If you ask, she says,
you take away the chance
of ever getting a miracle.
If you ask and it happens
you reduce it to a simple
prayer answered, no matter
how surprising the outcome.
You don’t see, he said
it’s not the final act
that is the miracle,
it’s that it actually happens
to someone presumptuous enough
to believe themselves deserving.
On this night the moon
should be new or full, the sun
should reflect on this
More than a billion
stars will fill the sky tonight
I see just a few
Evening clouds gather
staring down on the city
imagining rain
He clearly remembers standing on the edge
peering down into the almost bottomless canyon,
listening to the narrow river slide across the rocks
thrown down by its walls over millennia.
He was a visitor here, knew he would stay
only briefly, then leave, his spirit hiding
among the rocks in the nearby mountains,
staring down on the mesa for eternity.
He remembers listening for coyote, begging
the wily one to tell him the tales of its ancestors
with whom he will soon share this canyon.
All he hears is the wail of the jackrabbit,
coyote’s message in a foreign voice,
as night engulfs the mesa and he
stares up at the galaxies and stars
which barely notice the small orb
hanging in the distant sky.
He was no longer sure
quite where he found it,
or whether it was talisman
or just an amulet, but
he didn’t believe the distinction
really mattered at all.
He carried it with him
everywhere he went,
was sure to put it
ins his pocket each day.
Many said it did nothing
for him, brought him
no better luck, no change
in his circumstances,
but he was quick
to point out how much
worse things might have been
had he never found it.
A river may polish
a stone until
it reflects
the morning sun.
A jeweler may polish it
and facet it
until it shatters the light
in ten directions.
A wise man will claim
it is still
the same stone.
Tonight a blood moon will rise.
This isn’t about lycanthropy
although the moon will have
the fullness that metamorphosis demands.
The sky will be clouded
the now crimson moon,
the planet that wears the palette
as its nature
will lurk out of sight
and we, lost in dreams,
will imagine what our eyes
are unable to see.
He crouched in the hollow
in the ancient cliff
careful not to disturb
the bones scattered
just in the shadows behind.
He waited patiently
until he heard the sweep
of the great wings
and the mighty bird
alighted on its nest.
He reached out quickly
and plucked two feathers
never more, and pulled back
into the shadows
of his ancestors.
He carried the feathers
bound with a leather strap
close to his heart
to ward off the evil
that swept down
off the Wyoming plains
licking at the Wind River.
He grew old, his once
black hair streaked in gray
and he knew his time
was coming, it would be
a good day to die,
the sun high over
the mountains, his feathers
ready to carry his spirit
to the sky people
to return to the mighty eagle
from whom he had
accepted life.
