Spires Poem by Stan Petrovich

There was a man, an angry man,
Who after many misadventures and close shaves,
Drove his horse around the manzanita stands
Until, suddenly, he found himself
High on a wooded clff
Where he stopped to admire the view.
A great chasm chiseled in red and white,
Spread to the long horizon.
Hanging spires choked aspens and greenery;
His face relaxed completely;
It was the work of a beautiful planet.
It made him rethink his violent ways.
That deep gorge reached into his heart
And pulled out a soft bunny.
Life was not about fight or flight;
It was about serving the earth
And all things in it.

Thereafter the man mended his ways,
Becoming a blacksmith in te town
By the calming gorge.
As he hammered the intractable metals
He hammered his own little chasm,
His secret hideout with many small iron spires
And some asparagus-shaped tubes of copper, tall together,
That greened with age and weather.
I was a special palliative place for him, indeed.
Beautiful in width and depth.

There was a happy man...