Earth (Pangaea)

Pangaea heaved and shifted
beneath the fire-storm sky.
Colliding plates and spewing mountains
shook, roared and thundered
under the brutal chaos
of torrential cataclysms.

In time she yielded her ire
to millennia of pacific rains -
her severed crust
set adrift across the oceans
like gigantic earthen rafts.

Jungles sprang up and terrible lizards
came, grazed and left their bones.
Forests, grains and multifarious beasts
grew and perished in accord
with their past and future destinies.

So here we are - earthbound,
tossed from our mothers' wombs -
fated to live and breed
by the grace of miracles
far beyond our ken.

Beloved mother Gaia,
from whose dust we are raised,
nurture and sustain us
and sing us to our mortal sleep.

2. Air

Air - earth's miracle brew of
     oxygen, nitrogen and all the rest
          meted out in perfect harmony.

Air - silent and still on a moonlit night -
     driver of sheeted rain on window panes -
          and winds that shake the trembling aspens.

Air - author of land and ocean squalls -
     bringer of that ominous pallor
          that presages a tornado's furor

Air - invisible aerial highway
     for majestic eagles and turbo-jets -
         medium of rhetoric and symphonies.

Air – window to the cosmos
      and our fragile life–giving broth -
          unwitting conveyer of toxic alchemy.

Keep watch my sisters and brothers:
     the air we breathe is what we make it
          or rather what we let it be.

3. Water

Water like a capricious deity
     wanders through time and topography -
     cherished and cursed for
     what it gives and what it takes away.

Gentle rains and strident gales
     sculpt rivers and streams
     through forests and plains
     bound for union with the open sea.

Diurnal tides ebb and wane
     at the whim of the charismatic moon.
     Ice mountains advance and retreat;
     rock-strewns moraines left in their wake.

Turbulent currents
     soar over jagged cataracts,
     spraying pastel prisms
     across the misted valleys.

Beneath our all too fragile skins,
     secret sanguine rivers navigate
     our veins and arteries
     bathing organs, limbs and sensors
     with curative balm and sustenance.

Wellspring of all elements,
     fill our daily ladles
     and grant us the will and empathy
     to bequeath the same to our progeny.

4. Fire

Two hundred million years ago
our Paleolithic cousins
seized branches from a burning forest
and stepped into a bold new world.

By the glow of fire-lit caves,
and the scent of searing venison,
they gathered wits and tools
to craft shelters and weaponry.

Their children's children would design
forges and furnaces, factories
and build engines that run on fire.

But their anxious siblings in despair
snatched lightning from the sky
and twisted by fits of anger pride
made also muskets, missiles, bombs
and nuclear Armageddons.

Loki, god of nobler flames
open our blood-stained eyes
and show us the means
to stay our arson lust and
abide by the light of reason.

*Revised and integrated version, December, 2015

Standing in the tunnel
at Eighth and Pine station,
I survey westbound commuters
waiting across the tracks  -
standing arms akimbo
or leaning on marble walls.
A well-suited young man paces the platform -
cell phone pressed to his cheek.

    [Passengers stand clear of the
    edge of the platform at all times]

Rushing in from the east,
a gleaming white chariot
arrives - pauses - resumes
leaving the far platform vacated
as if by alien abduction

From the left a blazing light
pierces the  tunnel
and the Shiloh – Scott eastbound
halts and snaps open its doors.
crossing the threshold.,
I claim a seat by the aisle.

    [Please stand clear! Doors are closing]

With eyes half shut I scan the crowd:
uniformed workers wearing ID's,  
a toddler’s arms and legs
dangling off his mother's lap,
An elderly couple talking softly.

The soft clatter of wheels
and the gentle side-to-side sway
rocks us like a cradle -
memories of the long day
melting into thoughts of home.

    [Fairview Heights Station.
    Doors open to my right]

The lady with the toddler steps off.
A trio of teenage girls
fresh from the mall
seek and find empty seats -
filling the rear of the car
with the music of their chatter.

