Climbing a mountain, I feel like I've escaped Plato's cave. My senses reel as though they're a crew of newly freed slaves. The sky is bluer, rivers green, each grit granule is clear. And even at the very edge, there's ease in feeling fear. By "ease" I mean not frozen stiff, but like a friend so dear that one can take one's grand peril, a gift received with cheer. Take me to the mountains, I say, where it's serene and real, and I can open up my sight to a world that's ideal.
an egret saunters with purpose as the insect stands stock still.
a building's corner shows like the edge of a face, under a tree's coif
turkey tail: rings neat as Saturn's, but on a pig's ear.
I've seen in ordinary eyes a special twinkling glow. In rough and sinewy muscle I've seen a grace in throe. From rotund torsos, I have seen a lithesome prance or strut. I've seen a thing called character, in schnozzes that kink or jut. If beauty below the surface, it finds you splendor-blind. Then defect 's not in the object but in the viewer's mind.
This town has known many a name of ancient, medieval, and modern kind. It's known more slurs than names, by far, and yet this people place remains.
two common trees,
seen from a distance,
merge to an ideal.
A smoky morning signals chilly air as those who live with walls of plastic sheet gather anything matches set aflare, and huddle where skin reddens from the heat. The toxic kindling of modernity can burn so quickly, swirling into ash. The search for fine fuel builds fraternity as all sift through the varied kinds of trash. They seek a slow and steady type of fire, but poison and explosive burn aren't linked. This toxic gas hangs low, where they inspire, a deadly vapor which makes this clan extinct. Smoldering pit, skirted by serene stiffs -- of what killed them, there remains no whiff.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 