1

Whip that 20 mule team
“just so” he declared

They’ll drag up
to the pass
to commune with
the ghost of
ole rambler Smoke

2

Peanut butter
wrapped in wax
wooden staff
machined to the end

Wanderer equipped with gaiters
bearded mischievous serene
the Sierras to the Wasatch
forays to box canyons
hidden from those who see
trees stunted by degrees

But clear to those who keep
their Sanskrit skrimshaws
bundled up in rock and sage

3

Gathered in a desert
witnessed only by peregrines
and rising orbs
named for Roman lords

4

O’er the pass
20 mule team
Mojave plateau
to the spaceport
shiny glassy steel

5.

Passing Shasta and the sidekick
– noble in diminution
~ shaggy crags below
Shasta’s silver flank…
the signs point to Weed

6.

Somehow Jupiter and Venus
came along – glancing from the high right –
mighty mass of glorious gas

the longhaulers swing before the
end of the Cascade blowers
Baker to Lassen
with all peaks between.