Morning Rainbow

Myriad prismatic crystals,
     refract the morning sun-streams -
painting layers of spectral arches
     across the misted horizon.

Eyes turned to the western skies,
     we suspend our meteorological selves  
acquiescing to miracles unveiled before us -
     un-beckoned and scarcely earned,
proffering thanks for the radiant epistle
     of healing, hope and promise,
artfully encoded in transfigured light.

Synthetic Refractions

A luminary ballet takes center stage
    when synthetic refractors come to play:
crystal pendants bathe our foyers
      with dazzling swaths of color.
Hazy coronas encircle streetlamps
      discovered by headlights through the fog.
A science class prism slices light rays
     into pre-ordered spectral strata.

If the sky denies us a rainbow,
     we can always fashion one of our own
and we do!



Spectral Sound

Before there was music,
     bird songs brushed our souls
and the murmur of woodland streams
     held us captive by their banks.

Soon we learned to sing and tint the air
    With prisms of wood and wire and metal
and to color soundscapes in our spirits
     With songs of wonder, joy and longing.

Before there was music,
     bird songs brushed our souls.

Robert Charles Howard, 2019

A lost and thirsty wanderer
          sought oasis on a parched and dusty plain
                   where spectral mesas
                merged with pastel stratus clouds -
            quivering in the summer sun.

                    A slender blue ellipse emerged
                            along the horizon's edge,
                          taunting the traveler’s arid throat.

                    Recalling child-day afternoons.
                         splashing in the pond behind the barn,
                              his legs urged toward aquatic deliverance.

                                       But knowledge seized his boots.
                                   Wary of loving a delusion,
                               he chose instead to seek a road or farm
                           or chance upon a horse-backed rancher
                                tracking down an errant calf.

                                       Still he looked back to his phantom pond  –
                                             never to know if an oasis flowed
                                                   less than an hour’s walk away.


                               December, 2018

I’m pretty sure I’m here
(or so I think),
but who or where are you?

Stuffed as I am
in my elastic envelope,
it’s hard enough to find myself
let alone discover you.

Can you hear me?
Can you see me?
May I press your hand?

Stay please for a while;
let me a sound you a tune
on my flute.

© 2018 by Robert Charles Howard

Cupping my hands at the canyon’s rim
      I fill my lungs and release a primal call,
           vaulting the chasm to a distant face
     where another me answers back.

My cry’s journey spans a mere second or so
     but what stories could that echo tell?
          How can I know that returning voice
     is not the soul of some past or future kin?

         So many questions, so many mysteries!

How many suns and seasons have passed
     since ancient torrents began to cleave the plateau?
          When did the hawk’s shrill cry first split the air
    as it fished in the river’s howl and spray?

When first did the ancient ones walk
     a mile below the canyon’s rim.
         to kneel by the swift river’s shore
     and fill their cups with sustenance.

If you listen closely you will hear
     their voices calling in the restless wind.

The canyon’s colossal breadth
     can be charted in time and space
         but will always be shrouded in mystery.

So I stand at the canyon’s edge and sing
     and the canyon answers back
         but will hold its secret truths forever.

September, 2018

There’s nothing like a zesty story
    to tell us who we are or were.
It could be spun in a fabled myth
    of gods with mortal progeny
or a saga of proud and shining empires
    rubbled back to primal dust.

It might be painted in a cave in France
    or etched on a Pharaoh’s crypt
or finely quilled on parchment scrolls
    or even set in rows of mobile type.
Human stories spinning across the eras
    that tell us who we are or were.

Latter day oracles pull on laboratory robes
     and prophesy of molecules and DNA
writing new chapters with every rising sun
     Of how the universal pendulum swings
but will someone please reveal the trail
     from what is to what ought to be
and free us from Pandora’ curse?


Robert Charles Howard - 2018

Prophesies of impending fall
     creep stealthily over the Great Divide.
Gold-green Aspens shiver in the breeze
     like leagues of fibrous wind chimes
serenading the mountain slopes
     with aires of shimmering gold.

A few distant bugle calls echo
     across the Big Thompson valley
as bull elks warm up for the autumn rut.
     Sudden early gusts of frigid wind
bring waves of sleet and snow -
     in tune with the turning polar axis.

The greater chill is soon to come.
     The animals know it as do we.
Bears bulk up on grasses, roots and berries.
     Elk and deer drift down from the heights
To show their young the ways
      of the plains and river valleys.

We pull our sweaters on
     and toss another log on the flames
and greet the harbingers of approaching fall
    creeping stealthily over the Great Divide.

September, 2018