Notes....

Floating in a golden sea of sound....

Silver is the rain and the sighing of the flutes....

Drums for the thunder.

Trumpets sounding, with horns colliding, furious their clashing;

Lightning, hurled from the heavens.

So for music, and the soundings of the storm.

The crying notes tear my soul, the wailing of babes
crying without comfort, abandoned and alone on the
desolate emptiness of the plain imagined, stretching on
into emptiness and infinity, while the plaintive shrieks
of the dying infants, innocent in this world of simplicities,
life and death, heat and frost, summer and winter, kindness
and cruelty, they rise in the thin air, cutting across the silence
like jagged knives, while the demons scream in the tortured
vaults of hell, the spirits condemned groaning in their agony,
while above the vultures circle, lowering, lowering, down into
the screams of the innocent, newly cast onto the flat plain of
mortality and death, down, their great wings cutting off the sun
as their claws reach down, down to rend and grasp and tear and
clutch; to spill the fresh blood to gush and stream, and feed the hunger
of the earth, beaks rising and falling and rising again, rising and falling,
till there is nothing. Nothing, and nothing and nothing and nothing!!
And yet. Though visions such as these terror my thoughts and whisper
to me in my dreams of the inevitability of death and of the abundance of
pain, of the rightness of grief, yet I continue and yet am I strong, unbroken
by myself, unbowed by myself. And yet. The walls are crumbling. Stones
fall to be devoured by the empty night, while the eroding wind of pain tears
through my mind and casts down the towers of impregnability while the wall
groans and buckles. Soon it will fall. The pain will become reality, blood will
spill out from the black depths of my mind to stain the world, and the vultures will
begin to circle, to fall, to tear. To ****. I will fall. Unless I contain these blasphemies of
thought, these profanities of my mind, I will fall. And death will claim me, and cast
me screaming into the black void of the empty night. And I will cease. That is all.

I screamed and blood filled my mouth. The blood of innocents and friends, of family, foes, allies,...the blood of children, of souls innocent and pure sent screaming back to the cold oblivion from whence they came, and I....I in Hell, flung broken, down into perdition to burn and drown and scream my repentance to the uncaring eyes of the Ancient Fallen. I burn. Ah the burning! My eyes melt, my skin boils, blackens, chars, burns, melts into a pool of blood and fat and gore. I drown in the blood of those  I have killed, slaughtered, those I have sent piece by piece, down into the cold black, or the fiery, freezing pain of damnation. I burn with the agony of my sins, and God watches, eyes full of holy wrath, and the angels singing in terrible voices of the pain and suffering and grief I have caused, and of that which I have still to endure, eternity in the blistering freezing pain of my uncounted sins, atrocities for which God weeps in grief and Holy Rage. I scream. I scream!

I SCREAM!!! AND GOD PUNISH ME FOR MY UNCOUNTED SINS THAT I MAY REPENT AND YET STILL BE ****** FOREVER AND FOR ALL OF ETERNITY!!!!

