It's 5:30 in the morning.
A purple and orange outline
of Mt. Hood forms in the eastern sky.
A planet's up there, too,
but I can't name it.
I learned nothing useful
in junior high science.
Worm dissections and
petri dish molds.
Never one lesson
about watersheds.
I walk Elmer the maniacal husky through the park.
Time for another encounter
with the homeless.
Perhaps walk into
an arresting image
to inspire a poem.
We pass a young homeless
man smoking a cigarette
and fiddling on his phone.
I say good morning.
He doesn't look up.
No poem there.
Fifty yards later,
a homeless man approaches.
He walks crooked and shuffling.
We meet.
I say good morning.
He grunts something
in return
I don't catch it
but I think it
sounded cordial.
Nothing like a cordial grunt
for a greeting.
Possible poem there.
We cross the bridge
where below the old beaver lurks.
A can of Coors
rests on a rail.
I see a homeless man
carrying a bag of cans and bottles
across the street.
I call out to him about the can.
He says, thank you
and crosses the street.
No poem there.
But possible greeting card.
Geese honk overhead.
Freight trains lurch and decouple.
Elmer and I keep moving.
We hit the bark chip path,
lit up by lampposts,
and pass the
split oak
and fallen cedar.
Down the path
I see a homeless man
meander.
He stops and
scratches out something
in the bark chips
with his right foot.
He's designing something.
He's not scraping
dog shit of his shoes.
Art is happening!
Maybe a haiku!
I've got to see what he's creating!
The man turns right
and disappears across a bridge.
Elmer and I move forward.
I stop and behold the artist's design:
It's giant penis with testicles.
It's ejaculating!
Definitely got a poem here.
So fun!