Wilder than Anyone can Imagine

How many donuts do they eat in West Texas?

and how many cups of bitter coffee does it take to wash them down?

While how many songs of love-gone-wrong wail in the background?

But maybe you’ve seen the orange dirt,

sculpted up on a coiled outcropping,

smiling like an original piece of the Sun,

happy to wander alongside the orange pronghorns.

Maybe the coyotes, sagebrush, copperheads and turkey vultures

are relieved we keep to the interstate.

The “something wild” flavor of Earth didn’t disappear with ground down

dinosaur bones.  And it won’t go away when those eerie petroleum pumps,

laboring away in the Sonoran desert,

suck up empty like straws at the bottom of finished milkshakes.

There is a boulder country just northwest of Ft. Collins, Colorado

where I swear

the rocks ARE buddhas,

dreaming up new forms to occupy emptiness.

like the male peacock (Awe-Awe-Awe-Awe),

who displays our passion for this beautiful planet.

However long or wide your bountiful valley runs,

each day,

lay down like a neighborhood kitty,

roll in source material.

it won’t be long till we’re dating again

like some dashing new version of hermit crabs.