Head bent, thoughts cramped, doing
the motions again and again and one
more time, I heard a car honk, and a
guy yellin' somethin' in Italian  at some poor
old lady, who wanted to drive slow,
and take it easy, now that she'd done
all she wanted to do, and seen all she
wanted to see. I looked up at the clock,
saw that it was five fifteen, and I knew that my
boss would have a fit, and probably lay
me off, if I left now, but after givin' the
matter some careful thought, I decided I
just didn't give a ****. I walked out,
slammin' doors as I went, and walkin'
with a long stride that wasn't permitted
in the building, on account of all the noise
it made, which bothered all those good
christian folks, who wanted to slave away
the best part of their lives, working for a
**** boss, doing a meaningless job, all to
put money in the fat mans pocket. May
be, I thought, all that noise might wake em
up. I slammed open the front doors, and broke
flat out into a dead run towards where that ****
Italian guy was still giving that old lady trouble
and lookin' to be enjoying it too. I stopped beside
the guys car, and, seein' that it was a convertible,
I just reached in, grabbed him by his shirt cuffs,
and just yanked him right out of it. It was
some pretty slow movin' traffic anyways. I
lifted him up, so that his face was right about
level with mine, and I said to him,"Buddy, I don't
wanna hear anymore of this **** from you,
ya got me? She's an Old lady just trying to
get home in her own good time, and if I hear
anymore about you harassing those as make you a little
late, well there's lots more where this came from."
After that I proceeded to give him a beating
I don't think he was likely to forget in a hurry.
He was a pretty big guy, but I guess all the stress
of the job must have got to me, because after a
few hits to the jaw he just went limp and just took
it. When I was done I went over to the Old lady,
who was just standin' there stock still, I guess from
the shock of seeing a little guy like me take on
a big guy like him and coming out on top. I wiped the
blood from my split knuckles off on my shirt tails
and asked the Old lady what her name was, and if I
could do anything for her. "Marianne" she said, and
she said that if I really didn't have anything better
to do I could take her home, if I knew a faster way to
get there. It was a simpler time back then I guess, and
folks were a lot more trusting back then. I told her I
could get her out of town and out into the suburbs in about
the time it'd take her to say "Jack Robinson" fast, if that
was where she was heading, and she said that
sounded just fine. I took her to my car and opened
the door for her, and then I got in and we took off.
On the way she thanked me for givin' that guy who
was yelling at her what was comin' to him, and I
said it was my pleasure. When we got to the suburbs
I dropped her off at the address she told me, and told
her to take care of herself. She told me she would.
Then she hugged me, and told me her house was
always open to me, and I thanked her kindly, but I
told her I probably wasn't going to impose on
her hospitality just yet, seein' as I was going on a
little trip and wouldn't be back in a while. She said
she understood, and kissed me on the cheek before
turning away and going inside, and I watched her until
her big yellow front door slid shut with a click.
I stood there for awhile, and then I turned and got
back into my car and drove away, off into the sunset,
just like they do in those old westerns. And I laughed
loud and long as I drove away into that shining golden sunset.
And if that isn't the best, most prefect ending to a
day that started off as dreary as you can ever imagine, then
I don't know what is.

I am young. My mind some say, is old,
and I feel the need to stop the striving,
the searching, the trying to sculpt and
craft words into something high and
wonderful. Simple, I think, is best, now,
when all my pride has been laid low, and my
Soul has been touched by the simple words of
Love and Life, spoken and written, words to
touch the heart.

The Tree of Life

growing, stretching, climbing

on towards the heavens clear

and the everlasting light

while man lives and dies and hopes and dreams

you climb upward, ever upward, and spread your branches wide

a growing roof of sighing leaves

while man flits and falls, from life to death

still you reach ever upward, shining pinnacle of life and light and spinning leaves

