It began as a singular vibration, a heart beat, a steady hum,
and carried through eons.
It was lifted on perfect Devonian wings,
and traveled along with the storms and the breezes.

Mesozoic raptors picked it up,
in bone chilling lashes and screeches.
Then, the songbirds found it,
along with the whales.
Through waves and wind,
this is our gift.

It traveled with the tides and through the air,
and found its way into Indus Valley flutes and strings,
praise to Gods and Goddesses, as it entered all living things.

While it passed as Sirens to Odysseus' wanting ears,
the ancient Celts danced,
their flutes haunted the wild moors...

And each Tribe carried it through prayers and hymns,
laments and dirges,
celebrations and lullabies,
and through love.

Each Tribe carries it still,
through love.

Our gift.

Vast the landscape I watch that rolls out, ragged,
Before my eyes, hurt words describing, haggard.
Moby soothes me but a little as I watch still fractured sights
Of what was and is in Chernobyl.
Marshlands filled with death and mutation,
Homely houses putrid with abandonment and radiation.

Broken tokens of people’s former lives and loves –
Where are they now?
Their hairless dolls, sitting in the middle of rooms,
Bathtubs, broken and oblique, empty.
Soap washes memory and nothing else away.
The sky has spoken; it is broken.

Push the poison out to sea. To see
They hadn’t time to leave a memory,
But ran, already dead while living,
Not allowed to gather souvenirs.
There’s nothing left for them here.
But did they die?
Nobody told us where they went,
Or why
This happened.

They are gone now, dispersed in Eurasia I suppose,
Like ash in the wind, like their future or past ghosts.
They haunt the places, the buildings and the waters,
Engulfing fish, and drying fungus on the northern trees,
Watching wolves still move through winter freeze,
Still beautiful in the taiga sun.
Tainted yet rife with energy not destroyed,
Trying to paint its passion on the sides of walls,
To venerate the people here and their lives,
Their animals, their clothing only frozen.

Airplanes on a Still Day

(Two in One Hour)

The sound softens
Something inside my brain—
Tangible, hypnotic,
Remote and forgiving,
Like a little Buddha within,
Or flying this sound trail
Through the draftless heavens.

The tiny drone
Rids the world of
Human clatter and its rush.

As a child, I savored it inside,
A sliding down the spine
And into the heart and through me;
A reverse of the rush of wine.

Back then, it was unquestioned, enjoyed.
But fifty or more years later, I asked why.
Time moved by and left no answer.
Nothing but a spring-like stillness aloft,
Unbound by seasons below.

But as I relished that sound this afternoon,
I felt the sense of spring again
In that aimless hum.
And knew at last why pilots sailed
In any weather, in crystalline air.

Up there, it was always spring,
Always sweet and calm
With promise;
A miracle that they ever descend!

If silence had a sound
Or utter calm
Were an elixir,
This would be its form.

The course of our lives
Predestined
Free will,
I don't know
We'll never know

The reason for love hanging on
delighting in the white light in the eyes where love shines
I don't know
Maybe we'll never know

The seasons nourish life
Everything spins round and round
Though we feel the whole time
like we're standing still
I don't know
We'll never know

The  woman bending over
lighting a candle
red curtains rippled by the wind
She's the great great
great grandmother
to a generation
she'll never meet
I don't know
We'll never know

Waiting for the executioner
Hoping for immortality
That's all that's left
But I don't know
Maybe we'll never know.

Like a slattern in a string bikini,                     
Stretch marks bared to the public,                                                            
So does July show her wares                                                              
If she is scorned.
                                               
Sprawling, ugly, no doubt in heat,                                                      
An old sow past her prime                 
Suffocates
All who pass her by.             
  
Any who see Demeter
In each summer day
Have not seen her dark side,
When men refuse to play.

She is full of hot wrath,
If unspent for weeks on end.
Or cold doldrums, when denied:
Raw, frigid mistress of grey.

Yet, in a good year, she might
Swing Sun’s brazen shield
High above, shedding welcome beams,
And let us bask in its bright rays.

July, you sometime traitor,
When we expect you to behave,
Spend promises of warm weather,
No doubt you demur on that alone.

We await your pleasure,
As brides gnaw manicured nails in
Helpless wonderment at your
Selfish woes.

Month of Caesar, choose one attitude or the other!
Either thirty-one days of rain-soaked sulking
Or, better, allow one of selfless, sun-baked joy…
This might even please poor you!

i just can't believe that i've been
sharing a pint of beer with
a fruit fly, aiming to get drunk
by drinking through its pores,
floating on the surface of the liquid,
like some inflatable "inconvenience".