FOUR PM

I pull my Adirondack chair at 4 PM p.m. onto the deck and wait.

Clear sky, a few ragtag clouds to west, and wait. Minutes tick by, this patience delectable, knowing they're on their way. Take a deep breath, a quiet delight  rising in the knees, and wait. Suddenly a distant squawk ripples the silver silence –out of the pine tops, across the Ridge, they arrive. In a loose grouping dozens of black crows heading east, now a conversation of crows fills the sky. An expectation of bliss on a winter afternoon, not disappointed.

when the rain has stopped

when the rain has stopped

and the wet woods drip

from every branch 

& pine needle

a collage of prisms

greets the marveling eye

red     &green    &blue    

Humboldt County

HUMBOLDT COUNTY 

Slight rain

  falls cold

    across the windshield

As we bounce

  over the broken asphalt

    west to Petrolia

A stiff wind

  blowing the golden grasses

    making our way

To Cape Mendocino--

Forgetting for a sublime moment

  the troubles of this world

    where the expanse

of sky sea & land

Conspire

  to provoke bliss

    in our throats

test your luck

Stealing in boxers out to the truck

No Get Caught turns into a game

Get caught turns into smiling shame

A simple way to test your luck

bad nightmare

driving in the snow somewhere, somebody in the front driving, Tril & Mark I think, we'd gone somewhere to check things out, no room in cab so I had to hunker down & sprawl across the rear with things

later in a house somewhere waiting for Bernie

trying to iron out the loan of 50K with Tril & others, a latino who was getting frustrated with the terms

Then Bernie drives up in a large military  vehicle or LARGE pickup, we offered to hose it down, so opened the door and hosed down the cab, the inside of the cab, Bernie just got a big smile on his face like "whatever"

then a bad scene of the short latino guy in an undershirt & funky fedora starts talking gruff to me

whatcha gonna do about it" I asked him

kick your ass" he says

Oh yeah? I strutted over to where he was and said "you think so?"

we square off, but when the punching starts I'm hitting an older overweight woman but the punches are doing no good

somebody from the crowd Tril? says "Craig go easy on her"

wake up

If Only.......

A group of rowdy ravens
Makes a ruckus in the locust trees
Up at the county Airpark-
Funny that I remember a line from Jon Pearl
"It'd be great to be a big black bird
Carousing in a summer sky--
But then you'd have to eat BUGS"

Let's Go To Mars

Now it's been proposed that because of climate change the human race had better get busy exploring the possibility of relocating to other planets.... In fact British billionaire Richard Branson is contemplating a voyage to Mars for this purpose and over 200,000 have already signed the waiting list! I find it hard to fathom that so many have signed up for a one-way trip to the red planet that will take months to reach. I think the large majority will soon grow restless & find themselves homesick for green meadows & flowing rivers when they get to a bleak sandy desert that most of the time is below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, breathing manufactured oxygen. I'll support them, but I think their "heroism" in taking the race to some new frontier is misplaced. This planet is ideally suited for human beings, both materially & spiritually. If we took better care of it & appreciated it more, we'd find a Garden of Eden right in front of us. IMHO, people riding around in spaceships to points unknown in the galaxy to check them out will find themselves bored, lonesome & dreaming of home. We better change our consciousness because, if we don't, what's going to stop us from ruining the next host?