Partial Commentaries

1. Liberation from the Lord’s Dangle

The fire has moved on.
Marshes fill with plaintive songs
Complaining of the allure

Of property and standing
Among those of property.
The freedom to range,

Long days to explore,
And the well-being
To savor them: these matter.

Property itself,
The possession of standing,
Esteem, a good name,

These only matter as aids
To leisure and range.


2. There Goes the Neighborhood

Perched on a lichen-spotted
Boulder in the high mountains,
Contemplating Taoist poems

And consuming Mormon fudge
Bought from a convenience store
Twenty minutes’ drive downslope,

While the shadows rotated
All afternoon over me,
Of course, my neighborhood

Was changing—the flies, the stream,
The light in the trees. Of course
I saw the ghosts of others

Crossing the distant trailhead,
Moving through the ancient poems.