The Next Landscape

The day came shyly up to me like a rolling orange thing. Perhaps of alien origin, but not if the Buddha of our foolish hopeless dreamer inside has anything to say about it. It said, pick me up. I did. It looked like

forever on the inviting horizon with trees as curtains beckoning the distant disappearing view. It's so beautiful, I said. Climb on through, come on, it's going to be okay. That day had already started floating

to the widening blue ceiling, melting and spilling into churning white (creamy clouds). More beauty, I thought. Surely this is a pretty encouraging good sign, and it was nothing else for a little while. That's a

gift in its own self. I can't say it wasn't lonely. I can't say it wasn't strange and hard to find a familiar highway. But there was always more to it than that. But only because of the soul people. Isn't that the

ultimate irony then? We bring the freshly painted story of an enormous mountain to more than mundane life, even as we huff and puff up its lovely nakedness with less than pure intent. We make the

most amazing sense out of the next landscape when we are in love with all life. Oh, don't worry I've also seen the awful deliberate destruction up close, too. It still doesn't take away the lucky possible paths to

everywhere we find in each other's inviting eyes. How could it? David Bowie said it. I listened. We can be heroes. Nothing is ever nailed down for long on this crawling universe. Scientists like to look at their own

fingers and toes under a bigger and bigger microscope. Poets do the same thing only through whatever's currently available and wild and free. Different strokes. Well night is coming on. I can hear the hooves

knocking at the weakening door. I can hear the snorting of stars. Can't say it's not just as interesting as things once were. I won't leave crying. You can't stay wonderful forever. Take this love seed and grow it somewhere lost.

2/7/2017

Bonus poems:

Your Boredoms

by Darryl Price

Rules by Darryl Price

I don't want your brand-new world order alibi. Your latest

twist off politics. I haven't been true to any faith,

but I still like people. I don't want to fire

any shot. I will not fight you, but I will

not join. We are not saints. We are not the

masters of angels. We are ordinary. We are doomed in

our limited capacity to love. We are like you. We

are expiring all the time. We are losing everything at

an alarming rate, blazing as we walk or run through

each day. But I still see beauty all around us.

I don't want your money. I don't need a gun.

I haven't begun to read all the books I look

forward to visiting in this lifetime. I'm still discovering

the joys of music. Nature is much bigger than all

us humans put together. The stars are trying to tell

us something important. I still don't want to harm any

other being, but I may have to. I'm not an

idiot. Peace is a pretty good dream to have, but

I'd settle for a little cooperation. I'm a poet on

purpose. I believe in love, but it may not be

enough. It's still the best ingredient we have, to make

sense out of our lives, to heal the pain and

to deliver any true goodness we possess as kindness in

action. I don't want your fingers remodeling my brain for

the new century. I don't buy your bullying tactics. I

don't believe that rules should be built like impenetrable walls

to keep out new ideas. Art, like trees and plants, must always

be given its own free space in any blueprints for

change to preserve the integrity of the designers. We are

builders because we care, not because we fear every shadow.