How Evolution Works     

    

     Can you

hand your feet over 

to an untrodden path

and wander, wonder,

meander beyond

your ancestors’ immigrant lives,

allow intoxication to enter your life

in rain sifted under moonlight,

glazing the trail ahead?

Like a silver stream in July sun

blazing overhead unceasingly

pouring, gleaming over granite

boulders in every weather.

Your bronze skin creased

by the path, by the strangers

you befriend, by the triumphs

and copious blunders you’ve agreed

to shoulder, this strange tiredness

and shimmering awakened mornings --

a cup of dark coffee, a stand of birch trees,

a squirrel or two scampering up

a thick Douglas fir trunk, air so alive

you could sing and you emerging

into the day forever stumbling

along this twisting road, the world

your tavern, a thankful drunk savoring

everything, becoming

the tenderest wholeheartedness…..