COOPER SPUR HAIKU - MT.HOOD, OREGON

Calm and peaceful hike

But I have to ask myself

Why are trees hiding?

Spring’s promise of life

Takes on sarcastic shadings

Before fall’s hammer

A blanket melted

One of life’s loopholes exposed

Deep-cover agents

Puffy land-clouds float

Hide their dangerous orange teeth

Until the sun sets

Absentee ‘landlord’

Occasionally peeks down

“Now what have they done?”

Stacked layers recede

Layer after layer like

Some Japanese print

Warm air envelope

Nurturing my slow ascent

Laughs and disappears

Cold knives slice at clothes

At the edge of the moraine

And yet we linger

Why put these dreamscapes

In a land where nothing lives

Where only fools see?

The shadow stretches

From this vast mountain sundial

Marking time for stars

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The Narrative Image

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