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     (Lenny Bruce said all

     those who live among

     a million souls or more

     are Jews, which is to say:

     together we become alike.)

Fast traveler, recall

our great-grandparents lived

whole cycles traveling.

     (Do those who sleep apart

     on unplumbed ground turn

     dissenter?  Reach like forest

     trees what stature their own

     natures and neighbors allow?)

Somewhere grandparents dote

on their seed, stay to

watch it bud and flower

in known ground, but I

retrace tracks my forerunners'

feet, then wheels, cut.

Spaces ring; I rise

touching the skin of the planet,

hearing yips of progeny

of coyotes who ate their lambs,

flappings of descendants of buzzards

that cleaned those bones.

VI.Scott's Peak

1.

Passing Lamp Bright Draw

I count over the methods,

namely:  feel what you feel,

but - do what you do;

and take help selectively

but gladly; do preventive

maintenance on the aging vehicle

of existence; and laugh aloud

every chance you get.

2.

Upright in the arms of its neighbor

a Ponderosa pine off Tadpole

Ridge Trail looks alive.

It died at eighty-five or so

barely older than Rafaela

who walks as slowly as I

but farther.  Pinebark beetles

may have brought it this far

down; woodpeckers dispose

rattle by rattle of its trunk.

It has been always upright

from a seedling and seems to belong

to the air yet.  In the Gila

crazy trees are generously

available.  My toes are all

hating each other in spite

of good boots; my flesh burdened

on the way up, my joints

coming down.  Rafaela is leaving me

behind; upright, grumbling,

greedy old woman, inveterate

trail-mender.  There, perched on its

limbs like a lizard, another

downed pine refuses the ground.       

                                          Continue   Death While Traveling

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