Paul writes nature poems
on top of nature
in an act of literary graffiti.
The wind dismembers his poems quickly.
It mistakes the black ink
as industrial soot from all over the world.
Some days Paul writes city poems
on the natural landscape
to prepare it for urban sprawl.
The wind moves those poems around too
but more like paper litter
that flutters like dropped leaves.
He has lived in Taos New Mexico
for three years
and has no friends
from the Taos Pueblo
the Land Grant hispanic community
or the 60’s hippy generation.
He knows he moved to Taos
to stroke the mountain flanks
with his eyes.
To meet the ethereal beings
that live off of the hum
and draw rainbows down from the clouds.
A magpie lifts him out of this thinking
with a long sentence of magpie words.
He has not yet mastered magpie.
He begins writing a spirit poem
on the air in front of him
in a slanted sun script.
The magpie snatches the first line
flies with it up into an aspen
and drapes it on a branch like tinsel.
copyright © 2021 Kenneth P. Gurney
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