BELL

Sound spreads like a cold splash
trembling with high connections.
The exuberant voice of the bell
shatters the hush of air.

Great clouds seem to echo,
startling dreamers, breaking
the deep tone of somber thoughts.

There is a wondering at sound,
ringing out the morning mist
or the last remains of day.

There is a coloring of time,
bulging outwards like a
courier with urgent news.

Why, bell, do you remind us
of the passing hours when
mind, listening to a long-lost
song, only wishes to travel
backwards.

Hours have their own being,
creating a natural order of things.
They may flutter like flags in the wind
or spin down through the light.
They draw long shadows on
the evening air, as they begin to
leave off, always followed by another.
They may be warm as a candle flame
or bright and dry as the moon.
At the time of coldest emptiness,
they may extinguish the stars.
Sometimes, the hours come
in a dream like a longed-for
lover, folding their arms
around me, as if each may
be the last.

On earth, in air, on water,
light is its own essence--
an enchanted dance,
a harmony of rhyme
in quick pearling as on
the surface of a pool ;
Or, it’s slow, expanding
as if some obstacle is in
the way.

Beyond sight’s reach,
light glides, swan-like
or blinks, star-like or
dapples uncertain between
sun and shadow.

A match darts it’s first
white flame, then flickers.
Splashing sparks may
tumble over pebbles or
moon repeat itself
a thousand times.
A translucent cascade
of bright snow illuminates
a winter field ; the gentle
glow of a candle flame
warms the heart.

Even what seems
forever dark as
midnight’s blackest
mood is not immune
to opening to the glory
of light.

They may have grown in a wood
or a garden, wholly in bloom.
They now rise from the vase
in a sovereign floating of joy :
crysanthemums in bud, narcissus,
full-blown peonies and tulips,
fulfilling themselves, they ripple
and throb with passion. They speak
to each other.

One bloom has fallen, an arabesque
of salmon pink. The empty shells
and one small insect add a spiritual
dimension, mortality’s immediency,
a yearning for the unattainble.
Those delicate blossoms hang
against the blue sky, nostalgic
for eternity.

There is an **** of dark hills
veiled in night’s rapture,
an almost seeing past the blackearth.
Blue stars pour from a window
like a wound open wide where
loneliness seeps in.

There is an abyss that follows
the dove’s plaintive cry, the place
where I lock myself in a dream.

As time billows through
the hours, landscapes fade.
Loneliness, cold, brittle, desperate,
that long white season, is gradually
undone and day opens to make me
whole again.

There are always waiting spectors
as morning’s penumbra ripples
where chants of the mind play
to an audience of one.

They shape the mist as dawn
expands and connects each breath.
The weight of darkness lifts to
the edges of ether, emptying
the private hole of self.

Slowly, the hours
open to the hovering light,
the soft burn of the sun.
Like an instant between
seasons, the clot of darkness
dissolves.

There on the edges of wakefulness,
unexpected color breaks open silence,
dispersing the night’s assembly of ghosts.

Light flung down –
and something nameless
arrests the gaze –
the silhouetted hip,
an exercise in curves.
Woman or goddess ?
At her toilette,
no riches present –
god of love in chiaro scuro
holds a mirror where
imagination plays.
Her back turned, face blurred,
reclining Venus, illusive,
mysterious , tempting the eye
to desire, the mind to wander.