I.
I live on a high semi-desert plain
bordering a rocky mountain range
and the sunrises are second to
nowhere else I’ve ever been.
sun sets on the mountain side;
I fall in love with dusky skies -
preludes to the same starfire
over a moonless east Berlin.
II.
I live by an Air Force base,
an interstate, and a highway.
every evening sounds like war.
the clunky snarl of c-130s
beats out a dreadful pre-mourning anxiety
offset by the occasional chopper with nothing to do
but
hover
over long-haul semi-trailers on the two-lane road hoping
to avoid the state troopers.
I’m told we’re very safe here.
III.
dogs wage verbal assault on
the dangerous invading
army of cottontails
living just outside the yard’s fence
in the grass that goes un-mowed.
I imagine a tiny baby flinches
in fear, and older brother rabbit asks mama:
why not get farther away
from those big awful dogs?
and mama whispers what her mama
whispered before her,
sshh, we’re safe.
they protect us from Coyotes.
(these descendants seem to have forgotten the painful lessons of two winters past, when Dogs used a wind-hardened snow drift as a ramp to sprint over the fence.)
