Back from a busy Christmas break and totally excited about some new art projects. It seems though, that when my brain is filled with all the process and problem solving involved with an art project, sadly poems get even more elusive.

There were times when poems were so thick
          they raised great dust clouds
                    on my empty plains.
Times when my head was thick with their mewlings
          and I felt the air shudder
                    with their thousand breaths.
When the rumble of their stampeding hooves
                             rivered my dreams.

There were times poems roamed unruly
          through my canyons and thickets
                    and caught me unaware--
When they walked right up to me
                              naively unafraid.
There were times poems followed me home
          nosing my pockets for sugar.
When they waited for me in clearings.
When they held still enough for me
          to feel their warm muzzles
And the hard muscles in their necks.
Times when all it took
                    was the inkling and a good rope
                              to break them for the page.

Maybe I was careless--
          poaching too many
                    before they had the chance to breed.
Perhaps I scared them with my greed.

Now I wait for long black hours
In hopes of spotting even one--
                    even a sickly, runty one--
                            grazing in the brush.