Following the Snow Leopard

Living in a small western town
shadowed by a mountain
she’s caught up in mundane tasks
grocery shopping, laundry,
social chitchat
but when she lifts her eyes
away from the ordinary
there the mountain
a jagged peak of snow and rock
is still in sunlight
and she knows
that’s where she’s going,
where she must go.
All she has to do
is follow the trail out of town.

Sumptuous Solitude

I hate to go to sleep at night
here where the stars and the non-twinkling planets
and the gibbous moon light the desert grasses–
fescue, sedge, wheatgrass, and wildrye–
their goldness covering
the surrounding hills.

I hate to go to sleep at night
here where the silence is all encompassing,
undistributed by planes, cars, and trucks
undisturbed by the chirps
and beeps of the tech-driven life.

I hate to go to sleep at night here in this place
that’s far away from the frenzy of the news,
far away from Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram
far away from email and texts,
far away from the world of sound and busyness.

Away from it all I hate to go to sleep at night,
I want to stay immersed
in this Idaho desert night.