People in the city
Come the first week in May
Smell sweat and smoke and toothpaste
Hear countless voices
See sidewalks, roads, cars, trucks
Walls, the guts of stores and schools
Bedrooms and kitchens, garages
Lawns with a few daffodils, manicured parks
Rooftops, planes, movies, windows.
What scent is that?
Sweet perfume of bitterbrush flows into the city
During the first week in May.
What sound is that?
Sandhill cranes call from the air,
Flying home to dance in summer marshes.
What color is that?
Watery green of fluorite, rock-vein in a high outcrop.
Lake-blue of camas lilies in a wet meadow.
Dusky rust on the flanks of pronghorn.
Twlight-gray of sagebrush, velvet on the hills.
May
Has come and gone, unsavored, unheard, unseen.
Look, listen, draw in deep breaths
Reach and learn
Before what you have built
Is everything, and everything is the same.
