From Arcadia and the Sonora

A Villanelle and Other Poems

The Dancers

He laughed on a time–the furtive, the young god Pan–
crept from his lair by the river when spring was alight
and looked on the world as it was ere the long-days of man.
And he saw the brown stream, and he followed as far as it ran
to the sea where it spread into silver and spray-clouds of white.
And he laughed on a time, the furtive, the young god Pan,
and he danced to the lilt of the rain when the thunder began,
and he slipped up the stream through the reeds, and he lurked out of sight
and looked on the world. As it was ere the long-days of man,
the nymphs of the waters came out and they danced there: a clan
that were born of the rivers and seas, and oh, they were bright
when they laughed on a time. The furtive, the young god Pan
plucked from the reeds of the river and fashioned to plan
the holes for the notes; and he played and they danced–faun and sprites–
and looked on the world as it was ere the long-days of man.
On the syrinx, the reeds of the river, he played for a span
and he danced, as he learned of the nymphs, through the day and the night,
and he laughed on a time, the furtive, the young god Pan,
and looked on the world as it was ere the long-days of man.

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Haiku for the Cody Fire

Enormous blue sky.
The brown comes creeping across.
We watch beneath it.

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Saguaro at Morning

The eight maidens
stand with wreaths of white flowers
as summer comes in.
White flowers upon their heads
celebrate the sun:
eight maidens devout at dawn
bearing white flowers,
standing tall and gazing skyward,
crowned with white flowers
wrought in a ring;

So soon the flowers are spent;
they're withered at noon;
at midday the flowers are brown,
and tomorrow? Tomorrow they fall.
And yet, a hundred years hence
the eight maidens will stand
in the dawns of summer,
gazing up to greet the sun,
crowned with wreaths
rich with white flowers
wrought in a ring.

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