"kensho" on the rail-road tracks

smiling through the sweat
savoring the dregs of summer,
feet as light
as the shining blue zenith
that surrounds me,
gliding over oil-mottled rainbows,
walking on eggs and coffee,
rail to rail
dodging rocks
beneath a distant mountain army
of tightly-packed green pines...
beside the tracks,
thorny lilac wild-flowers
shimmy their skirts
and keep swing-dancing honey-bees busy
while apollo-red dragon-flies hang
from a concrete wall of graffiti:
ornate sea life
and crude chimpanzee claims
side by side
mile after mile

like Job to gravity's command
my sneakered feet
take the incremental beating;
there's no free ride
the wild sun
that gets me high on summer
shines fierce without a break
till it's all that I can take
and I'm headed home
for iced tea,
a vagabond no more...
just a tired literary fisher-man
rowing step-by-step for shore