Le Seine

La Seine



Old as the rainfall,
the deep green water rises and falls
like an ancient slow breath,
your throat and lungs
thick with water lettuce and reed.

Spent, darkened tree segments
decay into varying coves and shoals
harvested and devoured by microbes and
six legged removal engineers.

The grand Queen reaches across the land,
her corporeal ribbon
informed with arching loops,
that tell her age
like the roundness in an old woman’s back.

No more the reckless white water,
the gushing adolescent madness,
hurtling down ragged beds,
and with the stones that bring
fragments,and broken hearts.
Your peace has come.
A green maturity.
Your history layered in
fine sediment.

And in the open countryside,
far from city cement,
the birds above you
see your islets and gentle sandbars
stretch like skin folds and moles
along your long torso, neck and arms.

And at the sea,
you empty the dreams from your head
like vapor into air.

Coyote Comes

Coyote Comes





Big eared scrub runners
winking and rubbing sage brush.
Ever hunters. Their own enemies few.
Like senior legislators
waiting for the righteous dreamers
to tire,
they crouch and scratch,
sniff and whine.

The suburban sprawl
splayed on these overbuilt hills
they cruise like market aisles
feeding on its pets
who arrive like stupid tourists.

With a good rain
mice and rabbits fatten
new coyote litters
that will soon visit trimmed yards
sporting basketball nets
and soft unknowing dogs
or untutored cats,
their owners never imagining
silent killers with spotted backs
on honeyed legs
would devour them
next to some cordless phone,
steady plastic and foolish
on the patio.