Chapter 61: more coffee, please

First to rise, just after dawn, I wander through rooms in a part of town most people wouldn't volunteer to live in. Bitter cold again - the coming new year is a big question mark - not entirely lamentable, it just is.

Spire's of dust float across the length of the room, suspended in morning light streaming through frost on the windows - they rise, lifted on unseen currents, and then, simply disappear.




rinsing out
yesterday's cup --
solstice




` ;;;;;;

Williams County 5 Vignette

twice it plies
Little Muddy's twisting banks --
Autumn Equinox






mile markers
in every headlight --
convoy on the 13th night

alone with a mirror
trying on these cowboy hats --
Autumn sky








heat and drought,
weeks gone by and still no rain
grass as dry as tinder
an Angus calf all caught up
in a few bare strands of wire








  a river of fog
high above the coulee --
prairie greets the dawn

Williams County 5 -
pheasant children waiting
all along the road







black-tailed deer
waiting in the blowing dust,
 a last leaf falls
the only tree within
miles and miles

Little Muddy

milkweed spills its silk -
abandoned shacks, the barn, a loo
recall a time before
















dust and grease, the sticky clay
a drilling rig's relentless motion






on the longest day; the heat of the sun















the Little Muddy is dappled
while sunset tints the twilight, too
as for the mayflies' fall
so begins the sparrow's reign