Streetlamps scatter shadows
over parking lots.
The unseen country side
slips by under cover of darkness.
Headlights gleam like jewels
waiting for crossing gates to lift

    [Next stop Belleville Station
    Doors open to my left]

I clutch my lap top,
work my way to the door
and wait for the train’s full stop

Stepping out into the frost filled air
I pause to watch the sleak white chariot
vanish on the eastern horizon.

September,  2006

for Robin

On that frosted January day,
     you and I hiked north
along the Mississippi shore
     on a trail marked well before us.

Footfall tapestries etched in snow
     wove tales of assiduous commerce
of hosts of fur-cloaked cousins:

the playful step-slide gambit of an otter -
      rabbit paw tracks by the score.
A bald eagle soared above singing ripples
      in quest of a mid-day meal.

The distant staccato cadence
      of a pileated woodpecker
          echoed off the limestone bluffs
on that January afternoon.
     Dusk-light washed the western sky
          in pastel gold and crimson hues.

A coal barge heading south
     thundered against the floes,
scattering ice across the channel,
     then vanished beyond the bend.

And we like bargemen at their tillers,
     set our southward course
retracing footprints in the snow -
     back to the world of clocks and enterprise.
January, 2011

Crystal chandeliers
shelter an aviary restaurant
just beyond our patio.

A pair of purple finches,
having heard the place well-chirped,
drop in for a hasty lunch
and flit away full and fortified.

A cardinal taxies in to sample
the black oil sunflower seeds,
then revs his engines for the flight
to a chilled Magnolia branch -
scattering  snow tufts as he lands.

Birds of every kin and feather
spread the word from branch to tree
that you just can't beat the tasty fare
at the little wire and glass café
beneath the crystal chandeliers.

*February, 2011

At 20, it's adios to childhood.
By 30, you have played your youthful folly card.
At 40, you have ground it out to mid-field.
At 50, the bigger helping was dished out yesterday.
At 60, you enter the final stretch.
At 70, you finally get to play your wisdom chips.
At 80, most are surprised to see you.
After 90, Godot is waiting for you.

*November, 2015

Imaginary home plate was just off the back stoop.

I tossed a rock up a yard or so and as it fell
I whacked it with my stick

and watched its skyward arch -

conjuring fantasies of Tiger Stadium.



      The phantom crowd stood and roared.
      “It looks like a long one folks - going, going ...”

CRACK!

Mr. McCrary’s garage window
splintered into a thousand shards.
My stadium vanished and I was naked in the garden -
desperate for a fig leaf.

I fled into the house (where I could not hide)
shaking with mortal dread
and not being catholic, I had no choice
but to confess my sin to my actual father.

Dad cradled my terror in his hands
and led me to Mr. McCrary’s back porch
where I knocked then stammered out my sorrys.

Soon, with dad as foreman,
I chiseled, measured and glazed away
until Mr. McCrary’s window
was entirely healed and restored.

Pushing the mower a half year later
I sensed movement across the fence
and looked up to find myself
staring into old man McCrary's eyes -

My guilty heart shivered as I
braced for the verbal thunder to follow.

But there would be no storm.
The old man's face softened into a smile;
he tipped his hat and pressed his *** into the soil.

"The pity of war, the pity war distilled" - Wilfred Owen

Somewhere in the after-haze,    
     Jesus sought Mohammed
who was on his way to see him.
     Moses met them on the ridge
and without a mike or gavel,
     the meeting was convened.

They fell to their knees in sorrow
      hands cupped to catch their tears -
shed for the smoldering chaos below -
     so far from what was meant to be:

Sworded and chain-mailed crusaders,
     suicide synagogue bombers,
machine guns stuttering in Palestine,
    fire raining from the skies
bombs igniting at the speed of death,
    slaughter at a Parisian concert.

Fathers of the light rise up
     from your lofty provenance.
Unite your tear-drenched hands
     and come dwell within us.
Breathe healing truth into the ears
     of every foe of love and life.

          So much more was meant to be!

Come to us now
     before the setting of the sun!

November, 2015