sighing ever in the breeze

On the gentle ***** of a green and waving hill, vibrant with the life of spring, flowers fall from the outspread limbs of trees, an ocean in their sound, and fall gently to the earth, soft as a mothers kiss, upon a child's tender brow. The wild flowers are spread out among the grasses, bright spots of changing color, amidst the flowing green, waving in the springs gentle breeze, light glowing through the blades, shining in the sun, the scent of life and growth and change arising, slow and overpowering as the years to come, as ages gone. Underneath the spreading trees, their leaves give shade and succor to those who fear the light and hide from its revealing rays. A fox rustles through the underbrush, coat burning orange, a rushing flame in the green light, filtering down from the canopy above, dim in its softened form. Ahead a hare, leaning down to drink from a cool and quiet pool, looks up as a ray of light, pure and golden, falls from the heavens, as the light of God himself, admitted by the wind rushing, parting the woven branches, above, beyond the trees. The leaves spin and sparkle, sighing also in the breeze, and so a harmony ensues sighing leaves and rushing wind, in that tranquil, quiet place. Dust falling, innumerable motes of glowing light, they drift downwards, minuscule, as snow made all of light, dim and golden,  like the shining sands of heaven, swept down to fall to earth, and dust the earth with heavens bounty, and let its light sparkle for a moment, an age, in the quiet of the world. Far above the wooded hill, beyond the rustling grasses, and the colorful blossoms in their midst, high in the cold of the infinite heavens, and the currents of the flowing wind, an eagle soars, and so in mastery of the world below, the world above, does swoop to take unwary prey, in claws cruel in their curved dimensions, and the sharpness of their edge. But below in the world of quiet peace, though blood may drip from pure sky, and so enrich the flattered earth, all is yet still, and calm prevails, and if blood does fall, sprinkled from the heavens as a cruel rain, macabre in its crimson gleam and scent of severed life, it falls unknown, unmarked, to soak into the warm earth, receiving as it gives, and so is added once more to the cycle of life at the beginning, from which in time new blood will flow, through veins new and delicate, frail with the tender youth of new things begun, and so new life be born from death.

Once, there was a wind, and in its
swirling, spinning path it touched
many things. Trees bent in sway to
the rising gale, flowers bowed by a
passing sigh, leaves pulled from their
rest, to sway and dance in the lifting
wind, high into the moving air, while
trees that before were clad, now are bare.
Stark and naked. as the wind falls, two trees
move to the winds desire, and swaying
catch, and swaying hold, branches linked.
A gateway to nothingness, to which all things
go in time, dust on the wind.

What is it, oh you
Of the yearning mind,
Of the wide soul, and
The wounded heart
Laid bare, what is it
That pierces, that
Cracks the buried
Stone, that draws life
Up out of the earth,
And yet sustains it, crown
Tall in the anchored earth?
Listen now, O you man,
You woman, child,
Bearers of the flame
Of the world,
When the life of man
And the life of tree,
Both are seen embodied
Of the ecstasy of the
Now-In-Life, when
Death is counted friend
And received in honor,
And not sought, or hastened,
When the enemy of my
Heart is my enemy and yet
My friend, and love is
Seen in all, and recognized;
Then will we have peace,
The world within the world;
And from peace love,
And joy.

Thunder roars its booming wrath,
lightning splits the darkling sky,
Ground trembles, mountains shake,
raging waves rise in fury, to dash to
pieces the trembling man, cowering
before the wrath, the raging storm,
Begs for mercy, cries in pain, lightning
smites his prostrate form, earth cracks
and swallows him, waves falling, rushing
in, Man is gone, destroyed in fire, and the earth
stills, the clouds depart, the waves recede to
ocean deep, this the fate of he who walked
the sacred ground, my only son.

These thoughts of mine are
hard to keep, these flitting
things of light and shadow,
of dreams forgotten, and
of the ecstatic delirium of
madness that comes from
a night of sleepless turnings,
stimulants, enticing so,
the bodies of dreams, mine
and not. But who can tell,
among us all, among
us heaped and sprawled
and thronged, who can say
who truly dreamt, the
word that marks, the laugh
that cuts, that worms into
the hollowed space, that
takes the place ones heart
did make, first, before we
dreamt at all?

A man was broken, his heart was sore.
Leaving, he said with backward glance,
to family dear and loathed alike, pain
is good and love is better, both are teachers,
love of life, the finite stretch, the final breath,
spring and winter. But in excess, both are bad,
to drown a soul and leave it dead, one has only
to take in excess. And so I leave you now, gone
am I forevermore.

And he left.

