In Praise of Loafing

It must have been long ago that

loafing fell from favor,
splashing into the deep end of ill repute.
A victim of the times, left there 
bobbing in the pool, face down. 

Gone are the days when I cast a younger shadow,
when I dared loll in the grass and watch the clouds
reinventing themselves just for me. 
Now the world yells that we are late and don't have time for that.

My eyes always liked that old picture
of Walt Whitman staring back from the page.
His eyes earnest yet relaxed; a hand on his hip, 
wondering if you can find what he did.

He seems to be almost confused by us chasing our tails, 
kicking up so much dust over nothing 
and really needing so very little.

With a comfortable hat pushed back on his head,
he questions us with a Will Rogers smirk on his face.
I’m sure he found the truth.

Where's the wrong in musing and watching the world go by?
Time to loaf, to ponder and think
sounds delicious on so many summer days.

Adios

As Oregon crawled towards me
down a road three days long,
Texas grew small and faint and got lost
somewhere in my rear view mirror.

A new sweetness filled my mouth.

I savored it through the Blue Mountains

and again at Celilo.

It grew stronger among the evergreens
when Multnomah Fall's rumbling voice

woke my sleeping senses from the road.

The great mother-river flowed beside me

to this new land, my new land,
carrying the melting snow one way,
and salmon in another.

All my flat and distant past burned before me upon a pyre of fir,

unending fragrant Douglas fir,
its downy spent ashes left to wash me clean.

A Pacific Wonderful-land for me
to live and prosper in renewed.

Time for Tea

Morning has slipped through the gap
beneath my door and rummaged
through my hair and fouled my breath,
telling me I must go now and sit erect
at the desk of responsibility.

From the kitchen I hear the Indian's war cry
slowly winding up from my tea kettle,
calling me to rise and plunge the leaves to steep.

The time has come again to swap my soul for
what will not change the world
but can pay the piper
for yet another dance.

The Chorus

   old cicada shell-

new wings unfurl in the sun

  preparing to sing