Best Lodges Poems

Summer, Montana - I was twenty-one
Cloaked in gray thoughts, far vision concealed
Until I walked beneath your healing sun
Your magical, lush mountains revealed

In trees, symphonies of birdsong merry
Your trails of daisies led me to streams
Sprinkled with sweet pops of huckleberry
Your lodges - open, soaring antique beams

There,...

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Schneefall / Snowfall / La Nevada  (Kintaishi or Kanshi)

Der Schnee fällt wieder
Wo die Natur friert
Dort kehrt Ruhe ein 
Wildenten rufen



The snow falls again
Where the nature freeze
There lodges peace 
The call of wild ducks


Otra vez cae nieve
Donde la naturaleza congela
Allí aloja la paz 
Llamada de...

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Historically accurate, narrative poem

27 November 1868, on the banks of the Washita River  

Dawn’s peaceful first light streaks the eastern skies, 
belying the horror of a marauding force of horses and men,
silently stealing over new fallen snow preparing 
to deliver a fateful blow to...

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Written in High School

I wonder what is there
just beyond where my mind can see;
what am I searching for
that streams dreamy colors
through my thoughts
and in my most complacent moments
-play silly games...dodging,
flying through my eyes
while my brain breathes them
over my lips.
If only I could see their light
reflecting...

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those moments i hold
when love held me
jewels that adorn my memory
some are of you
others are lodges far deeper
a populated field of young
wannabe future all-stars
filling a sandlot full of future
where wild horses reign free
you lost in hugging the dog
the cat cuddles up next to you
even deeper...

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Beauty
beauty, beauty, I don’t recognize 100%
I don’t see fair, I’m confident…
Like a manual German machine, I’m Neutral
Like a four-year old boy, I’m enquiring

But, through You beauty is distinct
Beauty is when I look at you and understand smile
It is not open-air where beauty lodges
But within, where...

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Spineless behaviour, walks on mud and leaves no foot prints
the creator’s puzzle, only unravels through difficult hints
existing as one of morality’s abandoned orphans
bladder is always full but preserved for subsequent plans
the streets are in tears, the atmosphere judges
in the suites of his doings, embarrassment lodges
competes...

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Prizes for Ultimate Sacrifices


    prizes for the abstemious  for abstinence  chastity ?
                 the countless occasions for love you let slip    ...

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6 miles up river Arikara are encountered,
they are a people of amenable disposition and are agrarians,
they chuckle with sympathy as we inform them of our grizzly confrontation
and they tell us that disease had forced them to abandon the village down river last year,
many of their...

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Suddenly, two Indian boys throw themselves into the water like meteors
swiming towards camp chatty as prarie dogs,
they hail from a Teton encampment of 74 lodges a few miles up river
most of the men are feeling uneasy because of the casual way the Teton
have broached invitation,...

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Sages say it's wise to persist
In striving for respect over love.
Such counsel I readily dismiss
One is set here, the other above.

Respect requires a clinical bent
Empathy-empty in the joints.
But love lodges everywhere sent
Heals, blesses, and anoints.

Respect eschews a pardoned act
Fearing a weakness be exposed.
But loves sustains...

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I grump, I slump, I scowl, I'm in a mood
To judge, nitpick and be abruptly rude.

Skies heavy under clouds of concrete gray
Lost are the pinks and lavenders of May.

This winter has worn down my sunny cheer
A season's rain lasting throughout a year.

Manners abandoned as passive...

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As we wait for Cruzzatte to anchor the boats
and bring along the men with pull sleds for the carcasses
a teenage Indian boy on a brown pony painted with winged eyes
prances in and out of our slain buffalos, quiver and bow upon his back 
the settling...

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Speak gently when you offer criticism,
but don't be so soft as to sacrifice the truth.
                      Rumi (M. Mafi, trans)

Speak gently when you offer your...

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I know you see me from up there,
from halfway up the steep and twisting lane.
In early half-light as you take your walk
I no doubt seem to loom as you descend,
appear to grow, to rise from earth,
my boxlike rectilinearity,
severe and unadorned geometry,
a silhouette against the solitary...

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