PEST CONTROL

It's afternoon in Winter,
your head down, locked
inside work and thoughts

of tomorrows, vital
minutiae sprawl like spiders
across mind's attic,

and a girl under a white
Krispy Kreme cap
of crinkled paper, her
jeans ripped in both knees,

grinning, trips you
with her foot. Laughter
bursts out of you, arachnids

scatter from your brain's tunnel
abandoning this surprised
awakening for a moment,

(or maybe forever)

as you turn
and bow
to the maiden.

for Quincy

Nobody,

Not the sparrow

gossiping on

the limb,

Nor the steady breeze

jitterbugging

these leaves,

Nor amber honey

kissing my pot

of tea,

Nobody,

Has cheeks

as sweet

as these.

Conversion

At the bottom of a hidden canyon,
green sings    rocks grin
under skins of lichen.

I come alive again
as if inside
a beautiful woman

whose hazel eyes shimmer

like the wind, like tendrils

of sage..

Our every cell dances
waterfalls of lust
and godliness

as we linger

in quiet,

listening for cougar
while dusk quickens,

kissing great boulders

in a torrential
unplanned 

conversion.

Nobody,

not even the stream
humming at the bottom
of the hill

nor the silent fir tree
alone at the top..

Nobody,

has such shimmering
hazel eyes....

MIRACLE

At stream's edge a boy
crouches, he's quiet, crew-cut
with cut-off jeans, two or three years
before the insult of glasses and
taunts of 'four-eyes' hurled
his way.

The man smiling, selects the smoothest
slate oval from a sprawling jumble
of rock. His glasses coated
with spray and rare kindness,
as teaching and a hint of tenderness
merge with rushing water. The boy
relaxes his guard just a little.

He shows his son how
to lightly cradle the wafer
by its thin edge between
thumb and forefinger, then
fling it far out over the creek's

swirl barely above and parallel
to the flow. Fast as joy, four hands
laugh and clap in a single burst
as this gray blur flies and skips
far across the roiling churn.

These two--happy magicians and
their own audience, incredulous
seeing another amazing trick--
have just discovered how to walk

on water or an ancient method
transforming silver into light
then back into anonymous rock again,

or perhaps they've glanced the secret
for dissolving boulders of shame and
sneer and blame into eyes that care
and hold, shine and dance, that
even slowly tame.

Incontrovertible Conversion

At the bottom of a hidden canyon,
green sings    rocks grin
under skins of lichen.

I come alive again
as if inside
a beautiful woman.

Our every cell dances
waterfalls of lust
and godliness,

listening for cougar
as dusk quickens,

kissing great boulders

in my torrential
solitary conversion.