MINDSCAPE

The serene mind is anything
but empty:  shaggy, green
overtopped by the precious reserve,
glistening salvation in drought;
sagebrush held at bay by three strands
of barbed wire, fields of earth-colored stubble
looking patchy and itchy, as if
they would shrug and scratch
except for the resting hills holding
a lapful of old snow trickling into spring.

Flocks of ragged gray wooly thoughts are there
that bleat and wander and
dark thoughts that wheel and circle
lower and lower to gather
about the carcasses
until not even the stench remains.
Digging in the dark earth reveals
only sweetness, no smell of the many
deaths that nourish it.

The presence of those I love
is like the music filling land
and sky touching lightly
with no grip or grasp,
or like the breeze so light
that it cools my skin without
moving a hair of my beard.


Utah 1984
M. Reynolds