Happiness

A thirty nine
Ford Coupe
would be enough
to bring happiness
I thought
as the geometry teacher
drew circles
and triangles
with chalk
on the blackboard
when my mind
could think
only of red lacquer
and naugahyde
a three oh two
fuel injected
vee eight
and speed
when I heard
the teacher speak
of beauty
while drawing an isosceles
triangle
and I chuckled
under my breath.

Falling

He walked far
before it dawned
on him
that with each step
he fell
to the earth
only to catch
himself
with the very
next step.

Angels and Devils

I once read a book
about angels and devils
while I sat beneath
a cottonwood tree
on a huge granite boulder
beside a rushing stream
and frequently I would pause
and look above my head
leaves would quake
as though they knew
something that I had yet
uncovered until I set
the book down
and the words of
angels and devils
disappeared
to be replaced by
the sounds of life
breaking the surface
and my eyes beheld
for just a second
the rainbow speckles
of a trout
surrounded by
a rainbow mist
and then I knew
what the tree
had always
known.

Time and Again

Sometimes he
would buy time
or take time
even give time
as if the clock
with the pendulum
would swing
forever.