Under the Goddess of the Mountain

 Whistler BC

Under the Goddess of the Mountain
          we, with the marmots, pray:
          may this, our only season
                                under the sun
          ripen a harvest of gentle peace,
                                sung in the evening
                                by the humble feathered ones.

This ice has now melted. It has
          become the foaming rapids, the
          white milk, the
          green flow, wasting not
                                an effort to the sea.

And black crowns, augmented by rust
          gather knittings of the cloud, nurture
          some smallest violets
          subsisting on ice melt
          and sky, here
          where the marmot
          basks on granite, where
          mother bear golden brown
          leads her cub so black
          across lush meadow
          encircled by spruce, where
          the shrinking snow,
          pink upon azure,
          white upon cliffs of black
          leaking tears of sunlight
          they moisten meadows
          anointed by secret,
          secret, so still
          we lost it in the
          rustle
          of our rainbow umbrella.

Bones of Summer

Whistler, BC

Skeletons on parade:
                  dressed in meat,   flesh
                 donning exoskeleton
                 adorned by fox.

and they're levering the knee
                 ascending stair
                 hefting all accumulations
                 of their craving
                 which grabs & slacks
                 skeltering
                 wrapping up his wounded wrist
                 leading with the belly
                 Starbucks gript in fingers
                 limping up the concrete
                 wrinkling the ham string
                 sluicing up some
                 symptoms of July.

The couple grasping hands.
The women stroking.
The peddlers clenching dust.
The wheelbarrow fulls of belly.
The second round, infused with grapefruit.
The zip gear falling round his ankles.
The tanned expanse of foreleg.

Imbibing some clean fragrance:
                 pine and deep fry.

We're on an apex
                 cathedrals for the worship:
                 praise to gravity.
                 (Even as the feathers
                                   of the crow
                                   notched by age
                                   scrape the summer roughly
                 suggesting winter stillness
                                   that will paralyze,
                                   and bury us in ice.)

But for today, we sport the
                 tie dye, we
                 strap some loops of
                 webbing, we
                 closet several symbols
                 of our freedom, we
                 bump our frame forward
                 cascading stair
                 slinging carabiners
                 on these hips, we
                 hold our kidneys
                 beneath rayon printed pineapple.

Dearest Mother, with her dearest
                 daughter
                 dresses matching, printed pink
                 joined by hands
                 climb the concrete
                 upbound ski hill under sky.