Saturday, January 30, 2016

Flow



Go sing on, happy stream, ramble on
your glittering course, your song between the rocks
and running rills to greet the brighter dawn,
your voice so true it never ever mocks.
Creep through the happy valley, greet the birds
with pleasant song, their little harmonies
make lyric sweet melody with no words,
so soothing tune, as it was meant to be.
I half-forget the binding chain of time,
that birds will pass, that rivers must run dry,
that jangling even from the height sublime
the clanking truth: these things to nothing fly.
It's only simple truth, that each one knows;
that song is passing even as it flows.

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Encounter



The monarch glides through yielding air, and lands
on dewy leaves. He plays upon the skin
of petals outspread, as nature commands.
The sweet rose opens, red waiting she's been.
How light his wings caress the bright surface,
how she sways like singing bells well-rung,
it's Life demands of living this service,
he simply obeys and tastes with his tongue.
He traces arcs in the delicate sphere,
she savors light joy which he's sent her,
and if, perhaps, by art, in drawing near...
Oh! Organic, irradiant center!
The rose's nectar proves pleasantries had,
and nature's made nothing we should call bad.

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Song: A Villanelle



Why ask the music why it wakes to sigh,
when every living fool the answer knows:
to sterilize the song of that goodbye.

If morning clouds hang heavy in the sky,
and cover dark in shade the blooming rose,
why ask the music why it wakes to sigh?

When noonday birds and tunes far south will fly,
they'll not return before the evening glows
to sterilize the song of that goodbye.

The sunlight sinks into his dreams to lie,
the ringing bell of brilliance ever slows.
Why ask the music why it wakes to sigh?

Sweet daylight's fled, in darkness creatures cry.
The wolves sing out, and howl in tired rows
to sterilize the song of that goodbye.

Though every living fool that breathes must die,
your beating heart I cannot quite let go.
Why ask the music why it wakes to sigh?
To sterilize the song of that goodbye.

Saturday, January 23, 2016

Spirit



If there's divinity that lurks beyond
my senses, dark and scared, that watches all
that passes and that knows the hidden things,
if there's an ear that hears my cries and feels
for human pains,
then teach me how the love of life can run
within my veins!

I fear that it's my choice that's made my world
a nightmare thing, that only by my fault
I've lost the thread of life's design, the trap
I've sprung upon myself to realize, too
late, far too late!
Though yesterday I might have freed myself,
it's now just crushing weight.

How I'd have loved, and done, and been, had I
but known before. How differently it could
have turned, had I then felt my weakness whole!
Oh tell me there's still time for me, that I've
got time to change!
Please tell me there's some service I can give
you in exchange.

If you can hear me, spirit dear, and if
you know my heart, accept please these verses
as payment, or a start. You know I love
beyond all things, all joys, all treasures dear,
to wrap up life in lines,
Oh! let me please you, serve your caprice,
by manipulating signs.

For you and only you I'll work, I'll spin
my daily web, I'll catch a treat so sweet
to sate your senses so. I live and love
to please and preen your so discerning mind,
and if I please
you'll never find a truer friend, attuned
to every ease.

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Walking Through the Ice



I heard your breath, so light, so low,
in winter's ice with crystals fine,
and wondered, since I could not know,
if you would join that breath with mine.

Your lips were red, your hands glowed pink
as we walked through the street's blue light.
We talked about the moon, I think,
although she hid her face that night.

You never cared for poems, true,
or poets who scribble and sigh
alone. If once I cared for you,
that could have been the reason why.

If our warm lips had joined that time
(though of course there were some others),
perhaps I'd never made this rhyme,
nor any among its brothers.

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Hush of Snow



Oh single special snowflake there,
so sweet as nature made,
fall, drift, and twirl without a care,
and never seem so sad.

I wonder how you grew that form
with arms that reach and branch,
and where you learned to so perform
your random, ordered dance.

Now dip, now rise, now fall again
to tease the earth so near,
as if the ground held pleasant pain,
desired, and yet feared.

Fall deep within the gathered mass
of shining flakes that touch,
and see what grows as time flows past,
so little, yet so much.

See all the earth wrapped up in white,
blank ice, and no green lush.
Bare emptiness before the sight;
and ears: a quiet hush.

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Miracle



Through folding curves of yawning space
and galaxies of night,
what wonder that life finds a place,
and eyes that seek the light?

Oh life, sweet life, my life, great chance to taste
the joys of life before they turn to waste!

