me instead if they were wild and sweet.

Ask me if the ripest ones surrendered,

tumbling into my hand.

Ask me if a copperhead,

sly and voiceless hunter,

lay curled among the thorns,

waiting for an unsuspecting hand

or a careless appetite.

Ask me if the interrupted Jay

fussed loudly in the tree above me.

Ask me if I stained my shirt

reaching too far for just one more,

fatter, riper, sweeter.

And then ask me of this still-steaming pie

cooling on my window ledge.

Days Like These

I walked today in grass, knee-high

and new Spring green,

tender beneath my not-wanting-to-crush-it steps,

then down along the stone-stacked hedgerow wall

lined with Flox

to the lower pasture’s pond,

where a Heron, grey as weathered wood,

waited for my arrival before

she announced herself and

lifted with slow, deliberate beats

into the clear air and out beyond the distant trees.

In the cattails, a Red-winged blackbird

swayed and sang above the hunting snake,

dark-eyed, smiling ribbon

gliding, silent, at the water’s edge.

And moon, rising pale and almost full

against the late afternoon sky,

arrested me again—she always does—

the way she hangs there,

softly watching, knowing something ancient.

Days like these weave me like a braid

into the silence,

into the music,

into these fields;

into mystery,

into magic,

into myself.           

Deer At Dusk

In fading light,

the Brazos whispered its way south,

and I stood studying,

trying to grasp the strength and the delicacy,

the quiet and unyielding power of the water,

the living lace of the vines and oaks on the farther bank.

I didn’t know it, but I was not alone—

another watcher, a yearling doe, was very near.

Startled, she leapt from her hiding place,

crashed through the brush

and out into the shallow river

where fish darted for cover among the rocks.

She stopped, mid-stream,

turned, and watched me in perfect stillness,

then snorted loudly,

taking in the crisp air with deep gulps,

testing, tasting,

her breath hanging in front of her.

Then, just as quickly as she appeared,

she flew with utter grace

into the trees on the other side,

stopping for one last glance,

before she disappeared.

For a long while,

and a while again,

silence embraced me.

Ripple

Though I watched it

half a century ago,

that ripple still glides

through the water

behind my canoe,

a lazy S swirling

at the tip of the paddle’s blade,

curling,

disappearing into itself,

a liquid snake

slipping beneath the surface.

What the River Taught Me

I’ve learned a thing or two by looking back

at what the River taught me—

the Brazos,

always flowing,

high and low,

fast and  slow,

yielding to its own rhythms

without resisting

in every season.

I’ve learned a bit

after years of straining,

pushing hard,

too often overflowing my own banks

and finding parts of myself

strewn among the litter and broken branches

in a country where I clearly did not belong.

I’ve learned of holding on,

and letting go,

alive to where the path is leading.

I’ve learned at last to be that stone

nestled into the riverbed,

settled,

safe,

even in flood time.

And that long after I am gone,

long after,

the Brazos will still be flowing.

Cardinal

Was it still raining?

I couldn’t tell.

Either way, the cardinal

didn’t seem to mind,

chirping

tee-you, tee-you, tee-you

from the branches

beyond the window,

jubilant and strong,

hopeful and sweet.

Morning music.

Herons On The River

Each keeping to its own side,

two herons stalk the Brazos in silence,

watching,

waiting.

They hunt with slow steps

in quiet waters,

patient,

searching.

Liquid flash,

and the still-dripping fish

glistens for a moment in the air,

a brief and celebrated trophy,

then is swallowed and gone.

Turkey Vultures

As strong winds carried you

up the face of Kyle Mountain,

you took the air

and never flapped a wing.

High above me,

you swam the

invisible river in the sky,

circling, rising, circling again.

I longed to soar with you,

to mount the stacked clouds

and look down on the silent valley.

Summers passed before I found a way.

Running hard, heart pounding,

I jumped the gap

that deeply split the mountain’s face.

Heart pounding, scared but proud,

I toed cliff’s edge and waited,

then laughed out loud as you shot past,

heading upward, close enough to touch,

wings wider than my outstretched arms.

That day, I felt your freedom.

That day, I left behind what I had known

of earthbound steps

and took a new name,

Windrider.

Cliff Swallows

Even before it was finished,

that new bridge on Dennis Road,

the Cliff Swallows

were at work by the dozens,

skimming low across the water

then swirling through the air,

beaks wet with Brazos mud

to spit, little by little,

their bowl-shaped apartments—

open-mouthed

Ansazi dwellings,

whispering of

the coming generations

who will carry on

with inborn,

ancient wisdom.

Wren

Tiny warrior,

no larger than my thumb,

where did you find such a voice?

Your cry has filled my garden,

has warned from far off down the river,

has taunted from the cactus thorns.

With your giant’s heart,

you announce yourself,

push other voices aside.

Tiny force,

larger than life,

what engine drives you?

Owl Magic

From her watchtower,

high in the trees

and almost out of sight,

an owl, silent and unmoved,

watches keen-eyed

the haste in the cities

beyond this place,

watches scurry and panic

and life without direction,

watches patiently

the falling of leaves and grasses,

the rising of concrete and steel,

watches people hurry

they know not where

to do they know not what.

She blinks, and the world is new again.

She sleeps, and her dreams take flight.

She dreams, and the river flows.

Morning’s Dove

All through the night,

the dove cried piteously

from her nest outside my window.

She slipped in and out,

weaving herself into the fabric of my dreams.

It was not the music of lost love or lost hope.

Such things are not for birds.

They were sweeter songs.

Perhaps secrets to her awaited chicks,

whispers of winged flight

or the colors of the dawn.

This morning,

she sits lightly on her eggs,

unmoved in a steady fall of rain.

Chuck Will’s Widow

Just before sunset,

from the trees across the river,

you cried over and over

the call that speaks your name,

Chuck-will’s-widow. Chuck-will’s-widow.

You knew what we did not.

A sky-blackening storm was boiling

up over the land behind us.

And still you called,

Chuck-will’s-widow.

First came the sky’s pale green,

then, with a vengeance,

thrashing fists of hail.

I dived beneath my upturned canoe,

and for who can say how long,

clutched it tight,

hoped that it, and I,

would not be blown away.

Then all at once,

silence.

I crawled back out to find things wet and battered,

my canoe hammered, pock-marked,

my tent in shreds.

I listened for you, wondered if you had survived

nature’s shotgun blast.

Sure enough, you were still there,

calling again, celebrating your life.

Chuck-will’s-widow. Chuck-will’s-widow.

Flycatcher

I stopped along a farm road

and walked toward the fence

to study aging barn

and waving grass,

that’s all.

From a wire overhead,

a scissortail dived at me,

a feathered bombardier,

each swoop closer,

just out of reach.

It warned,

You do not belong.

You threaten.

Go away.

And though I meant no harm,

had no intention to intrude,

though I saw no nest,

nor hatchlings to protect,

I bowed to its tenacity,

and backed away

in peaceful surrender.

Hawk Flight

At the river’s edge,

the hawk let go of the branch,

took the wind into its reaching wings,

and rising,

danced weightless with the sky.

Two Crows

Against a gray

morning sky,

two crows dance

and look for food.

Biting winds

swirl new-fallen snow.

Crows don’t care.

They are unbothered

by such things

as winter.

Heron Moon

Night on the river,

the moon

and this heron flying home.

But where is home

to such winged freedom?

It is everywhere and nowhere.

And where is home to me

in a fenced world?

Here on the river,

it is nowhere

and everywhere.

 









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