Summer’s High-Pressure Systems

~Monday Morning Visions from the Road

Quick fox, dead fox lying in the road.
Quick fox crossing safely, dead fox cold.

Monday morning in the desert shows
Monday morning traffic on the road.


~After Sunday’s Snakes

An afternoon in the forest,
Higher, cooler, and somewhat safe,
Everything but wind’s quieter,
And there’s never any nonsense,

But change shifts many ways at once.
There’s no way one life could succeed.
It’s only in the aggregate
Risks shape success like wind carves drifts.

One grey nest of roots untangles
Into unequal lengths of snake
Nothing to do with the tree roots
Except in having been evolved

For camouflage in forest shades.
So often, there’s a circling hawk,
Always sharp eyes somewhere out there.
These snakes’ roots lie in root-like snakes.

The longer snake heads for water
And vanishes into the creek.
The smaller snake outwaits watchers,
Maybe, bent, black-eyed, silver stick.