storm clouds rising somewhere up ahead
blossoms tossing shadowed on the wind
skies are changing blue is running red
searching for forgiveness for our sins
in the darkness under forest cover
eyes that hide from hunters passing by
we hold these truths
clutched to us like our mother
we tell these stories hoping they're a lie
raindrops splashing fat upon the flowers
shaking leaves and dampening the ground
summer's waking thunder tolls the hour
what never has been lost cannot be found
young buds open now their time has come
senescent giants falling free the sun
Jun 7, 2020
Jun 7, 2020 at 3:21 PM UTC
For we are not yet there, you know,
although it seems like months have passed
we've got another mile to go
and then one more, one more... at last
upon some distant future day
we'll reach the place where we can say:
"We did it! Now we have arrived!
And most of us are still alive
after silent passages
through the tedium of time
alone." We'll dwell in warmer climes
after long March ravages.
But first slow April's patient flowers
must bloom and bend within their bowers.
Apr 1, 2020
Apr 1, 2020 at 1:42 PM UTC
Not everything that can be said needs to
be said. It's not like you will burst in to
a flaming cloud of words, you won't come to
an end because you do not say right to
the face of some far friend or stranger who
may well be wrong when you are right. For who
will benefit from that? When speaking who
will hear your words, your thoughts? No one, that's who,
if you do not engage their sympathy
if you don't stimulate their empathy
if you ignore their perspicacity
in your need for pure supremacy.
Sometimes silence and simplicity
are what need your wise complicity.
Mar 22, 2020
Mar 22, 2020 at 12:28 AM UTC
Brightness, darkness, falling both
softly from the spring-time air
teasing dormant life to growth
turning green the golden hair
of grasses dried and brittle now
to the Pleiades they bow
in thanks for rain, which brings new life
to pools and ditches, dark and rife
with strange concoctions, shadowed roots,
tendrils fine exploring through
the muddy depths to find a new
embankment where they push up shoots.
Brightness falls, the rains of spring
Closing now the season's ring.
Feb 29, 2020
Feb 29, 2020 at 9:34 PM UTC
A wooden door is built into the wall
of dry-stacked stone that bounds the little lane
between the elf-mounds. Curious, and small,
the door's ajar, a gate to other planes.
The wood is grey and weathered, like the stones
which grow with moss and lichen, ancient rime.
I put an eye up to the gap. Alone
I've wandered here, beyond my proper time.
A face shows by a hollow in the dusk,
someone familiar, yet so far away...
I turn and see the lane-way, feel I must
continue on my journey. I can't stay.
Above the stars are pentagons of light
while I walk on, across the fields of night.
Feb 15, 2020
Feb 15, 2020 at 2:34 AM UTC
I swear a good deal more when in the city
my wife observes as we two wend our way
along the street. The towers are kind of pretty:
walls of glass, yet blocking out the day
so down here on the sidewalk dreary shadows
are damp reminders of how far we've come
from towering trees, from open mossy meadows,
from ravens swishing by. Look, here's a slum
a block or two from banking towers and glamour.
I should not fault the place. Variety
is the spice, they say. But such a clamor
of humans challenged by sobriety!
Life here was once quite good to me, but now
I'm just a rustic, pining for his plow.
Feb 9, 2020
Feb 9, 2020 at 6:29 PM UTC
living rill feeds green
ripe grasses catching sunlight
ditch runs with spring rain
Jan 28, 2020
Jan 28, 2020 at 8:10 PM UTC
You'll never know how near the edge we came,
sailing past the world that's known to men.
Your ignorance, good Captain, was to blame
for the risks we took. You do not ken
how fragile was the ship, nor how the crew
was suffering in waters cold, beyond
our charts of isles and straits, the seas we knew
were far behind us, out of sight, long gone.
I guided us through danger, reefs and shoals;
the crew were stalwart, never letting fear
overwhelm their courage, though we rolled
upon our beam-ends, bringing shipwreck near.
You'll never know the gauntlet that we ran
to set your feet so gently on the land.
Jan 26, 2020
Jan 26, 2020 at 6:10 PM UTC
The tangled under-story dwells
above dark earth, the ground's foundation:
listen to the tale it tells
while the wind's damp susurration
passes by on raven's wings.
All around us voices sing
of elder days, when on this ground
no human footprint could be found.
The under-story still remembers
life alone beneath the tress
where forest gods might bend their knees
and coax new shoots from winter's embers.
Ready always with the flame
of spring they leap to life again.
Jan 25, 2020
Jan 25, 2020 at 11:17 PM UTC
You are reading "If On a Winter's Day a Traveller",
perhaps online, or on your phone,
during your commute. The train, the bus,
the streetcar is quite crowded,
jostling and rattling around
as you get your head into the poem.
What lies ahead? The curve of road or track
leads on to darkness, mystery, confused
deep tunnels, full of dusty lights,
or intersections where the traffic snarls
into a knot. There's no way out
but forward, so you go,
in time.
The screen is dark, you've been distracted,
and now the poem is done.
Jan 24, 2020
Jan 24, 2020 at 12:20 AM UTC