Weary, footsore, he walked the road, and searching
sought for greater meaning, to a life turned suddenly
devoid of reason. He'd thought of epics, of heroes brave,
who'd left their safe and painful lives behind, and gone to
seek a greater quest, leaving at their souls behest, else death
and languor were soon to follow, and the wasted sorrow of
an empty soul. Walking. Alone. Wind like the gentle heartbreaking
breath of solitude and silence forced sighs gently through his
windswept hair, and so dries his skin, in anticipation of the
final sleep, to which all things must go, their time or no, on
this plane of infinite mortality, life and death locked in endless
cycle, revolving again and again. Life and death, Summer and Spring,
Fall and Winter.

Night had fallen. The legion of infinite stars sparkled in the empty night,
and laughed at him, distantly, far away spectators of petty life, they who
observe only, older than the gods whom man has created. It was the time of
Autumn, and so the trees fall backwards down into slumber, deathlike in their
tranquility, while their leaves fall one by one, swept by the wind and smoothing
rain, to scatter about the sleeping world, and crunch as their fragile veins, bones
of the one, of the all, unique and yet not, are sent into the wind, dust in the current,
as the man walks over the cold face of the dying world, the wonders of spent life
alone heralding the earths rebirth, that flurry of life and light and power. But
then, on that place, in that time under the stars, all was still.

Illuminated by the fragile moonlight, deceptive in its enchanting glow, the man,
who had walked the world, saw towering in the distance, black as the void behind
the night, the towering spires of an empty house, abandoned long, left by its unfaithul
masters to rot under the care of the rain and the sun and the ever blowing wind.
The man stumbled across an empty field, littered with jagged chunks of fallen stone,
the shattered bones of that empty place. The man built a fire from the fallen timber littered
there, and so drove back the night. For awhile. For when he closed his eyes to sleep, and laid him down his weary head, so returned the dark and fearful night, and left his mind painted red with blood, black with rage, grey with sorrow. Snow was coming. The man closed his eyes, and waited. Perhaps the shrieking wind would topple that ancient house, straining its
rusted nails, stretching its boards far past all endurance, and the house would fall. The world would fall, and send him screaming into the darkness from whence his nightmares came, to fall there, and become twisted in the darkness, until at last he too would become
one with the darkness, and rise to torment other souls, to guide them down to the darkness,
for forever and for eternity.

The sun rose high, and in that grey and cloudy sky, worked to lift the dying melancholy
from the world, a little. The man woke and, startled, he heard the songs of birds as they
too, rose with the early dawn, and sang their morning hymns to the rising sun. The man
walked out of that charred and ruined place as if in a dream, and so came to stand in the middle of that field littered with the broken stones of that place. Looking, he saw the dew glittering in the rosy light of dawn on the bare limbs of the naked trees, stark in their unclothed beauty. He beheld the yellowed grass, changing from their bone like hue, to a soft and golden color, as to wheat waving in the summer fields, in the bygone days of life and youth. He felt, light, as to the seeds of the dandelions floating on the breeze in the sweet months of spring, light as if he were the light, and so thinking he looked down and perceived
the golden grass, and closed his eyes. And yet! Glory of light, of heaven, of all glorys, he saw the grass, saw it brighten to shining brilliance as the world took on its true shape to him, he, blessed with the power of sight and light and peace at last, respite and tranquility from the seething dark. But no. He was rising, falling up, up into the empty nothingness of the blue and hollow sky. He tried to will himself down, tried to fall there, but he was nothing, a shadow made of light, and the light was taking him, taking him, merging with him, transforming him into the light worshipped and revered by all those who lived in peace and feared the darkness. And yet he was afraid. And as he passed into the light to suffuse the earth with his young and glowing light, his last thought before the end, was that it wasn't so bad, not really, at the end of things, at the end of him, to illuminate the world in light and nothingness.
It wasn't so bad he thought, as he passed, to be a star.

