traveling
via black arts,
relying on

scraps
of spells
on small pages
in small notebooks
for my tickets
and transfers.

here we see
a spell to change
venue, here is one
to open tariffs,
here’s one
to spread plastic.

on the rails
toward
semblance of
goal and
peace,
carried on
evil’s dark back,
doing wicked things
for good reason.

traveling, living in fact
by black arts.
i’m as good as any
other american,
as bad, as 
speedbound.

At the Oak Room, at
the local function hall,
at the VFW, at the Dive Bar
named “The Dive Bar,” at
the church cookout, at
the corner store, at night
lying scared in bent beds and
drunk on rotten couches,

the people are hearing owls,

and always, someone present
recalls a myth that hearing owls
three nights in a row
portends the listener’s death…

what does it mean,
says the tribe,
that lately we all hear it
every night, no matter
where we are?

Maybe it means
we’re all going to die,
says one joker.  But such a thing
is absurd, so they
laugh and drink and watch
the darkness under the trees.

The owls know the truth.
It’s not just any owl
who carries bad news;
it’s one owl, a tired and rumpled
sage who’s been at this
a long time.  But they keep that
to themselves, let the myth
live on — it’s money
and protection and status
under their wings.  
When the right owl comes through
on his mission, they step back
and clam up while he works.  

So last night, when 
the mechanic heard that call
upon leaving the bar, third night
in a row, he heard one voice
speaking, and he knew

and so did not take the necessary
evasive maneuvers,
crashed around the tree,
and died at peace…
and everyone whispered
the next day that 
some old myths
must be true.  
And all the owls
were well satisfied,

as were the people
in their drunken beds,
on their rotten couches,
in their bars, at their cookouts,

at the VFW halls
full of men who knew something
of death, and of how it comes
unheralded mostly,
and who welcomed a change
from that.

A brook carves its way
by two methods:
flowing down,
never ceasing.
That’s the Law, the only Law.

You say no,
stop and regroup. Plan,
or let the path suggest itself
first.  The path springs eternal —
that’s the Law, the ony Law:

tap the spring first, then dig the channel.
You will tell the brook
how to flow, what
works, what’s tested, say 
that’s the Law, the only Law.

But there’s that brook.
Can’t argue with results —
it’s got banks to roll through.
You love to sit by its banks.
That’s the Law, the only Law.

You dig, it cuts.  You make it happen,
it allows it to happen.  You surge,
dawdle, surge;  it just keeps
going, is always a brook even as it changes.
That’s the Law, the only Law.

The Law says what’s right for a brook
isn’t right for you, or for you, or perhaps
for anyone who’s not a brook.  If the brook
carves, why do you care how it carves
if it follows the Law, the only Law,

the Law that says downhill
draws out the flow, that constancy
gets things done, that the intention
is found in the flow?
That’s the Law, the only Law.