Sprigs reclaim rights, the new shoots through Maple-solid rock.

This tenderness is a title we too shall own grass-scrappy as rams

on mountains. I may bang my goat head against you or the earth

yet have a centaur’s recollection for the joy of brooks.

Now frolic in the rain even if mudslides don’t jive

with the original beauty found.

Later, in apparent stillness, inches are bound to return,

taking a toe-hold to become an ocean of viridian stalks.

Amazing the faith saving wretches lost in briar sojourns

as roses, unaware.

But a prick may seize & with the blood, wondrous love flow out

sense by sense.

Folds envelop them:

green canyons, split granite, round

cloud-shadowed outcroppings…

At this rate the rain will never catch up to us.

Highways spiral, reveal distant raisins on each turn,

vehicular fruit, wandering wrecks.

The sun’s black oil mirages 

invites some seized-upon fantasy.

Suddenly lemurs dangle from trees,

swoop down upon lobsters clacking

with wound-up teeth.

We hit the curve. This image dissolves.

Tunnels come, an overpass as child’s play maps

caves, valleys, hills, the road stretching as a game.

Who’s that in the next car?

Eyes merge, imagine lives, identities close by.

We become them and they the couple in a pick-up

two lanes to the left, a pair of Luncheonette Regulars,

these gentle, older, tea and toast kin crushed by flack,

what survival demands and yet, unaware,

breathing on.

These streets are heartbeats & the whole town an ultrasound.

I am walking to feel your calls. I am listening

as a homing pitch with a magnet’s tractor beams.

Yes, miner-true I roam as a night nurse

amid the flickering instruments,

the sighing supine shapes.

Perhaps too these roads, these rooms

form the largest of greenhouses & every plant is a kid.

Ah, the eternal maternity to nurture, sowing love

in front of bullets, the ravens flapping, the swords…..

Darling, hook & line—–

Here is the pulse of sea spit & salty sweat.

Here is the seminal seed beating from our tongues, our flesh,

& I cannot stop hearing, cannot but keep

all senses peeled.