At night, a Christmas garland brightly lit —
Milky Way, spine of the sky.

The temple at sunset
holds the pale light
to store up the glow
and endure the long night.

Embrace in nature
Breathing by the lake
Waking up to the birds' sounds
Watching rain through a window
The friendship bond
Staring at landscapes

Obsession of history
Comparisons
Ancient attire
Simplicity food for survival
Contemporary social life
New discovery giving indefinite fascination

When we come together
Its like a rebirth
Another exciting time
In each other's company
Laughter and comfort
Gets the best of us
Creating nothing into something
In gatherings we get the essence of life

The blacksmith works the iron ore
with tongs and hammer on anvil’s brow:
Within his forge’s fiery core
grows metal soft, with carbon endowed.

The coal turns grey, much like his beard
drawn out by age to wiry lace —
a silver mine that roughly rears
from his craggy quarry of a face.

In his chest, the same fire roars,
a molten furnace fueled by air
****** in by bellows, lungs engorged,
then exhaled in the bright sparks’ glare.

The chimney of his mind is filled
with sparks that dance, a glowing throng,
arising through his thoughts that thrill
to the rhythmic beat of his anvil’s song.

Reflected in his clouded eyes,
mixed in with soot and sweat and toil,
the steel sings out in joyous cries,
its notes ascending to a boil.

For though the years have dimmed his sight,
he sees through the smoke and flame. He knows
how he will find fulfilled delight —
when he with music his craft bestows.

Gunmetal grey skies
loose leaden teardrop tempests —
Lights in the window

In the days when we first chipped stone
and carved from earth long lines of chalk,
we set in place rock circles honed
to hear the nature spirits talk.

The hurried sun wheeled all around
these massive stones we made to stand,
casting shadows on this fertile ground
that tell us when to sow this land.

Then came the age of bronze first wrought.
We built our temples where oracles spoke
foretelling how our world was caught
in snares and schemes of gods provoked.

But tin and copper fell to iron;
A new temple grew upon Zion’s hill,
as gods to just one god would turn —
iron presaged dark satanic mills.

Another grain in the hourglass fell:
the sharpened skill of work in steel.
Our churches rose with tales to tell
which called us to in sackcloth kneel.

We wedded iron with coke and steam
to summon power, rip from earth
all we ever craved: a false dream
of boundless bounty, endless worth.

From one old god to a new model,
religious in the cult of me,
prepackaged for our blind apostles,
Mammon’s black seed sowed eagerly.

This seed turned slick with silicon
from which grew fiberoptic veins
injected with an ****** balm:
A new cult idol it became.

Today the circle’s stones are laid
in server nets that span the globe,
with oracle influencers well paid
to infantilize our frontal lobe.

Bright magic mirrors in our hands
with retina screen technology:
Tech prophets lead to this promised land
of unkept promises to fill false needs.

The circle’s silicon steles stand:
new dark satanic mills for today.
A mock Jerusalem holy land,
bare desert where chalk lines once lay.

In this waste I find an old stone axe
of flint and oak and red deer’s thread.
Its polished head still bears the cracks
from when we first on this path were led.

In late fall the tree embarks
on the path to winter’s slumber —
as the dimming days slip short and dark —
of leafy weight she’s unencumbered.

There in the grooves of her linden bark
the worker ants prepare for the frost
that spreads across her lichen’s mark.
One pulls leaves over, a blanket soft

to keep them warm, a leafy tent.
It shields them from harsh winter’s maw,
which bites with brittle frozen vent
and breathes through branches bare and raw.

In the underground, her roots hold fast
to living soil that’s black as night.
They mirror icy wisp-clouds that grasp
the frosted skies’ pale starry light.

At last she slips into a dream
of bursting buds and birdsonged air
which softly waft in dewdrop streams
in answer to her winter’s prayer.