Deep Midnight Sky

Badlands, South Dakota

Arches National Park, Utah

Hoh Rainforest, Washington

Merced River, California

Deep Midnight Sky

Has anyone ever told you

The color of your hair—

Straight as pine needles,

Thick as the wild grasses of Nebraska

Soft as a newborn rabbit in spring—

Is the same color

(And just as unreachable)

As the midnight sky

Over South Dakota

On a cloudless night in July?

Or that your skin—

Pure as the slopes

Of Rainier in December

And smooth as the stalks

Of the saplings

Growing wild in the woods—

After many hours of drinking in

The summer sun by the lake

Is the same golden brown of the rock

Arches in southern Utah

Where the bighorn sheep graze

And the mountain lions

Wander in the darkness?

And do you have any idea

That your coffee-colored eyes

Are sometimes the rich

Brown of the bark

That covers the bigleaf maples

In the Hoh Rainforest?

On clear June afternoons

The sun turns the leaves

To stained glass

And a faint green glimmer

Dances over the deep brown bark

And that is like your eyes too

On the brightest days of summer.

And have you been told

That when you tell stories,

When you speak of what you love,

Your voice sings

Like the Merced River

As it gambols over boulders,

Tumbles around turns,

And leaps over twisted tree roots

As it makes its way down

To the Yosemite Valley

Where it trickles slowly

Over the rockbeds

Through the grassy meadow

Quietly, peacefully, bringing life

And gentle music

To the mountain haven?

And there where the river

Spreads out, calm and crisp—

Your voice is like that too—

And oh, how I love to swim.

10/2/25