I look at her face, and smile, and warmth
swells in my chest as I see her smile in turn.
Age has dulled her blazing beauty, and lies
on her now like a mantle of lead, bending her
back, arresting her tread. And yet our love has
grown, not withered, and our hearts speak truly to
one another, for we are joined, in heart and mind,
and we care for each other, more than we do
ourselves. As the years have passed, our forms
have withered, have become vessels of the most fragile
glass, through which the light of ours souls burn as stars
in the infinite heavens, and our souls communicate, one
with the other, for there is no boundary, no obstacle left,
so far down the road. We speak little, for our actions speak
more clearly than words, and when we do, we seek only to
confirm our love and our trust, unnecessarily, for we are one,
and forever will be, in this life, and beyond, together, for all
eternity.

The flowers are swaying, deep in
the hollows of the vale, violet in the
shades of twilight. I sit against a boulder,
there in the center, etched with the marks
of an age forgotten, and think.

A world teeming, cities filled with the
foolish and the wayward, men laid low,
by the seductions of corruption; and am I
not the worst among them? I am halved, I say,
split in twain, divided between the pure and
the putrescent, the wholesome and the foul.

I had lost faith. Life a blur of conflicting desire,
weary I fell, desiring only nothing.
Death touched me.

I was flying....

I saw my life, terror, rage, sorrow, confusion, pain.
All roiling and screaming and laughing. But amid
the turmoil, small and quiet, a small center of peace
resided, oblivious to the darkness, and within were the
seeds of joy and happiness, peace and silence.

Rest.

I saw, and in the realization, I fell.
I awoke in darkness, but I could see the
light. It led me here.

Here to ponder, and to heal.

And to remember.

I walk through the valley of darkness,
though fear besets me, and a darkness is
In my mind, for my dream is there, shining
like a morning mist, far away, set in the unreachable
horizons of my belief. Unreachable, though I struggle on
through all the troubles and tribulations of the world.
Because I must.

So I go on, on through a gauntlet of fear and doubt
And pain. For though I suffer, and though I die,
gasping, sprawled on ****** ground, the stones
hard beneath me, it would be enough, at the end
Of things, to say at least, that I tried.

Yes, at the end of things, when life is bitter
and death seems sweet, it would be enough,
to say, that I tried.

There, at the end of things.

It was in the spring,
season of new birth
that I first saw you,
weeping in a stand of
wonder that you had
sown.

You seemed then
as a grass, tall as all
the rest yet distinct,
caught in a wind,
and the scent
of blossoms.
You danced, and your
music wound its
way to the sky
and brought
the birds.

As the dawn through
a roof of young leaves
your coming woke me,
and showed me a world
of such beauty that
I felt alive, in a way
I had almost forgotten.

You were the dawn,
and the breeze in
Springtime; you were
wild and you were calm,
carefree and sorrowful,
heartless and compassionate,
thoughtless and full of
knowings. In my ignorance
you were a discord,
a tumble of notes that
proved beautiful,
despite itself. In my
ignorance you were a
wonder. In my knowledge
you are a miracle,
far beyond the reasons
of your being.

You asked if I would
remember you, and in
my heart I laughed as
well as wept. For how
could I not? To ask if I
would forget you, who
had brought such fervor
to my life; such joy.

It was beyond foolishness.

If I weep, forgive me,
for I could wish for
nothing more than to
make you smile; it is
this love in my heart
that does not permit it.

In love I say,
I will remember.
I will remember.
I will remember.
In love.


Farewell.

The stars are fading, the moon is falling.
Above the midnight canopy lightens slowly;
shades of gray, spreading out, day is breaking.
Dawn comes with the rising sun. Light soars to fill
the sky, red and gold, nights shadows chased before
it, the Sun, resplendent in shining glory, bringer of the
new day. Birds cry and leap from the trees, notes shrill and
joyous, fair heralds of the day. The sun climbs slowly, beginning
it's journey across the heavens, the sky, glorious in azure splendour.
Clouds, wisps of shining air, frail in the light of day, change from the ruddy
red and the the glowing gold; colors of the new dawn. Pearly white they grace the
sky, celestial palaces and woodland creatures, the deer and the dragon, all in white within
the blue. And so the noontime passes, clouds obscuring then revealing, the sun eternal
rides the sky, and the clouds shine with light and the creatures of the air soar, crying
Praises of the sun in shrill voices. Eventide, the birds glide down to rest, in
the bowers of the trees. The light is green and gold, red and violet, white and
pink, colors of the sunset. The sun falls in the west, the moon rises in the
east, and at last the day is done, the Suns splendour vanished,
replaced by the shining light of a pale moon, and the far
away light of a thousand, thousand stars. And so is
day ended, and night begun, the darkness given sway.
The world lies in shadow, sleep takes the creatures
of the sun, the earth lies in shadow, to await the
new day.

