Three Poems

The Lovers

looking out, past rolling white-caps
  to the low setting sun;
lovers amble along the sugar sands,
  their low slung swim suits
revealing bands of reddened skin.

night quickly covers the sun
   and in the new found dark
their glowing footprints merge,
    vanishing down the beach,
leaving their soft laughter.

with the hot summer night,
  a rising tide 
  stiffens currents.
too soon, quick dawn comes: 
   in the ebb tide-
   slack water.

Showtime

In a wild gallop, behind reaching fetlocks, 
   the mare's streaming tail flares-
Then collapses over shorten quarters
   into a leaping jackrabbit.
In another long moment, dissolving, 
   becoming just a passing cloud.
Again the magician's wand sweeps
   and suddenly emerging...
   a laughing Buddha.
As,  the spectacular show above
  my head goes on.

Look Away

This summer day,  I traveled a clay road,
bumping  beside fields white with cotton 
to the grove of ancient magnolias.
Pushing aside the weeds and briars, 
I moved within  the sun-dappled shade,
stumbling upon two fire-blacken steps
of a lost homestead that long ago stood
in the path of Sherman's  march to the sea.