Contemplation of the Rockies

In these mountains that rise
at the seam of two earths
sewn with hot magma hands
pulled by sky like a birth
and the air in between
unexpected wet nurse
to an unblinking child
to a church, to a hearse.

Slow Harvest

we gather blackberries
plucked from America's thicket
if not blackberries then apples
or figs or cumquats, some
bushel of flesh and flavor
cobblered in country oven
and served a la mode
to the hungry tongues of time.

In the simplest of metaphors, we
are nine forks of a branch that's dividing
in complex dimensions, the lengths
and directions we stretch is unknown.
We are reaching barked fingers and handfuls
of leaves into air, into sky,
into clouds, and we're roasting them hot
on a campfire, dressing in smoke.

In the sinmplest of metaphors, we
are nine heads of a hydra whose god
man in training can't cut quick enough
to keep nine angry necks from regrowing
nine fiercesome white fifty-toothed smiles,
and in cutting our collars he lights
liquid fires. We bloom red atomic.
We flower in shrapnel. We sing.

In the simplest of metaphors, we
are nine harts on the ridge of a mountain,
slow moving and sacred, whose blankets
of winter hang heavy beneath
our black hooves. We sit quiet like books.
We hold court on the crowns of our rock
candelabra, light fires with bone
as the kindling, our antlers the wood.

In simplest of similes, we
are like brothers, like fathers, like suns.