SILK ROAD

Short down

Silk Road

As you go----

Under its covered bridge.

 Sturdy

Timbered,  heavy load

And, beneath---

tumbling

river flows..

Sweet Jesus knows

History goes

Too fast, too slow,

And far away from here.

Do you wanna go

Down that road,

From end to end

Quicker  than slow?

Thoughtful as you know,

Sometimes, not.

Sometimes free,

If only to see

Northern Skies’ Big Dipper,

Morning’s Eastern Star,

In skies pointing beyond us

To the ends of the world.

Warm rain falls ,

The earth rises up green

And time unseen,

Unfolds every living thing.

Inky nights,

With distant stars

Bright and cool with wonder

April thunder, opens the sky.

Sheets of light, then---- wait

One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three----

For the peal of clashing sound

falling from sky to ground.

Burning, splintered,

Torn from, roaring down

A mighty limb----

As the widow-maker willow

pierces ground.

*

Out of sandbar nests

Fly, long neck geese,

Mauve, downy gray, black and white

Up they rise in dawn’s

 Sparkled, beaded light.

Then, the gosling journeys

From river to pond

Across the asphalt gauntlet

And beyond,

Over the grassy stretch of farm.

The mates don’t fly

But cautiously guide to where they’ve been,

looking side to side, nudging

Their awkward flock,

All pink skin, cartoon beak, pin feathers awry

Here, there and back again.

Among the hard grass

They find tender

Broad-leaved weeds,

To pick among and feed,

Leaving behind treasure

That emerald lawns need.

At dawn and dusk

They twice pass the old barn,

It’s silver wood and cinnabar red

Faded, raku beauty, sagged

beneath corrugated tin

The color of eggplant rust.

In life and death barter,

Settled on the glassy, still water,

Swimming, diving,

With mumbling chatter----

Until signaled----

When, Up! they burst,---- up and up

In noisy feathered gyre.

Sky gliding to that patch of blue,

A line of beauty

Above the earth below.

And I know, someday

We two will go.

We too will go.