What can a poet do to make any difference in a pandemic? Two days left to get four of my kindle books free – Here’s sample from Early in the Day:

“Bend, Oregon: The Fourth of July 1972”

Tall pines, bed needles beneath,
ash below rock precipice:

He has come to an end of
denials, and flows with the cold
stream of melting ice.
He cuts deep with the rivulets.
He molds crevices in mud.
He tears with the falling water
and leaps rapids of rock and time
diving for the valley.

Surrounded there by sorties
of mosquitoes, water wrigglings
of snakes, he drifts through swamps
in lazy near stagnation
to the waterfall, and midair dances.

He becomes mist.
He powers the small generators.
He runs to the city
and becomes the river,
suspends the swimming children
and the sailboats highing to the wind;
and he reflects fireworks by night.