Oh do i so much long for thee
As all of these
If I would hear herein some song
Or gentle breeze

For am i not of all things made
Though I may stand
Ought I not lift my hand to hide my face
my thought, and only here find grace

the thought that I have never lived
entwined with superstition
ensnared a brambled mind and soul
obscuring recognition
this dusty road so often known
enjoins simplistic wonder
remembrance that I am, not this
confutes mere cosmic blunder

i will sing loudly
though thunder may drown out my song
i will laugh deeply
though clouds may hide sun
while rain covers my soul
i will cry boldly
for blossoms burst springtime
these shatter the cold
let me speak spring, light, thunder and …

laughter rings in the background
hear, she is happy
and sorrow
relegated to the end of time

The cactus flow’r presides

White linen cloth protects

The trumpet sounds and hounds

Oh how I love the base and practical
Contingencies, great plans around me laid
For I am wont to leave things unassayed
Realizing that I am no oracle
Continually I find it logical
To spread things out in order all arrayed
Which guarantees great things move undelayed
Though casually it seems maniacal

Quite mad it is to those who cannot grasp
Within their head the details do not rise
To prominence until it stands too late
While I consumed with passion tightly clasp
Minutia now considered no surprise
Henceforth we feast and hunger satiate

Of the nature of time we really know nothing. We often say that time flows like a river; we feel powerless to stop as it sweeps us along in its rage. I consider that perhaps we are the river that flows and that time simply is, all there at once, a broad grassy plain and we are simply rolling downward to the sea.

Einstein looked at time and decided to define it by declaring the speed of light a constant. Light certainly is predictable, but I doubt that it reveals, thus far anyway, all that much about what is time.

And I think about time as a form of energy that, as it were a light, shines on being and illuminates that which it touches...the rest of being is still there--but without time, who can see it?

I wonder if time shimmers and ripples like the ocean. I have certainly known shimmering moments where the world was electric and I wonder if like the air and water, time might be blue. Does time bend light at all? or does it only allow us to see light?

And, if we are rolling downward to the sea, what is the nature of this sea? Does it taste of brine?

It is winter
The cold rain has driven
All colour from the trees
Iced branches snap
Crash to the ground
Jagged stubbs remain

The darkening sky
Cries warning
All is vanquished
Bleak, forgotten

Those broken branches
Crackling heat of yesterdays growth
Were never so much tragedy
As might have seemed
A soft fire glows in my hearth

I am warm
I am contented
I am home

it would require a symphony
mine are but ditties
melodies there are
mere triflings undeveloped

all these i sing too loudly
when no score has even been written

There are things: do you believe
their verity lies undisturbed,
if they be true,
though I cannot believe them?

And if they should prove false?
divine fantasies,
as they surely appear,
I will probably shrug, and say,
All this was expected.
The quarry is empty
and there is no roof over our heads.

But should they prove true what will you hear?
Will I cling to muted soul?
Will I cry for time spent learning?
what? how to cry?

Must I spend my life obscured
or will some quiet strain,
an echo,
rutilate my heart?
And if I sing with grace,
will such one stop, hear,
and drop a coin in the box?

there are days my music hath no soul
but not for lack of tears it is
the well has turned to dust

was it not dust from whence i drew first breath
of life and love and there shall i return
so soon? yet late it seems to me

such chordant strains of sorrow sung
not even music can their likeness tell
for there are days my music hath no soul

i plan
i plow
i water
i wait

i cry
for the field
lies fallow

there is too much to ask
too much to tell
and too much to be discovered

i will read the book from cover to cover
and when the last leaf is turned
i will recite the stories over from fond memory

i will seek out the writings in the margin
forgotten footnotes from yesterday’s masters
i will shake out the pressed piece of grass

i will write my name on its endpapers
in a georgian hand
and wonder at the marbling

what would i ask?
what could I tell?
and what will be found?

in an instant
it drops
slips
through
forbidden ring
plop bloop
and now
it sleeps
in silence
meant only
for fish
sponge
and occasionally
soap bubbles

there it lies
it dies
slows
confused
for tis not made
spark flash
to swim
it drinks
in death
twas only
for air
speech
and occasionally
text messages

If you fear that believing the thing which you are contemplating will cost too much, do not worry; you are not in danger of believing until you realize that the only thing that truly costs is to not believe.

I used to sit on the bench with Charles. We would talk for hours as he struggled to find words though his mind still readily found unexpressible images. His language left him with the same stroke that made the walk to the corner a marathon. And we talked in broken sentences that left him frustrated and feeling diminished. I liked those talks where in a half hour I could learn what it was like 50 years ago to walk to the grocery at the bottom of Forest Avenue. “You should have known me then.” but he rarely made it past “have” and I knew the rest of the sentence. It’s gone now, the grocery. I’ve never seen it with my eyes but I saw it one day through the stutters and stammers of a man who could not understand why someone full of life would waste time getting to know a feeble old man who could not even talk. On that bench I saw a day when the city was vibrant and green, before the interstate had cut a groove through the mountain and the ancient houses on the hill were torn down because the city thought the dirt underneath held more value.

All these things are past. I have a new neighbor. He throws parties in the back yard and he talks well enough; but he doesn't seem to know what it’s like to walk down Forest Avenue.

It has been pondered before and by far better minds no doubt. It has never been answered to satisfaction, else we would not ask today, and the question is added; why even ask if asking changes nothing and the world is still the same place that it was yesterday? Beyond that, Why does it even matter? Is hope futile?

The sun is rising and the birds are singing the same song they always sing at dawn. Others answer—even join the cry: but that is all. Who do they call? Why do they care? Do they not know their song has been sung for a thousand years and it has changed nothing? The sun still abandons us each night and the earth still grows cold as death.

They sing for the rising of the sun—not for the change but for the joy of it. They have no choice except to die and what is that? Who can forage for grubs and beetles if they do not rise every morning and sing the greeting of the dawn?

I cannot. Though it may change nothing, I will rise and sing a song—any song—at the least, I will be changed by it and find joy in another day.

southern pine

i’ll not cut this tree
that stood ere I was
long, tall, strong

though it breaks concrete
cold stone laid by men
it will stand

till nature decides
it’s life is over
and it falls

of its own accord

~ ~ ~

defeating a manufactured identity

It is a glorious day and quiet
The sun too high for machines
And men who would trade this silence
For the taming of nature
Turning beauty into riot

Stacks of books with paper covers
Content wildly different
all to show control of life
pretending as the others
that nature calls to serve them too

yet earth declares their work obscene
and on this day obedience
must overcome the doer
calm his churn of ordered rot
and mark this day a world serene