OLD SONGS, REPLAYED
Silver-lined thunderheads at dawn,
a sign banked for my myopia,
or the ambush crouched beyond
the mountains. Set afire, set adrift
ships leak west – runaway prairie
schooners cast across a purple sky
pursued by paint horses in my mind –
over the head of the watershed, a little
north of where I wait for another day
of 100 degrees in the shade. We feel
for a connection, for wild expression
as harbingers of hope for mankind,
and entertain the change in weather
that may save our children
from having to learn the hard way.