220
Sonnets From Other Lives: Dharma Bums

I think about the vultures in Bolinas
roosting in the eucalyptus trees.
We’d slept with only sleeping bags between us
& the cold ground of the cemetery. We
dug it. –We’re not dead yet! We called, laughing
as we rolled our bindles up & went
into town for breakfast. –We’re just passing
through. That month that summer then we spent
hitch hiking all up & down the coast.
Herds of hippie hobos on the road
trying to live free a while. Now most
of us—the one’s that I still know
have made some kind of truce with middle age
& for now the vultures will just have to wait.