September 2021
Bio Note: I'm a rock climber and mountaineer with forty-four years of adventures under my boots — and I'm still climbing, though I admit all my climbing partners are much younger and sometimes terrified. I write, too.
Summer Freeze
Bone thin oak branches,
Leafless and mottled gray,
Stretch twiggy fingers
Toward a scarlet blaze
Of penstemon,
Eager to rip life away.
But summer has frozen
Fomori claws
And children,
Idling among the blossoms,
Entranced by their game,
Are too busy to notice
Ancient menace.
Concrete Night Ahead
An L.A. night
Rolls down in blue cascades
Like exhaust from some celestial
Pontiac.
Into that twilight moment
Wise, for once,
I burrow blunt male fingers
Into your shoulder,
Easing muscles tight
From leaning past
Your mother’s I - V.
You cover my hand
With yours
And rest your head
On my chest.
This moment
We love
And we both know it —
For what it’s worth later
On the 405.
Half a Moon
So late
It may count as early —
You dance over clouds
Left from yesterday’s storm,
Toe-touching each,
Leaving them luminous
Behind.
Laughing silently,
Like a mischievous girl,
You’ve stolen dawn’s silver
And now flaunt it
Across night’s
Measureless breast,
Teasing the sun
Yet hours away.
©2021 Robert Walton
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