Tiger Riding for Beginners

Traveling Poet Philosopher & Occasional Wiseacre

after the rains,
 water cascades in ways
  never seen before.

clouds fill the valley:
 a gauzy avalanche
  in slow motion.

mountain snow:
 tinged orange
  by sunrise.

brown moth blends against bare earth,
 'til footfall tremor sends it lurching.

Spring rain for days:
 grass is green & thick;
  the mud, soft & thin.

trunk ringed by fallen blooms, 
only the pate contains hangers-on.

bright-fringed clouds 
 with blackened bellies drift:
  summer day sundown.

shifting shadow
 on sandy bottom betrays
  illusory depth.

Autumn moon first glimpse 
 is impossibly huge;
  the next, it shrank!

the temple might stand
 a thousand years ago, 
  but for that city.