Aiming high,
With big boots
Too big to drag across the poetic chess floor,

Never read the greats
Never loved and lost like the great lovers
Never forged the mind in tempered steel
No resolve,
No other inkling than pride for scorn

Yet it was this morn,
Eyes read with a fresh dawn
The braking newness of creation
Art as poetry
And fluked it no more than a precise preponderance
As each word chose itself its order
And a profound truth was embellished
With the love and care of a depth of many aeons
Pared back into a child’s innocent eyes
Reflecting providence, grace and wise
With a goodly turn of genius
That left the mind searching
And words begged of in hopes they would lay more
Yet none were needed

And never did a loving envy grow so warm in its light

For you the words did not come
they will never do you justice
the beauty my eyes see
have only wordless translations
<3

1.

I will baptize the sky
with new waters,
washing the Birger Sandzen pink
from the clouds.

Cattle reject their reflection in farm ponds.
Trees turn their backs to the horizon and bow.

Indigo night. Angular lights in the distance:
Freight train roars. Empty cars
headed northward.

       2.

I will baptize the Earth
with new fire,
scorching stubble and sod
from the Plains.

Cattle nudge clods of dirt for sweet tendrils.
Trees shape words, but can no longer spell.

Charcoal cairns point the way to deep furrows.
Growing pains. Orange flames
headed nowhere.

       3.

I will baptize my heart
with new poetry,
spilling villanelles
into my veins.

Cattle low for soft yodels from cowboys.
Trees sashay to the solos of birds.

Rosy-fingered dawns in my songs? I sail elsewhere.
Orange, blue. Twilight hues
headed homeward.