Stick Stuck

The walking stick, my brother

carved, fits my palm

and thumb.

The hole, in the sole

of my cowboy boot,

is the size of the silver dollar

I sent my grandson.

The bathroom door, after

three years of shaves and showers,

locked from the inside.

I have a prison date.

The gate is one thing,

the heart quiet,

quite another.

Hydro Low

Water and worry leak
to the lowest level,
a fool's pool
spiraling the spirit
to depths
beneath the necessary steps.

It takes hydro-logic
to lift water
higher than clouded despair.
To rise as steam,
we admit wet
as requisite.

Our Engineer's faith;
part bending knee,
part pouring cups
to the least of these,
cuts across current fashion,
chiding the waves to be still.

There is a Living Water
and there is a stagnant well.
One can't flow forward
by going back.
The well worn path is reasonable,
but making sense of resistance, is mist.

Groan

Dawn at the Klamath,

a twelve point elk struts among deer mossed stumps

as the Yurok's golden bear guards the new bridge,

already under repair.

After practicing my chaplain ID smile

in the rearview mirror,

I  receive the nod of the flagmen 

and renew my drive to prison.

In a few miles, the forest,

and the mountains too,

will give way to thousands

of cement blocks,

and light, not the yellow sun streaming through

redwoods and firs, will blink

florescent as the state budget allows.

Its the most natural thing in the world, poetically,

politically, to ignore caged humans in these parts

and laud wild animals,

but quit the ignition, and listen at the gate;

all creation groans

for the re-birth of our sons doing time.

Lend an ear to the wilderness crying

from a housing unit

never meant to be called home.