poems by Ayaz Daryl Nielsen

next to a burrow
on this wooded bluff
beside the Mississippi
singing hymns of well-being
for that which lives within
perhaps even a goddess
yes, the goddess of
some small creatures
—
Forget the ugliness the purse-proud
the petty bureaucrats lacking inwardness
there are those to whom these things
are unimportant
3,000 year old pinyon pine with
the hardness of stones on
our highest and most rugged mountains
will bend down and bow
whenever you walk among them
—

Once upon the tree limb
of an old box elder in a
woodland I remember,
I was a boy, a careless
and happy boy, singing
a hymn to my future
yes, I remember, and
it comes back to me now,
yes, it comes to me now.