WOUNDS

The wrangler works against the world
     or within it, at the prairie's edge
     or middle that reveals itself.

It is at times an exercise in sound,
     like the crying of lost cattle
     or the beckoning of sweat to bugs.

The wounds words make in the wounded,
     we are told, open up with light escaping,
     or is it more like cut skin needing air?

Our ravaged bodies speak to each other
     about the common pain wielded in words
     that gallop ahead to interpret too much.

The phrase burned into our recollection
     was that the truth was "out there",
     that made us miss it finally in ourselves.

The body's sores come like pauses in music
     to surprise our listening pursuit of meaning
     that we are all heirs to one, continuing wound.
___________________________________________________

NIGHT WALTZ

The strange sob of a jackrabbit
     that lingered too long on the wet stretch
     on the rancher's acres,
the pine tassels skittering down
     the pitch of a grooved metal roof,
     from chimney to gutter,
the naked shadows in the empty chamber
     of the wood stove, gasping for air
     as embers sparked anew --
these were the notes of my dream music.

I had to relearn my limbs were instruments,
     my head too top-heavy
     with deep grief,
while across the dream stanzas
     those I knew who died sang
     that they dread the living.
As I passed from sleeping to waking,
     I moved in a line dance and steps
     of an unfinished waltz.

And in the borderline darkness
     I put on my skin like a costume
     and climbed onto my saddle,
before I rose to cross into a new world,
     and the sky was as wide as.heaven.
But when I stopped to camp, there were no stars.