In Search of My New Country

 

 

I look for you in the miasma

of the wild thicket. In the gentle tap

of my chisel, I peel through the walnut bark

to restore the lost face of you.

 

I smell cedar’s warm, friendly scent

and inquire of an anonymous Arroyo,

your Ojibwa name. I explore

your Inuit face in the northern light

 

and look for your footprints

in soggy moss as I hear an iceberg moving,

opening the passage for caribous.

I seek your silhouette in the flickering fire,

a dog sleeping inside your tipi.

 

I watch the moon going down

into the deep of your chasm. I build a crown

of maple leaves, tint my face

in rooster blood. I scribble your map

in the wet ground and build your bust

using river mud.

 

I moan for your song

in the croon of night, alive

with crickets’ drone and alligators’ sighs.

 

 

 

 

Good Citizen

 

 

Give me a tract of crappy land

that no one wants. I swear I’ll turn it into something

precious. I’ll burrow the rubble out

and clear off all the bad brush.

 

I’ll dig a well one hundred feet deep and will

plant apple and peach trees around the boundary.

I plan to harvest only the best crops,

crops that have never been grown in your territory.

 

How long can it take me to build a log home

that is big enough to house a growing family?

I pledge to give back half of my year’s income

and sixty bushels of the season’s produce.

 

I will flower the place with every variety

and be assured, I would never question

your authority over all my earthly belongings.

 

 

 

Home of the American Basho

 

Dusk descends on the knoll-top.

A solitary small home, barely visible

through the thick vegetation.
A staircase, narrow, leads

up to the front door.   Closed.
A pile of lumber sits
beside a patch of green.
Far away, the river streams nowhere. Silently
geese fly over the house, over the river.   Nothing
else is noticeable within miles. I am airborne westward
where the sun is dying now
in its own pool of blood. How ridiculous

are my pretensions, co-passengers’,

bits of ego, tinker of beverage cans,

seatbelt signs illumed like fireflies.
Through the plane's casement, I can tell

the house’s windows are open. Inside, the light is on.

 

Who lives there?
Does he have a phone?

Does he believe in God?

It is inevitable to lose sight of everything, even this house.

But before we pass, for the dweller of the home,

I whisper a three-line verse:

 

Red ants ascend up the wall

of an empty can of coke

evening coming