Potluck

8 or 12 well-loved dogs bark wag beg welcome us
to “what’s the password” joke front door spilling
down the high porch steps onto the mountain
side yard picnic tabled driveway where we mingle
and glisten passing breath and blunts making
interested eye contact, as if to say, let me caress
you with the kindness of my open river soul;

Dwyane the blueberry farmer breaks out a 3 gallon
bucket brimming with sweet indigo honeycomb
plus the jam he made, no shirt under his overalls;

Allen walks up hugging everyone in breezy linen
matched perfectly to his buttercup curls sharing
Gallo red wine banter and our dearest sentiments;

Melissa braids her hair in pigtails a strip of leather
around her forehead with a feather to perhaps
appear younger or granola embroidered white dress;

Miles Pearson plays the Spanish guitar and teaches
lessons for his bread & butter served in an outdoor
kitchen off grid homestead he built with his 2 hands
while not strumming or reading the Tao Te Ching;

Mario totes a small man purse bearing a Buddhist
symbol and the American Spirit I bummed some
where else altogether in his dark freckled head
tethered pensively to a foldup camping chair;

Paul rolls pork sweet potatoes and grit cakes in
steamed collard green leaves his short sleeve plaid
button down suggesting a semblance of order he
bestows among us saying eat, toasting to good times;

Steven red-eyed wild dirty baby faced and barefoot
wrapping his arms around Melissa’s waist kissing
her neck in the basement a flurry of curse words
well intended carrying on about cultivating carrots
compost laying off rows crows growing tomatoes;

The beautiful girl with a long Aztec skirt and one
dreadlock breaks into song clapping while we eat
and wonder if she makes love to the full-blooded
Cherokee Indian man who could also be her father;

Yona’s neck strung in teeth and beads preparing to
put on next week’s sweat lodge a hut of slender willow
withes bent covered in blankets filled with hot rocks
where we are told listen pray and surrender to the heat;

The fire burns and burns and burns raising our blue
flame native songs to the Mountain Spirit to God
Buddha Allah Vishnu to a moment of connectedness
togetherness to bodies and food and long full glasses
of wine a communal toke under the single-hearted sky.