Waking Weary, I dress for the day.
Nodding I sit and curse the delay.
Waiting for work to come take me
away.

I'd rather just sleep here to while the
day, but since I cannot I do curse the
delay.

I wonder while I'm sitting here,
typing these words down, what
it'd be like to live, out, in the fresh
free air, walking, always walking,
the world my second home.

I wonder, as I sit here, typing
these words down, would it
be like my wanderings, lost in
imaginations dreams, a journey
of beauty, of hope, of spirituality,
of self discovery, of enlightenment...

I have been told that the grass is
never greener, here, or in furthest
Asia, that we are all one, a human
family, extended into the billions,
all having unique quirks and traits
between us, but all being more or
less the same, for all that. That we
all are truly, one. And I think that
that is true.

I want to know what it is like,
to feel what they feel, to see
what they see, to walk among
them, to drown in the torrents
of noise and smell and color,
to bathe in a sea of silence, alone
but for myself, wandering
awestruck, and the whispering of
the leaves in a gentle breeze..

I want to know..I have to.
I need to see, to feel, to hear,
to love..

I gotta go. I gotta go.
that's all.

I am watching,
watching here
alone tonight,
watching as
The clouds float
by, and the night
goes whispering
past.

Watching you, asleep tonight.

Silence, the void before the sound,
It hangs between the watchers, as they
stare  into the fire, burning in the center,
casting light in a myriad of shadows. And
all is still. Before them lie their instruments
nine, stringed and bowed, drums and fiddles.
They lift them to their sides as one, and all relax
as their hands caress their singing lovers. A breath,
drawn deep; released into the stillness of the night,
and the music sounds, as a cord too strained the tension
snaps, and the music soars on singing wings, waves of
light, of light and shadow, born on a wind of deepest
passion, out into the thrumming night, resonating with
their song. And so the music sounds, as the night awakes
and joins in their song.

What happens when two lovers meet, twine hand in hand, gaze spellbound into the endless depth of the others eyes, and wishes the moment to last forever? What happens when they kiss, star crossed lovers, bound by love and tragic fate, to part in grief and bitter tears, Their screams echoing up to starry heavens, to fall at last, unheard, unsung, a tragic echo of bitter grief and the scream of tortured hearts, ripped apart, to die in pain and bitter age. White hair streaming, tears falling, he falls at last, succumbs to Time and tragic fate, dies at last, beneath the stars and pale moon, a tragedy for ages gone, A single drop in that endless sea of grief and bitter pain, watered by a constant rain, of broken lives and shattered dreams. For this is life, a bitter gulf, penance for some ancient crime, and though beauty lies in fleeting spaces, rainbows shining, leaves set sighing, by the fragrant breath of an autumn breeze, They are but glimpses, shadows of what we had, for all shall fail and pass away, and the days shall be filled with pain and bitter tears, from now until the end of time. For after all, Autumn is a time of dying.

