on being a tourist

Left to the blathering masses we take our time
to take our pick, sifting, as eyes do when pressed
with peddler´s arrays of cloud, mountain, stream...
(after a while don´t they all look the same?)

The sun will set, too, on these hallowed hills
on the dead queen´s cairn, the elves´ hidden rock,
and come winter snow will cover them deep
and eyes then will graze without stopping to see.

The clouds come and go. We breathe and we breathe.
In spring the lupines crowd each mountain fold.
The geyser lets loose every minute or two, yet for most
eyes and hands an instant´s enough. We saw it. We´re through.

Set me down gently and let me go softly. Don´t curl your arm
round my neck or my side. I came here freely and freely I´ll go
when the flowers have said all they have to say
and cirrus cloud feathers blow softly away: tell me a poem

sing me your lines, something to carry without pocket or lens.
How do you whisper to poets and painters and no one
else, though many see you?  Why do you call
to a dwindling few?  Many who pass by seldom see true.

Take your time giving and I´ll thoughtfully accept,
you bow and I´ll curtsy, we´ll call it respect.
One sky´s enough. Two eyes will do.  For seeing,
though simple´s a hard thing to do.