An orange-rose halo suffused
    the eastern horizon
like the birth of a fresh new world.

Our celestial furnace, still veiled
    beyond the eastern edge,
lent its glow to the bright silver disk
    still hovering in the western sky.

In the chill still of an autumn morn
    where yesterday greets tomorrow,
a sermon wrought of science and spirit
    whispered through the aether,

        "All is hope.
            All is promise.
                All is awakening,"

What if Escher had it right
and "within" is really "without,"
and stairs turn inside out
and "up" is just the same as "down?"

Imagine if you will
a "topsy-turvy" sort of place
(or is that "turvy-topsy")
where time marches retrograde
and all effects precede their causes.

I know, I know, your life is busy
but can't you drop it all for half a day
and step out with me
(with Escher at our side)?
We'll cross the edge of time and space
where an alternate universe or two
is just a dream away.

Hurry up now (or then), let's go!
We have to get back
before the sun ascends in the west!

In the calm still moonlit night
      she silently wove a silken tapestry -
          spinnerets spewing slender strands
      light as air but strong as Kevlar.

A silvery armature spanned the trail
    clinging to trunks and branches.
          Rappelling down from its pinnacle,
      she fixed radii to her deadly wheel.

Spiraling in from the outer ring
      she knitted her way to the center
          to await the tell-tale shudder
    of a fly or moth flown into her snare.

She took no note of the hiker
      paused alone on the trail -
          transfixed by the dew laden spiral
    shimmering in the rose-glow sun.

It mattered not to the spider
      that a man would find her work pleasing
          and it mattered not to the man
    that the web was not woven for art.

My time machine whirled and stuttered
as I left today behind -
setting my course for yesterday
questing clues to the ultimate mystery.

I swooped down at the hour of my birth
to gaze through the glass at Wyandotte General
where mother’s exhausted smile
eased my empathetic dread.

      The long journey was underway.

Steering my vessel back in time
I soared across the Atlantic -
high above the tall ships bearing
my ancestors to unimagined destinies.

      A giant leap to be sure,
      but the minutest turn of the wheel.  

I wondered how my people
had evaded the claws
of Europe’s wretched plagues
and homicidal pretenders
brandishing swords and chalices.

I wondered and watched with sorrow as
empires flourished and vanished.

The hypnotic rhythm
of first and final breaths
wearied my soul
as life's relentless cycle
spiraled back to antiquity.

The breath of prophets
drifted over hills and rivers,
past fields, flocks and shepherds.

      But there was still
      no glimpse of a beginning.

My forebears' footfalls
led me back from Europe
to the tangles of tropical Africa
to record our first words
in a course and extinct tongue.

In wonder, I witnessed
our first cautious bipedal steps
10,000 generations ago
by the light of new found fires
dotting the evening campgrounds.

      I slipped my vessel back in gear
      and fed it some fuel;
      for I still had eons to go.

And I saw bands of ancient cousins
foraging woods and glades -
fur - covered on all fours:
eyes scouring the earthscape
in search of higher paths.

I waited patiently on the beach
as waves lapped the shore.
for mega-great grandmother
to crawl from the sea
and drink oxygen fresh from the sky.

      Though she was first on land
      my destination was not yet in sight.

My craft passed beneath clouds
over vast and restless waters
where countless ocean denizens
fed and multiplied.

The numbers of species diminished
with each millennium traveled -
bringing me closer to the source
and the sea was a lonelier
and more desolate expanse.

DNA strands shortened.
our precursors losing
organs and motility.
Minute sea creatures,
buffeted by the shifting currents,
had but a few cells

and then -

one.

      Three and a half billion years from home,      
      I waited silently at the threshold.

Hovering over the turbulence  
of an oceanic storm
buffeted by cyclonic gusts,
I peered into the darkness.
a sudden flash broke the surface
and a cluster of amino acids
began to assemble, vibrate and divide.

The tingling beneath my skin
told me I had arrived at last
at my primordial self,
rocking gently
in the dark fertile folds
of the vast and inscrutable sea.

*August,  2007

for sister, Marcia and brother, Jim

What Kind of Fool
Am I, Blue Christmas?
A Fool for Love - That's All.

You Are Love -

The Song is You Belong to
Me and my Shadow.

So What(s)                  
The Use of Wonderin’ (If)                
What I Did For Love
Is Sweeping the Country?  

Be My (Endless) Love
Is a Many Splendored Thing!

Be My Love
Till the End of Time.

June, 2007

dedicated with hope to all of us

Imagine a Human Family Picnic
where everyone shows -
from every sect and hue and nation -
gathered at a common table.

The Almighty swoops down
to speak the  blessing:
known to all from Torah, Q'uran and Gospels
and countless other books of wisdom -
author of our souls' aspirations.

After supper the Holy One
would call us to the sacrificial pyre.

      *“Brothers, sisters and cousins,
        images of your creator,
        every unholy war
        desecrates the face of God
        and there is no other kind.
        Cast your pride into the flames
        and live together in peace!”

Obediently, we'd toss our
pride into the fire,
recoiling from its smoldering stench.
The Lion would lie down to preen the Lamb's fleece
and Universal Love, released from her chains,
would walk  free in every land.

*August, 2006

"A circle is a closed curve,
                All points equidistant
        from its center."*

Before our circles close and seal
                                       their arcs,

What
leaks out into the frigid void?

              What is ****** in like a
                               careless insect

Caught!
in a fly trap's eager mouth?

                What clusters near the
                                             center

warmed
by its radiant nucleus?

          Who or what bangs on the
                                        perimeter

Shouting
for entry or exodus?

                Who is the guardian of
                                         the gate?

What laws
have fealty over the geometry of
                                     the psyche?

December,  2006