Night Wind

The night wind

and I, unshod,

the grass black

and soft

underfoot.

In the wind,

unspoken sentiments,

the stars obscured,

one or two

I count.

In, I look

through an open window,

unseen by my own past self

sitting in a dimly lighted room,

pen unmoving

against the page,

I, then, unaware
of my own soon path,

on my lap, unbidden,

my cat, she leapt,

settled, then resting

her black and white head

against the wooden table top,

her contentment unheard -

but not quite.

And then I pass on by,

unobserved by no one,

surely not by him, sitting.

I, now quietly unconcerned

by what no longer is -

or nearly so -

looking ahead

into a soft dark.

The night calls

indifferently,

but not unknown.

A warm night wind

and I, unshod,

sentiments unspoken.

Watching pigeons

The pigeons don’t mean anything,

as far as I can tell.

But I watch as they fly off together.

They flock in unison,

each pair of wings,

catching the late afternoon sun

on the beat,

white on white,

the wings flash in time.

And then,

on some astronomical cue,

they wheel as though

spoked together around some axle,

white turns gray

in a blink of an eye.

The flock turns.

I, myself,

turn at the end of the bridge,

the lowering sun now in my eye.

The pigeons have flown off in unison

and have come back to rest,

lined up a wingspan apart

on the cable over the river,

heads into the sharp west wind,

each tail a rudder flap,

up and down,

adjusting one pigeon's trim

up and down the line. 

The flock,

now perched,

has gone random,

heads steady,

tail down and up, up and down,

at random.

So I begin to wonder

what the pigeons mean.

Kaw River: From the levee

Orion fades in front of me,

Venus smiling over my left shoulder.

There is some dark reflection

but mostly the sound

of the rushing water, water

falling, rushing over, water

over the steps of the dam.

The sound masks the music -

no – it’s the noise of the few cars

crossing the bridge,

headlights last gleaming,

the age exhausted.

The river offers no reproach,

but it speaks, in tones too high

for prairie dogs, in tones too low

for human ears.

Humankind speaks of persistence,

of perseverance. The river

speaks of patience.

It will carry the water,

the waters of waters,

it will carry the soil

of the banks

that the river carves from its banks.

It will carry all down to the sea.

But it will not carry our waste,

our chemicals, our carelessness,

willingly.

And one day –

the river will wait

as long as it must wait –

it will not have to carry us.

We will be gone.

And the sound of river

will sound only of the river.

The river will only be.