Book Spine Poetry: Prairie Heart

Prairie earth, blue sky dream --
the prairie traveler in the new world,
a natural state, where the buffalo roam,
rising from the plains, the Great Plains.
The diversity of life: the birds, grasses,
trees and shrubs, the land that feeds us.
Bring back the buffalo!  In wildness
is the preservation of the world.

Book Spine Poetry: Suspect Terrain

A taste for travel,
     undaunted courage,
          a beautiful mind.
How to lie with maps?
     The other path, where on earth?
          In suspect terrain:
               complexity, chaos, the places that scare you.
I've been gone far too long;
     I should have stayed home...
          coming home crazy.

Book Spine Poetry: Hard Rain

Does the weather really matter?
The Great Deluge: rising tide --
high water at Catfish Bend,
lanterns on the levee:
goodbye to a river.

Book Spine Poetry: Femme Fatale

The Duke of Deception, the Knight, the Lady, and the Priest:
parallel lives, the archetype of pilgrimage -- a Byzantine journey.
Women, fire, and dangerous things -- the Silk Roads, secrets
of the flesh...
the unknown shore, the far side of the world.