Len Roberts

Places We Live
For V.

This is a landscape within a landscape
I know and do not know
a forest
darkly thick with trees, the fear
of losing my way-- Curiosity
and the wet green smell of elm
and black alder
break me,
I give in
find a way to foothills
familiar and peaceful as an old friend.


2

My concern is a puma, a blizzard
wild landslide
a grizzly on a cold mountain,
what of these-- Doubts--
I let them be
move in their shadow, hike
the rugged peak
safe as a boy in his own backyard,
see horizons that seem without end.


3

Down to a placid river wide, so deep
I dread getting over
but the water
is calm and warm
and naked, I watch myself
dive into a current
that takes me to the other side.
How many rivers stood between you and I?

4

These are landscapes within a landscape
we know and do not know, ourselves,
chased, bitten, run down by days, time
all the ways it knows to turn the young
into the old, make them ill and die.
It is an old way, half hidden half known
like the mute beauty of the ageless moon:
unsure of what it is, we look for love
in the dark and light of men, women,
life in the flesh, so painfully easy and sad,
the promise of warmth, work and play
love given without doubt or fear of love
the endless landscape our night and day.

© All Copyright, Len Roberts.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission. 

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