Swallows

Never learn

For the bored traveler
Up went a sign
About the old settlers

And then a roof
From rain and the sun
It was proof

Fly-in, the swallows
Mouthful by mouthful, Mud
Dabbed and packed from bovine wallows

Thankful for the shelter
Grateful for the roof
Then it all went skelter

Now strewn on the boot-packed earth
Delicate pink bodies
Yellow beaked, not long since birth

Motionless in the summer sun
While the swallows flew
All Spring’s work undone.

Amongst the mud shards broken
The broods of eight grateful swallows
Confused hearts cry unspoken

Why?

Ignorance

It is best to be still The armies of the ignorant are on the march They have seized the ramparts of knowledge They mock with their knowing ignorance An ink-black foul water It flows from the hinterlands It gathers the regrets and anger Latent in untended souls It wets

Coyote and Elk

It all started as I noticed some movement on the great flat meadow below us. I had watched the elk herd yesterday and walked to within a half mile or so of it. We were camped along a high road in western Montana on an open slope with copses of

Jefferson River

Moon haunted Owl hunted Iron-horse contoured Limestone heighted Sleet hissed Sun seared Elk hallowed Wolf howled Land waiting For bison wallow

A Place of Lesser Notice

Wells Nevada is one of those many interstate towns that did not survive the Interstate. A dilapidated downtown with plenty of boarded up old hotels. Everything new moved closer to the interstate and left whatever soul it had in the old part of town. Wells is located, spectacularly, at the

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Ignorance

Coyote and Elk

Jefferson River

A Place of Lesser Notice