And never let a day advance
without my gratitude
for this great chance to join the dance,
and see our life renewed.

We’re nothing into nothing gone, so why
complain and whine that we one day must die?

To be, to taste the breath of life,
what miracle, what bliss?
The turn of time won’t twist the knife,
but sweetens every kiss.

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Connected



Come wrap your hand in mine, this daisy-chain
we weave, a million hands and covered bones
enfolded, twined, all joined bodies and brains,
so tightly knit we’ll never be alone.
Can you not feel our unity, so deep
beyond the skins, a network seething with
all connection, the wholeness touched in sleep?
Or would you say, “It’s just the stuff of myth?”
It’s fools who search for oneness in a world
of separate things, and surely it’s not much
other than veils, and tricks, and flags unfurled;
in human life there’s no deep truth to touch…
And yet if we’re all lost, and cannot see,
how different, in the end, can we all be?

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Some Reflections



If there’s a self beyond this world, or in
it hidden well, it will then see these lines
and know what truth I tell. I often pine
for it, and hardly know where to begin…
Free-ranging worlds slipped out of time, all new
and all so clear, earths grown and sight to see
in rhyme labyrinthine shadows of the true,
the twisting dreamy paths of fantasy.
If you could follow all that stilted diction,
perhaps you’ll tell me, what’s the point of fiction?

Why hide yourself behind appearance, and
why never be so clear? Why charm, and feign,
and act, pretend, and torture at the brain
that only seeks to fully understand?
I do suspect your motives, self, and though
if you’re there we are not so much the worse,
it’s true, so much the better all this show,
but I suspect you’ve got some tastes perverse.
For why go toy so at a mortal mind,
if you know surely what you’d quite soon find?

Saturday, January 9, 2016

Sweet Song of Life



She sang in breakers, down the waves that foam
and kiss the sand as one by one they die;
between the shores, the lands, the seas she’d roam,
so long before earth’s creatures breathed or sighed.
She sang in caves, at twilight and at dawn,
so sweet and yet so sweetly mournful pure,
and from that song life’s lineaments were drawn,
so birds, and trees, and flowers lined the shore.
In these our days, they say her song is lost,
that she’s far gone, and never to return,
that comforts and machines come with their cost,
and for their sake we’ve left the earth to burn.
But ears that love the waves, the winds, the chimes,
can hear her song, so faintly, in these times.

Thursday, January 7, 2016

Sweetness of Fruit



With navel, pores and sunny sheen
the fruit sits all in quiet,
with brightest hue, with tinge of green
(if once the eye would spy it).

The skin so marked, imperfect round,
the past inscribes the surface,
like all the verses that we’ve found
and hope they might preserve us.

Now peel the skin, but not too quick,
and find beneath what’s hidden;
the mottled layer, slipping slick.
Blocked sweetness lies forbidden.

The outer layers gone, wedges
open to the splitting eye.
We’re like the one who sits in hedges,
and hopes for something sweet to spy.

The teeth that burst the vessels thin
and grind, the juice to know it:
acidic sweetness there within,
if probing fingers show it.

And what is left when all’s consumed,
what faint savor on the tongue?
The adumbrating scraps of doom,
and the dying church bells rung.

Saturday, January 2, 2016

What Warmth Remains



What warmth remains, hold tight, and press it close!
Though daylight peeks so pale above the crest,
and frozen digits all the earth enclose,
all Light’s yet Light; so hold it to your breast,
and hold on brightness, toward another day!
Have you forgotten? You were not made for
the trembling twilight doubt that cringes so
at worlds unknown, no sooner past the door
than crying out, “Oh, how I’ve lost the way!”
Not this, not this, as you my friend well know.

What warmth remains, hold tight, and press it near!
The winding flame’s not gone, not lost, not out,
and space for Light, for love, for joy’s yet here.
Life’s goodness lives on still, so never doubt;
a home, a friend, a tune for shared singing,
a smile, a twinkle, and birds at their play
(see how they scatter the snow in their dance!),
and what more could any desire today?
That’s no funeral, those bells you hear ringing;
there’s even a space, time yet for romance.

What warmth remains, hold tight, and fan it well!
There’s no balm greater than courage to feel.
Let loveliness say what mouths cannot tell,
and let fall that wall twixt fancy and real.
What dreamers are we, who hold true to Light,
who keep beauty all glowing, truth so free,
and ourselves forgetting for all our friends?
Keep true, oh sweet vision, true to the sight
of all our eyes are not ready to see!
For beauty’s all that remains in the end.