darning needles or ballerinas?

And I chose to swim down the French Broad River
yesterday, following the inner tubes and fun-yaks
flowing with my head upstream, feet up
moving with the water
bumping over rocks and pushing off
down tiny waterfalls
the rocks were softly carpeted with
aquatic grasses, a cushion
and the darning needles, the little dragonflies, perched
on the emerging green rocks, fuzzy islands,
hundreds on their little mat just above the waves
with about a fifth of them
balancing their slender tails on the
heads of their neighbors, wings outstretched
a balancing feat
worthy of the New York City ballet

Screenplay

So this problem is a portal

A way to see my inner reckonings

Projecting as the screen of my life

And I can rearrange the script

I can see what I believe by observing my life

Just as I can watch a movie and know it was carefully directed

So I contrive my life from my subconscious

And then my conscious mind can see what is within me

And how, if I don’t like the screenplay,

Can I wander into this portal of being and

Reconstruct my world?

How can I recenter myself and recreate?

How can I outplay a dream worthy of my being?

I hear the simple words that remind me to be still.

I move into the soul of all

And sway with the trees and the grass

I play like a puppy and chew everything bumpy and rough

I splash over rocks in the river and

My feet touch the rocks and the soft water splashes over my skin

Soft and cold. My eyes are the level of the water

And I am a fish or a dragon fly or a bubbling white wave

I choose to create myself alive, divine, well, blessed

And a gentleman
visiting my inn
owned a plumbing company
and engineered the fix
to the oil well, so simple, over dinner by the river
he says they have to know
the only reason it isn't fixed
is so they can keep drilling
the other hole
only reason we are being drenched in black
is so the other hole can be finished
then watch, he said, they will fix the old hole
because then they can get to the oil
the new hole won't let off pressure
it can't, it is too small, but it can
give them access to their riches
and fixing the old hole before the new one is finished
will cut them off from it forever
so we must be awash in black until mid August
unless a hurricane comes and makes it longer
before the simple knowledge of wedging the hole is
applied
Bill knows they know,
just not willing to risk losing the well
that is all
their hole is the only one allowed to be drilled now,
no desire to be stopped
must have a reason

Today the world
bowed its head
and prayed for animals
and fish and birds
and living things
and livelihood
seems small
compared to life
gone forever

sultry summer

Sultry summer
like a wet damp
drooping misery
soaks to my bones
and I remember
how the cold sank there
too
and this is better

and when I planned to
throw it away
a friend mentioned
there is no "away"
our small planet
is home to everything
we create

A Skipping Stone

A skipping stone leaps
across the water
up, up, up, upupup
then down spiraling
leaving little dancing waves
that reach out for each other
in every direction