LAST OFFICIAL DAY OF SUMMER

Hot wind drapes cold
across bare shoulders
emerged from pool.
Others gather on grass,
drying damp trunks,
sucking from beer cans
the last heat of summer
in neighbor's backyard
oasis. Over water mixing
sweat and chlorine,
cottonwood's frenzy
batters leaves together.
We try to speak, words
lost on the wind blown
toward northern horizon
where winter lurks.
We turn our faces
toward the south,
gather the sun's rays,
enough to hold us
through the long cold
months to come.

SPATTERS

News spatters words
in Ipod ears, sound
bites swallowed whole,
festered chants
in swollen bellies
below glazed eyes,
focus too poor to see
beyond a horizon
formed by telephone
wires. We slouch
in cushioned chairs,
digest every last morsel,
still hungry for something
more exciting than
another pool of blood
on a video screen.

SKY CEASED TODAY

Sky ceased to be today,
vanished behind a single cloud,
sucked my breath away,
left beneath a wide-eyed
stare, whether glaring sun
or my own awe, that I
am not alone, in company
with novas and black holes.
All share my vision
burned into what I see
in this single moment,
a flash across my face,
a witness to eternity.

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