The San Lorenzo

by Jeff Burt

The San Lorenzo dries
swallows dabble in a trough
take mud from horseshoes

8:50 P.M.

by Jeff Burt

Below a dead cottonwood
snapped in two by lightning
thirty feet up, wind-stirred
preened owl feathers flutter,
lift, loft, drift like ash
from a campfire. Hungry owlets
already own the darkening.

Bean Creek

 by Jeff Burt
 
They belong as one life,
water, rock--
one is not one
if one is another--
for a water’s swirl, an eddy,
requires a boulder’s resistance--
without backwater, no crawdad,
no steelhead, no kingfisher,
no egret, no dragonfly,
no frog.

Lake Avenue Brook

by Jeff Burt
 
August warm
wild blackberries,
fragile, falling
apart, a gift
from a brook, sun,
and seclusion.
Some wasps hang
adhered to the berries
nibbling the juice
thick as jam.                     
Others swarm.

Summer

by Jeff Burt

Hummingbirds hover
while orange Chinese lanterns quake
spring yet continues

Yarrow

by Jeff Burt

The yarrow blooms
in Las Vegas neon yellow
a gaudy sign
inviting bees
to stop, to spend
a little something

Wilder Ranch

by Jeff Burt

Struck by sunlight
the west wall of the cliff
like two cymbals
crashes unexpectedly,
stone ignites,
nests of shorebirds
open from darkness,
swallows cavort
squeaking celebrations,
pairs of blue dragonflies
hunt like closing scissors,
and yes, yes, the sun, the sun,
the clanging and banging,
and the whole cliff waking to vibration

Chalk

by Jeff Burt

One fragile egret
a low, slow acetylene trace
against the blackboard of twilight

Wild Goose Trail

by Jeff Burt

Burdock, buckthorn, white cormus,
rosehips, vaccinium, red edible currants,
white elderberry, arronia, chokeberries,
such abundant berries
reaching over and into the trail
begging to be brushed and knocked
to the earth to begin transformation
or picked and eaten to fall in scat
aided by bugs and erosion to plant
in the soft dark earth and yield.
We must not pull our coats
from their branch, avoid,
must wade deeply, rustle, touch.