Then lifts a fart to your nose as you brush him.
It's a joke, see, but he has that look, like a
Silent movie sad clown horse, everything
Is funny, he cries, or can be laughed at.
It should be, anyway. For otherwise
The tears would fill the valley, and none of us
Could survive his sad eyes.
But all he wants
Is an audience, someone who understands
What it is to stand in late afternoon sun
When all the browns turn to red, and the dirt
Freshly wet must be galloped, but there is
A lingering thought that makes me perhaps
Identify too strongly with his eyes
As I think of a certain ranch owner
From my past
And his miles of unspoiled
Wilderness near Arvin, Tehachapi,
To corral cattle in flies for slaughter
And accumulate foxtail shrapnel while
Shooting squirrels, and the barrel-of-fish pond
He about broke the bank on, to keep it from
The interests of wilderness, its rumors
Of condors.
Not like here, where the sacred
Lives everywhere, above every shadow,
Because we can breathe with it, a chi-filled
Higher density breath, and see how the sun
Merely reveals everything is beauty,
Expertly arranged to show us ourselves,
In incremental symbols, like the brush
As the sun brushes by.
Then the mirror
Of Brio's doppelganger alone in the arena,
The same sad eyes, restless tail, but maybe
He doesn't notice, and maybe we don't
Need to think anything about it but
It is a noticing, like all the wax
Of all the leaves overhang in a bow
Of remembrance.
The doublewide that's dropped
Here on the hill was given to the guy
Who worked this ranch for 40 years, who framed it
With tiny flowers and giant cactus
While the other doublewide sits empty,
Green rugs and aluminum TV trays,
Testament to a golden age, that was
Never built as sold, it was never
As conceived.
The hunted bucks in the mansion
On the hill were all bought at least in town,
And the bar tab at the country club
May have spared a couple jobs, a lot of
Two dollar bills circulated the county,
And he paid enough so that many will speak
Of him kindly, if they speak of him
At all.
It is natural, here, no one needs
Permission to talk, or any hindrance,
No head stall and bit, though sad eyes always
Remember it. Even the oak trees taste
Of freedom, the one thing dear Mother Earth
Wants us to have.
The man's head's big enough
To fill the hat, as he spends his loose weight
On his own braggadocio, on his own
Pain. Cry me a river, or leave him there
High and dry — it no longer concerns me.
What's hard is yielding up those sad eyes with
The poker face, no longer a bluff to call,
Sincerely wishing him to win it all.
