Joe was driving down the road, with no particular place to go when he spotted Rayfield, an old friend and workmate, walking on the side of the road. Joe pulled over. Rayfield paused for a moment trying to figure out what this white guy might want. He recognized Joe's car, then the driver, and got in the passenger side. Joe drove a bit, then pulled over. They caught up, relived past hijinks, shared this and that. Rayfield told Joe that he had taken a construction job after he had been fired from their mutual employer. It was grunt work, but the pay was better than that of a dishwasher. 

After talking for awhile, Rayfield became more quiet and pensive. Looking straight ahead he asked, "You remember the fight we had?"

Rayfield did remember. It was a sad memory. A memory of a fight, caused primarily from the inequality of their job positions.

"Well," said Rayfield, still staring straight out toward the road, "that wasn't nothing but a thang."

'today, while we worked the fields
bombs fell gracefully from the sky
changing the ground from earth to fire.

gramma paused her harvest
to shake her fist and
curse the iron raptors'

'just the other day,
a farmer raised heavenward
as he stepped on a mine.
he walked a short length
before resigning to his fate'

'these are the memories of my childhood
as we played in the wreckage of war,
as death rose from the ground
and fell from the sky'

- compiled from the voice and poetry of an old friend

why does the sky weep so?

maybe if i buy some seeds from my new catalog,

go out and plunge cold, numb hands
into the damp soil

press an ear to the still earth
and listen for a faint beat

maybe I can wish
the sun back into the sky

'Write down these words,'
said the spiraled being,
'Don't think too hard,
just let your pen
slide along the page
riding this sweet wave.'

And so I wrote,
filling volumes, unsure
which words were mine,
which belonged
to the garden creature.

eventually
they were all stolen
spoken in
indecipherable tongues
pouring from the lips
of my reluctant muse

the cold came and left
the rain came and left
trees were caught off guard,
a damp walk,
a few more ticks
off the universe's to-do list

i had a dream last night
of a massive nautilus
the creature was everything
i could not tell
whether i was near the center of the creature
or an extremity
i am not sure it mattered

"In this world, one finds friends in the strangest places."
seven samurai

in the back of the damp winter garden,
under the letting-go tree,
i found the empty shell of my old friend.
i guess snails only live so long.
probably relied on him too much .
i sure will miss him.

A wildflower lives a single day,
then yields to the wind.
Its children climb gracefully
to signal its early end.

The songbird sings sweetly
of flowers to be born
and dazzling hillside colors
that are yet to be worn.

The songbird's morning song
is filled with mirth and glee,
I wish this were my song
but that is not to be.

My pen is made of sorrow,
just more mellow as I age,
it dries darkly as I brush
a flower seed off the page.