Don Kingfisher Campbell

THE VIEW OUT

 

The view out

The window

Outdoes any

Painting and

 

When the sun

Warms the leaves

I feel it well

On my skin

 

The warmed land

Makes me dream

My body isn't

Hurt every day

 

But if I die

Because of cancer

At least I lived

Under the light

 

 

 

Thirteen Ways of Looking at Poppies

 

Poppies! Poppies! Poppies! Poppies!

Blown around by the breeze

Like citizens by politics

 

If Moses had hiked this hill

He would have said the clusters of

Orange flames were beautiful signs of God

 

Walk as a tee-shirted giant

In the land of the poppies

Swaying by the passing wind

 

Open petals take in

The sunny flow of air

Fed the feeling of being alive

 

Shadows pass over the poppies

Shoes temporarily knock flat the poppies

The poppies bounce back up lifted by the following 

 

A field of orange and yellow and purple

Brings delightful color to the brown hills

The cloudless blue sky

 

Kneeling amongst the poppies

Get close to pure beauty

Fitting right in

 

Spotted desert brush

Enhanced by orange and yellow and purple clumps

Such harmony in the variety of colors

 

The sign says Poppy Festival

April 22nd-23rd but

It's already here

 

Bearded and unbearded men stroll

Surrounded by poppies

Smiles all around

 

Buds hang together

Like a group of poppies

Grow to love the company

 

Outside with the wind dancers

Sashaying to the music of the breezes

Twenty four hours every day

 

Put anything next to a poppy

And it's livened up

A bouquet of flowers and object

Arboretum: 24 ways of looking at bushes, plants, and trees

 

Purple fronds like barbed wires

or caterpillars

Trees on fire with no flames

Cactus, the inspiration for Disney Hall

The fern monster emerging from fern lake

Bird of paradise, pointed bill, pointed crown

Tree limbs like smoking log firework

Red and orange and yellow and pink and white and blue flowers burst on bushes like mid-air firework explosions

The hair of the willow

Branches reach up like arms

Knotholes like breasts

Desert cactus tree crawling with snakes

Desert plant sprouts sea cucumbers

White bell flowers like popcorn

Cat tails, long quills

The fur coat of the palm tree

Forked tree

Bush leaves the color of an amphibian’s back

Arcing pink flowers like prawns or shrimp

Cat tail firework burst

Divining rod tree stretches across road

Tree shadows, humans who can’t walk away

Bamboo trees cluster, stick army

Cell phone tower, imitation tree

Bye, Bye, Three Eye

When you were discovered

you were just a fuzzy ball

of rotating glow heading

Toward the sun in the few

months we spent trying to

find a clear photo of you

Acting like a human 

expelling carbon dioxide

faster than any being 

And your body was mostly

nickel worth much more

than iron on our planet 

Then as you arced

around our home star

you gave satellites

A light show like Xmas

came early only you

were still unclear why

You were accelerating

even faster to speed

away from earth's orbit

Was our blueness not

enough to entice you

to approach our globe

In your streaking onward

to the next solar system

will you see something

Like yourself launched

as an albeit temporary

ornament to an orb

That died eons ago

of which you are now

its lonely survivor

Look out for Voyagers

in your way millions

of light years from here