A sunlit day in all its glory 
cannot compete with just one smile 
with just one chance to see you glowing 
as you walk down the Miracle Mile 
And just the same a day so stormy 
that all my plans are blown astray 
cannot deflate or rob the glory 
of just one smile you cast my way

She don’t shake her hips around 
But she can sing the blues like a summer storm 
Hot and wet and coming down 

I haven’t heard her sing once this month 
It’s been way too long; you know life without her song 
is like a cloudy day remembering the sun 

She forgets things, like her keys 
They are hanging in the door when I get home 
but all my worries stay outside 

Her kitchen warms me in and out 
She stirs my soup, knows how to handle me 
like pastry or polenta, each in turn 

I see her between the lines 
In songs of love in the airwaves 
that my car swims through like a trout 

I return to my headwaters 
When I bask in her smile, die in her arms 
And I know my life is complete

Like Icarus, we knew the youthful joy of flight
beyond the bounds of life, unconstrained by the everyday world 
but only some  
born with raw materials and circumstance more perfect for the demands of life and fate 
can fly higher, closer to the sun 
without wilting in the blazing illumination of our limitations, inherited and chosen
and we fell to the sea 

But unlike Icarus we survived the fall  
to swim and to crawl 
and inhabit the land once again 
prospering as best we might 
and rising together with joy unclaimed by many 
under the sun and moon

You were so small 
shock of blonde and angst 
blended with joy 
You were the first to come 
and now that you dwarf me 
the first to go 

The marine breeze blew cool on my face this morning 
as I filled the tank of the two-seater you and your sister like to drive 
California kid 
We checked you into the Hotel C right off the bat 
with a life of sun and mountains and trees and sea 
The song says you can never leave 
but in a fortnight you will be continents away 
diving off life’s 12 meter board into Andalusia 
with eyes alive

White galleons over rice fields still bare before the sowing 
The horizon bares it's teeth; on the bicuspids it's snowing 
And Kitty hawks spy patiently for quarry to peek out 
The big valley glowing auburn in the evening 

----- 

I am passing through this heartland on my way to hearth and dinner 
urging on my tireless auto down a road that hardly bends 
and the egrets and the silos get my calm appreciation for a moment 
then I'm past them like the dust the devil sends 

As the rice gives way to cattle and the plains to rolling pasture 
where the reaching oaks can cluster safe from Harvester and Deere 
there's a pair of trees that share a single canopy of branching  
that evoke a thought of family and turning of the year 

Then the oak trees gather closer on the banks of flowing highway 
and I pause my sole migration through the gently rolling hills 
there's a turnnout by a gate that's always locked but easily clambered 
where I stroll some quiet moments and evaporate my ills 

There's a multitude of voices from a tiny flowing rivlet 
and a hissing and approach and then receding of some cars 
and a lowing over yonder as I stand and breathe the quiet 
with a thankful meditation neath the first emerging stars 

Be it hiss or sated spirit, or a thought of loved one's waiting 
something bids me to repair from my serene and tranquil spot 
and I spur obedient mechanism back onto the roadway  
with my thoughts now turning steadily towards supper steaming hot 

Now the road rears up beneath me like a sidewinder uncoiling 
and like Pecos Bill reborn I ride with smile and steady hand 
down around the sunken gully and then up between the broken granite faces 
blasted open now despite their stubborn stand 

How I know so well the sight that greets me round that final turning of  
the road that settles down into the valley and the lights  
that illuminate the living rooms and shops remaining open to attract a final customer  
fore calling it a night 

As I step across the threshold and behold the smiling faces  
that approach me for a kiss and offer news of day's affairs 
all the miles upon the highway disappear from brow and shoulders  
like my cap and flannel jacket now reposed on kitchen chairs 

There will be another milk run down the foothills to the valley 
where the captains of some enterprise will have me for the day 
yes and then I will return unto a place of true belonging 
as the rolling cloud and landscape catch my gaze along the way

Ah Senora 
I can feel the summer sun bake me 
as it shines down on the Andalusian soil beneath our feet 
and on the hills and the villages and groves that roll away  
into the distance 
We carry all we need in our little wagon  
a small tent for the congenial evenings 
and the occasional squall 
coffee and wine 
and whatever food the most recent market provided 
Our maps tell us where we are  
but not where we need to go 
We follow the Andalusian song we hear 
that plays in time with the ciccadas and birds 
recreated as we might on guitars by firelight 
before retiring to hold each other close 
and dream of the day to be discovered