I can see trees
Unfold with stubborn insistence around the empty field
Where breezes pool in lively airs that dance from sky to ground,
Only to plod into the branches that close them to the stars.  

Lost in the pathways leading nowhere,
The wind forgets from where it came
As branches ****** away its vitality
Dissipated into the quiet weeping of the leaves.

But skimming along the canopy ceiling
Above my head: winds rustle trees,
Enveloping me in the mocking absence
Of the quiet freedom of the open air.

Now wind gently greets me at the edge
Where trees sculpt the field’s subtle form
Which gives the openness its place
And gives pause to a restless mind.  

And now I realize the forest’s trees
Which unfold in their ordered grace,
Allow the freedom of the open to possess
The meaning that I longed to seek.

On the path made holy by our steps
No rationality could possess
the openness of those flowing fields
rolling like placid ocean waves.

Those endless rows of corn
Found us in the setting sun
Whose first red reached our eyes
In the rapture of our peaceful walk

I still cannot remember a time
Our steps strode more perfectly side by side
Guided, like the waving corn guides the wind,
By the moment whose unveiling we share

My mind meets you here and now
As the realization sinks in:
You bring me here to witness
The reality that I am not alone

Walk
Down cracked sidewalks but forget where and why the going started.
Lost in the chaos of moving feet whose unity lies in their organic flow,
Perspectives shift to some new truth: experiencing its constant displacement.

Here
As bodies carry me forward, they rush to the rhythm of those who desire our desires:
I smile and laugh at voices screaming out from billboards and TVs
“What you need is need itself! Don’t look within, but to ME!”


Drift
Down the street and pause at the window’s reflection.
Behind the still face staring back lies the world’s movement:
With purpose distorted by its realization, the present bursts forth out of nothing:
Pushing
Onward from some inconceivable lack,
Towards a resolution that will not resolve.  

Here I close my eyes.
Here there is the silence between thought and its realization:
In which the meaninglessness of boundaries can be discerned.
Here I find myself fall away into everything.
Here I find only Love.

Piercing the shrouded sky
They fight against surrounding black:
Like flowers breaking through sidewalk cracks,
The light seeps through the darkness.
Between the leaves
The stars reach for the eyes…

But now thought reaches away:
I escape myself through abstraction
As the past violently asserts itself:
Remembrance induced by a careless focus
On a memory flowing from a present vision:
The tree
now
Clothed in leaves
Beckons forth remembrance:

Autumn leaves,
Trundling into legs only to move past
As they ride the restless winds
Whispering their own poems
Of meaning only experience could collect…
They rush
Through fallow ditches
And enclosing brush which
Form a pattern around
The tree that beckons forth
- With disrobed branches glistening
White under stars,
Dampened by the still-settling dew-
A Self-realization that obliterates all boundaries
And encompasses no thoughts,
but the One
which gives them:
The One which gives a breath
Held together by the moments
Which trail the first puff of white
that joins the airs that wrap themselves
around the tree reaching up to the stars
which do not reflect the one who sees them
but give the light
towards which thought now reaches.

All these memories induce
The longing to feel the openness
No words could possibly posses
As slowly the months fade
Into the dissolving moments it takes
For the eyes to reach up to the light.

Between the words we speak,
The ambiguity asserts itself
In the lack we try to conceal
Through the flow of conversation.

Here truth always lives anew:  
Dancing from one lie to the next
Escaping the stability created
By arguments that struggle to their next conclusion.

Absorbed by these false summits,
Meaning slips away
As we look past its fleeting visage
Towards the endless climb ahead.

But these lies give understanding
About the truth they conceal:
About the falsity of our self-imprisonment
Within the differences we’ve created.

So when I tell you this love is infinite
Do not ponder the meaning of the words
But let them go in silence:
Free yourself and dance with me.

All through the afternoon,
among these drinkers
to their tables to java cups
all from a bird’s-eye view.

Blended individuals,
of varying hues
too much sugar, no need to stir
hot, no ice - “a language of their own”
adding “cream to this crop”
like fraternity’s rushing thought
to seemingly **** out the weak.

Textbook before my face, coffee to my right
surrounded by chatter, and apparent debacles
behind the rearing of my ear lobes
set the seem from my shirt and cut
play the motion picture, film, pan out.

360 crossover,
these eyes wander, merely to ponder
conscious parenting to the mind; reminded
yes I did complete that -
atoning to what could be done,
view now from my eyes
around clouded peripherals
(zooming into this page)
trying to read to figure
a Venn diagram of the temporal lobe;
committing to memory ironically
it’s long-term function to maintain
the conception of this thought.

Distracted, back to this drink
re-calling coffee mythically impedes growth
or so they say to stray from focus -
the holder is the cup, to handle is abrupt
but we drink it, to straighten our view
so much as this morning vice stimulation
branded by a jaded graphic mermaid,
or possibly a siren, or to some a muse.

But, it’s the afternoon; no need to rush,
just here and there, casually taking sips
temporary jolts of caffeine
a temple of thought,
temporarily fading,
due to lacking the day-to-day rest.

Same perspective,
but this time curious, calm, and collected
like a child looking above an ant-farm - proud
gazing at moving points like synapses
of our coffee cups as opening our wakefulness.

Can we just remember to understand
that everyday is different.
Our mornings may start mundane
but we find joy in the day
for afternoon connections
no matter what they may be, just to remember,
so that we can have lasting memories,
and not the caffeinated ones.

every root must
avoid the pluck of
disasters’ strings;
granted time it must
break the surface’s
earthen prison.

Perfection can be found in electricity.
An artificial spark
running through wires,
exciting and exiting.

I much prefer nature.
No shock there, just life
sprouting from my mind
With roots that strengthen my bones
or sap my energy
eternally.

the directions

are very, very simple

i listen to the inner voice

that guides me step by step

perceives the right and wrong

before i reach the fork

i call it universal wisdom

Or call it what you will

but when I heed this source

i know the way

and that small voice

is the bottom line

i listen close

and all is well


Copyright Louis Brown

Waves snap along
the moonlit shore
as a T-Rex bass line
carries ’The Mambo Sun’
through my soul and out
across the dream crested
Atlantic

Right here

Right now

I am free

Nirvana is made up
of moments such as
these