In The Cool Of The Night

Colorado, 2000

My journey there is gently circled, by women of

soft curves and mounds in changing shades of mottled lights.

Warming chinooks sweep over breasts of

rolling hills and big bison plains where

eagles fly - high, then drop, deep into

shadow'd crevices, between verdant valleys

of the womb, to rise again in golden rays,

soaring over knotty nippled pinnacles.

Ice-flocked forests of grandeur spread

dark shadows on silvered Aspen slopes

splashed pinkish-mauve at sunset.

Tufted candy-floss skies, a warning:

snowfall, must keep that pile of Pinyon dry.

It gets real cold up here from just on Fall.

Soon, long wintry days end early. All life it

seems is frozen. But I wanted, did you know?

I wanted to tell how through these slatted blinds

and sunrise-filtered rays, I look for her, my

Amazon by my side, in the sun and the moon

and in radiating stars. Dawn skies awake

splendiferous in apricot and strawberry juices

melding in delight. But by noon gray clouds are

merging, forming gun-smoke signals, spiralling the sky

like some alien primordial amoebae, or dark

sea-horses drifting, sailing by. I wanted, too,

to tell you about the birds, the animals, prowling,

feasting in days and nights of danger - then

gunshots loud and clear - bastards shooting deer!

Disrupted: sweet vanilla-scented nights

under skies of swooping stars; winking heavens,

crisp and clear in landscapes virgin white.

Serenity in gently falling snowflakes. Each crystal,

some punctilious possibility of knowledge,

sparkles in signals, beckoning us, but quickly

breaks. Like fragments of memory they fade

away, disintegrating into cold and icy wetness.

Ah, Colorado, your vast horizons, blue, blue forever,

and the shadowy snow peaks are your air.

Snowflake-cloaked spread limbs, your ice.

Pinyon pines burning and sweet vanilla wafts,

your heated fire. Flames roar. Snow melts,

your water. Fresh whiteness your aura.

Chinook-swept touches, your precious earth.

~~~