Mitra

It's not as if this faint moon
Won't appear rounder.
Our edge of the starlit path
Is quiet that way.

To cause to measure, to bind.
Friendship among the cowboys
Required spit-in-hand
Agreements be effective,
Required ears and eyes, Mitra,
Argus Panoptes.

Coyote cloaks the light
The slow elk reveal as dawn.
That's all we herd here:
Bullish suns, heifer moons, stars.
The rest is eternity.

Thus friendship becomes
Trust, loving-kindness, witness,
Justice of the peace,
Salvation, bodhisattva.
Miroku must herd the cats.

---

Well, a god can be a word.
A word can be god,
Sing the cowboys, so I've heard,
Cow words in gods' ears.

Shall I catalogue claimants?
Xiang Haiming and Empress Wu,
Gung Ye, Lu Zhong Yi,
L. Ron Hubbard, Adi Da,
Claude Maurice Rael, the end
Of the middle time,

Jackalopes, each one.
The origin is closer
To the end of days,
And the best mythology
Comes from forgotten frontiers.

Here in the red rocks
Winter moons silver, the old
Songs are long lost, or
The new songs misbegotten.
I can howl. You howl with me.

---

I like tempting fate.
I'm no matador, just red,
Red as a blood moon
In a rubicund eclipse.

The best I could do
Was thank your divinity
For a bit of view
Along with the mystery.