I have lived on this site for many years now, breathing poetry in, breathing poetry out; infusing the wonderful blend of thoughts and ideas, of profundities, comic absurdities, the peace of serenity, achieved in few words, poignant, vast, with my own, my own thoughts, loves, fears, conceptions of beauty, and my reality of what is ugly, and what is not. You know me only as a poet, an identity obscured by intent, lost, one among millions, in the vast web of energy that connects us, empowers us, gives us the tools to do anything, and at the same time, all too often, takes away the will to do anything at all, to emerge from its deep, narrow pool, and observe the endless ocean that is life, that surrounds us, unheeded, we on our little islands, lost in the trap of our own design. I am a poet, one who wishes only to express, and to feel, to influence others, to help them on their way, and be aided in turn, when the world seems darkest, and the temptation of the trap seems sure, the way of quick release. I am a poet, and that is all I am, and all, deep down, that I ever shall be; and I am content. For to be a poet, one who is at the core of his being connected to an other, whether that other be nature, a person, humanity, or even the depths of ones inner self, and the secrets contained therein; or a hundred thousand more, one is connected. And that, whether tragic or joyous, comic, or serene, is the greatest gift one can hold, and although it may be gained in later life, never will those who have gained it thus experience the depth of feeling as those who were at birth endowed with it, that most heavenly of gifts. I am a poet, as are you. Let us make something wonderful, together, and in time, perhaps, we may heal the world of its sorrows, and bring joy, where before there was despair, and light, where once there was darkness.

The suns shining here,
the clouds are softly rolling,
to the winds gentle sighing,
as it passes the old oak by.

Oh the winds softly shushing,
as it passes the old oak by.

Dead leaves
are falling,
like sighs
from a winter
sky.

In summer,
I used to run, and
curse the heat. And swim
in the cool waters of the pond.
No more.
For the colder months are coming in,
and winters knocking on the door,
with summer shuffling out the
back. And I welcome old
winter in.

The winter snow falls,
in a gentle shifting mass,
flakes drifting, cold kisses
of passing frost, to blanket
the ground in ice and silence.

The wind is idle, the land
is calm, the frost content
to spread and grow, to
weight the ancient trees
with snow.

I sit here in the winter chill
breath frosting out into the
silence. I look out over those
sleeping trees, buried under
weight of snow, and I smiled,
and slept, and the world was
content.

A wooded valley, cradled between the arms of
the earth, nestled in a bowl of stone and soil.
A breeze comes down from the silent heights,
sets the leaves all to sighing, last voices in their
dying, as they fluttering fall, a rain of fire, in that
cold and sleeping wood, beneath those grey and
clouded skies, in that time of winter.

The birds have flown, long time past, sensing the
advent of winter, fleeing before the storm. No
sound mars the stillness, in that sleeping silent wood,
no sound but the quiet gentle knocking of the limbs all
together, in the sway of the whistling wind. The sun shines
in pale radiance, in that bleak time of winter.

The clouds gather, grey they merge and so release their
weight of frost, down upon the sleeping land, waiting in repose.
Snow falls to weight the limbs, and bow the branches,
down towards the earth, carpeting all in a sheen of
silent white. Ice hangs down from the rocky ledges,
and from the weighty bows, shining in the pale light.
The streams have frozen, white paths through the
trackless waste, and ice covers the swift rivers over, locking
them in frozen silence, their singing laughter stilled at last.

Wind shrieks and hail comes falling, snow and ice together
descending, down from the maelstrom from which they sprung.
Blizzard roaring, blankets the wood in the arms of the earth, locking
it sure in the cold grip of winter. Now wind falls and hail abates, the
rain of snow slows and stops, and the trees rest from their knocking.
And all was still in that time of winter.

I walk and think of yesteryear,
as I wend these winding ways;
I loved the life, the youth of
Spring; yet I yearned for the
cold and the fleeting days.


My passion rose in the Summers
heat; a fire awoke within me. Yet
even as I reveled in that pagan
idyll, I pined for the cold and the
frost and silence.


I saw the sleeping trees of Autumn;
I gazed at the burning wood. But
even as my heart rejoiced in my
breast, I knew that it was not enough.


