Grass to Be Walked On (6/2/11)

I wish to know the names

               Of all the vines, and mosses, and clustered alpine flowers of Chautauqua.

And I wish to know the names

               Of all the wheeling birds and hiding beasts in Estes.

And I wish to walk

               Where no trail is tamped down,

               And no man has left broken branches and stripped leaves in his wake.

But instead-

               I stick to the sidewalks

               Along the manicured, iron-bound lawns of Josephine, St. Paul, 
               Observatory Park.

I keep my half-blind, three-year Golden leashed.

               I make him sit at corners.

The street-sweeper scatters the fine dirt of La Plata.

               I look up at the Rocky Mountains

               Grid-locked in telephone wire.

A jack-hammer drowns out

               The thinly clouded morning of a once proud, and inhospitable land.