Lew was a Leo
long ago when
he talked about the job
taking away those sweet
false dawn mornings
          words danced
around the walls
          at Soames Bar
          Everson's Flats
          this bench of
          Noyo River
in the woods greatest
          teacher of them all

all up & down the Coast
there are poets listening
          to the woods
some have been there since
the beginning of time
some only 30 years ago
some in a house built yesterday
but they've been thrown
          from the same horse
into the light of blindness to
everything but the other side
hearing the green green
mornings   letting go  falling
                                into them

before they go to work

Mary Norbert Korte
Willits, February 16, 1999