Baring Its Teeth (+1)

Deception comes richly,

new lies in its purse

Old wolves on the mountaintop

—Gideon’s curse

(Dreamsleep: February, 2021)

New Light

The answer unquestioned…

a circle begins

The question unanswered,

enlightenment wins

The answer cries lonely,

a tree with no bark

The question roots deeper

—new light from the dark

(Dreamsleep: February, 2021)

Song From The Mountaintop

The cry of an eagle floats across a distant peak,

bear tracks visible in the Spring thawing snow

Sunlight, spreading its dance upon the land,

the Ponderosa Pine and Aspen in bloom

The glaciers look down smiling the higher you climb,

searching for that redemption never offered below

The wolf trails the hare back inside its snowy den,

the road to all new entry having now been cleared

Permission never asked for, granted, as the music starts,

it’s early May in the Rockies—the January of renewal

In a celebration of new life, flowers wrap the landscape like ribbon,

tying close the promises as good wishes on a Christmas morning

It’s springtime even on the highest peak, and old questions lost of meaning

now seem gone away...

Reborn in the arrival of yet another desperate beginning

—holding nothing back

(Columbia Falls Montana: September, 2003)