Now I walk in Winter-tide, and behold
the blackened trees. The crackle and snap
of dead leaves underfoot is like an
ever present symphony, in that pale winters
day. I pace under bough, under cloud,
under sky, and the wind loves me, and is
present at my side. Age lies on the sleeping
hills, and youth is far from me, as I wander
through the frosted halls, of that wondrous
Winter wood. And I looked out at the silent
land, frosted under weight of snow, and I
saw that it was good.

Winter, Weather,
Snow and Heather,
Freeze and Feather;
Owl swifting, white
of wing. Cold and ashes,
Love and slashes,
Fire bright in the wintry
night.

When walking the twisting,
winding trails, of the wood
in that time of frost and fire,
I sometimes forget the hours,
and the minutes, and the days,
and wish I could go walking,
till the end of the ways.


I love to see the fire of the
twisted autumn leaves,
left behind in silence, now
all encased in frost.


And yet I love it most of
all, when walking in the
woods, when dawn is finally
breaking, and the night
wind finally stills. I love
to see the tree limbs, and the
twiglings, and the leaves, all
shining in glorious wintry
splendor, for noone, but for me.

The lonely notes flowing, falling, leap from
The thin and flitting fingers of the pianist,
The cup of melancholy, drained to the
dregs, bittersweet in that the love of happiness
and joy is tempered now, from longing for the
delicate and pensive feel, that comes from dipping into
the small and lonely pool of melancholy. Grief, a distant
specter, hovering in the fringe of chance, is nearer now,
melancholy, the doorway, slides open on silent hinges,
and admits the crushing tide. High, high, and faster still,
the pianist falls, slowly down and up again, grief, the storm,
disrupts the flow of sound and silence, and incorporates itself
into the threading melody, and so erodes the shores of joy and laughter,
the violet waves of gentle melancholy, laced with the thinnest threads of
blackest grief, sighing on, erasing so, youth and joy and light and life.
The melody falters, stills. The pianist alone, playing for an empty quiet,
rises, pauses, his fingers brushing, the cold steel of empty death, smooth beneath his touch. He grasps it, lifts it to face him, hands steady, gaze unfaltering. The man is still, pianists fingers gripping that instrument of death, and time passes, unheeded, ignored. In a motion refined to elegance by the passage of time and repetition, the pianist places that cold instrument of steel and intent gently, down upon the polished black. He straitens, slowly, and settling his black overcoat close around him, he turns, walks quietly to a closed and silent door, lifts the latch, and into a swirling night of snow and light, walks out, and closes the door behind him with a soft and quiet click. And all is silent.

I stare, down into the
indigo darkness of the
sea. Land is far from me,
and horizons darken with the
mass of storms. Alone I wander,
and land is far from me, alone
in the gloam with the sky and the
sea. Light shining in the darkling
depths, heralds of the raven night,
a storm is brewing and day is gone,
and land is far from me.

I wander on.

I walk on, through the
rustling grasses, through
the young corn stalks
greening in the sun; I
walk through the lands
of peace and plenty, of
the harvest, and the
crackling hearth; but I
tarry not in the lands of
men, and walking,
wander on.

I come at last to a stony
stream, laughing in its
bed, in its swift-water
way, and see beyond the
Greenwood fair, full
flowering scented in
the breeze.

Stepping then, through
the sun-bright stream,
heedless of the wet, of
the chill water running,
I cross, and pass from
light to shade, to the
leafing-realm, and the
calls of spring, joyous
borne, on the scented
wind.

And I pass, silent, in that
dawning spring, to lose
myself, and the marked
way; to slip the hold,
to wander free.

Many scoff when they hear of
things, said or done too often
for their palate. But the power
of the act lies not in repetition,
or its absence, but in the act
itself, whether it be performed
once, or a thousand, thousand
times, for as long as there is one
among the throng who is willing
to open himself once more to
wonder, the power of the act will
continue, forever, and for eternity.