Swooping, sliding, soaring safety
When I had my wings, ribbed dragonfly sheer
Diaphanous as worldly knowledge
Veins, membranes, and spikes
Glass-smooth at eye-line
And in between all chitin clear

Comfort, cuddling, warmly wing-wrapped
When I had my wings, silk gossamer tough
Impregnable as guileless graspings
Steel, Kevlar, and gum
-- echoes at finest
No human copies quite enough

Earnest, peering through pale wing-shields
When I had my wings, light strawberry blush
Full optimist in rosy child-sight
Hope, trust, and ease
Lucent at sunrise
But sunset wipes the pearly flush

Thorny learning came at sunset
When I lost my wings, ribbed dragonfly sheer
Conspicuous in adult hindsight
Screen drawn, and lost
Sombre in umber  
World full of weeping, sweeping clear

Our organic architect leaves the stage
Her window-pane sails, in delicate rose
Better to know the world at its worth
All sad glory
In plain sorry view
Shoulders itch, remember their clothes

When I had my wings

Sulfur yellow a watery burn
Created in an alchemist's urn.
Water feeds fire as both evolve--
The formula of hates resolve.

You waver rights to be treated fair
Like Sampson selling locks of hair
Or selling age to a 95 year old--
Sheep follow only to die in
their fold.

Fiery seas begin as a rift
Water being the only gift.
But nothing, nothing is ever
free
once transmuted into this sea.

But logs do drift and beaches
claim
All that gave this sea its name.

Expression is something
           We all must do
It brings worlds
Together

We do it in
                Many ways
It brings rain
                   Or good
                          Weather

But holding it in has
                It's good points
It keeps you from being
Labeled

And from being
             Part of the cause
Of balancing what is
Unequal

See me holding
                    Out my hand
My mouth is opened
Wide

There is no use in
                Playing it cool
When you have nothing
To hide

The joker laughs
                 At silent states
Hearts emptied by its
Lull

So
                Open up
                  Laugh
              In his face
Make
              Empty places
Full

  Give me
                   A smile
  Give me
                   A frown
Do it with
Guitar or
                  Paint

Show it with
   Speech
       As a mute clown
           As a rebel or as a
                  Saint !!!

...and the wind will blow
and you will drift
guided by chance
and an unseen Navigator  
like a ship on a raging sea
or a butterfly caught in the wind

just don't close your eyes.

the light may be
too bright or too dim
the crumbling ruins
may fall hard
beside and inside you

just don't be found
holding tightly to the cocoon
when the metamorphosis
has long been completed.

In my New Day I arose from my
screen-tent-mole-hole-flimsy-bomb-shelter-for-my-soul
and walked down to the banks of the mighty Missinabi River
at the Mattice Landing
with dog’s leash in one hand and my right hand
leading lady’s in the other hearing and feeling tall grasses
swishing against my pant legs
and the crunch of course sand under my feet that once trod fields of green tall grasses swishing against my pant legs in the meadows and rocky woods of
my childhood and youth where I spent summers working

at my Auntie and Uncle's farm in
Canada's Northern Ontario region and in the woods and along the banks
of the Lackawanna River just over the **** behind
the home of my childhood and youth in the Anthracite coal
region of the American Northeast which is light years away from the land of my birth where I now live in this Northern Ontario port in the middle of a deep
                                     cold sea of countless
                                     converging
                                     never-ending
rivers
lakes
trees
swamps
bogs
muskeg
and mountains of snow
where snow white and black flies fly freely.

I am always trying to go deeper into the trees and bush
burning deep inside my heart of hearts to follow the Moses
that is in all of us.

This eternal Voice in pebbles crunching
under foot and tall grasses swishing and canoe parting
waters that flow deep in my mind and spirit ~ once only
winding past burning villages where humans **** and pillage
~ but now also following a more
pastoral             idyllic           and super-natural course.

A vagabond never quite understands the working-class
woman and man living their small dream with their offspring and slice of land.

I thought they were all ostrich with head in sand.

But I now see that we can't all afford to brood as I often do over the daily news.

They must rise early the next morning alarm clocks not set on snooze.                                            

work ethic
family hearth and home
days of scent
of freshly mown grass  
barbeques                                          
campf­ires
tea kettle whistling  
coffee maker brewing  
children playing  
TV and music blaring
dishes rattling
in sink or
swim in the lake

Loosen the watertight mind drum and just dive into the
crunch of pebbles under foot treading fields of green tall
grasses swishing against pant legs...

Not only wishing
but going deeper into the trees and bush burning
speaking to our primeval consciousness.

This eternal Voice in pebbles crunching and tall grasses
swishing
The whooshing sound of wading in a stream streams
through my soul as I savour the body taste of wet gritty sand
between my fingers and toes crouched down wet-crotch deep waiting long enough for minnows to tickle fingers and toes as mosquito’s pin-prickle skin

Watching creatures much smaller than I gliding
even walking on calm still water which we humans can only dream of doing in our motorized sleep.

I think I now understand:

To not be constantly mourning the plight of the human isn't being ostrich with head in sand.
I must keep gunning-off obsessions alluring stare.

I must taste life
    Smell and feel life
        Enjoy life outside of my troubled mind

against the backdrop of the latest holy war
and the imploding creations of our kind.