Midday

The ground is littered

with lottery tickets

torn through and scattered

there is no trace or track

to show what path

I might take

that others may have taken

Who has come before me?

I feel like the first soul here

Where did they come from?

Where did they go?

When were they here?

How long did they stay?

The sun moves to the center of the sky

A breeze starts, the lottery tickets begin

dancing across the ground

like dreams,

unfulfilled but remembered, 

leaving traces in the mind

Dawn

Where am I?

I don’t recognize this place

What journey did I make?

I am not fatigued, but lethargic

How long have I been here?

I am neither hungry, nor full

Where is the sun?

I was walking on a beach and stopped and turned

To look at the ocean,

And in that instant

the beach disappeared

the winds, the clouds,

the gulls, the sun:

replaced,

during the blink of an eye

by a wasting venue 

I know not where
or when

Cooking a cowboy steak

1. Buy fresh from the butcher a Cowboy Steak or Cowboy Ribeye Steak
2.  About 2.5 inches thick (6.35 millimeter), 2.67 lbs (1.2111 Kilos)

3. Let the steak sit out for about 30 minutes  brushing with olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, baste
          A. 1/4 cup of olive oil
          B.  1/2 tblspn minced fresh garlic to taste
          C. 1/2 tblspn kosher salt  fresh ground
          D. 1/2 tblspn pepper fresh ground

4. Heat oil in a  thick bottomed 'frying' pan to  nearly sizzling
5. add steak  searing for 2 minutes

6. Turn steak at two minutes or when a nice brown crust starts to form

7. When both sides are equally seared transfer the steak to a grilling pan and place in over that has has been preheated to 325f (162.78C).

8. Cook until internal temperature of steak is to your liking. The following is a guide to internal temperatures

I Went Into Maverick Bar by Gary Snyder

I went into the Maverick Bar   

In Farmington, New Mexico.

And drank double shots of bourbon

                         backed with beer.

My long hair was tucked up under a cap

I’d left the earring in the car.

Two cowboys did horseplay

                         by the pool tables,

A waitress asked us

                         where are you from?

a country-and-western band began to play   

“We don’t smoke Marijuana in Muskokie”   

And with the next song,

                         a couple began to dance.

They held each other like in High School dances   

                         in the fifties;

I recalled when I worked in the woods

                         and the bars of Madras, Oregon.   

That short-haired joy and roughness—

                         America—your stupidity.   

I could almost love you again.

We left—onto the freeway shoulders—

                         under the tough old stars—

In the shadow of bluffs

                         I came back to myself,

To the real work, to

                         “What is to be done.”

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Gary Snyder, “I Went into the Maverick Bar” from Turtle Island. Copyright © 1974 by Gary Snyder. Reprinted with the permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.