New Mexico Reprised

Welcomed back
by clarifying light

needy, fresh eyes feast
on unclaimed nature

tufted vegetation
holds restless sands together

rocky-red, pastel mesas
stand artfully arranged

against chiseled silhouettes
of shrouded mountainscapes

all displayed in grand expanse
of epic, high-desert vistas

the bigness beckons
with timeless consolation

my spirit lifts again
on bluest-sky kite tail.

Out-of-Whack World

Cause on one planet
effect now on another

uncivil demagogues
with Orwellian scripts

facts dismissed
data without reason

upside-down logic
cynically twisted

creationism in
climate change out

resources deemed infinite
more billionaires needed

militarism cheered
environment in tatters

rationality denounced
drawn, quartered, and killed.

Only Beauty

No truth exists
except for Beauty

only constant
among elusive virtues

others fungible
subject to human change

muddled into
crass mediocrity

alas, even Beauty
sometimes succumbs.

Re-Invention

Massive white dunes creep northeastward
blown on relentless southwest winds

erasing vast, black lava plain
atop rifted, high-desert valley

collapsed from lofty mountains
once beneath a salty sea

all wrought as geologic blinks
in parade of anarchic change

reinventing the planet's face
in small to monumental spaces

nature's restless, experimental quest
still with stacks of masks in waiting.