Beckoning
by Michael R. Burch

Yesterday the wind whispered my name
while the blazing locks
of her rampant mane
lay heavy on mine.
And yesterday
I saw the way
the wind caressed tall pines
in forests laced by glinting streams
and thick with tangled vines.
And though she reached
for me in her sleep,
the touch I felt was Time's.

This is an early poem, written during my youthful Romantic period. I believe I wrote the original poem around age 18, then revised it six years later. Keywords/Tags: Love, freedom, beckoning, lure, allurement, time, wind, pines, streams, vines, hair, mane, locks, travel, departure, parting, separation, loss

It stood among no giants, no towers, no mountains.
Heedless to the wind, scattered without waving stalks and rusted leaves,
it chose to fall where it could not.
Jaded, perhaps, but not without sterling hands crafted to bellow.
A smattering of elbows chastised the woodpeckers pecking.
Ephemeral? Beautiful? Sober? Lassitude?

It fell among no gorges, no ravines, no swale.
Heedless to the rain, swamped in a dell without sliver streams,
it swelled up above the ratty woven sails.
Coarse, perhaps, but feather flew, vying for sky.
A copse of whitebark pine pillaged no battalions.
Mauve? Tender? Empyrean? Redolent?

It pattered among no small sorts, no ant hills, no chambers.
Heedless to the duke, sabotaged without sword, spear, stone,
it swallowed a hive of rabbits in no fields.
Desultory, perhaps, but not with quintessential ripples bent in space.
A harrowing panacea flourished in spindles of florid bristles.
Sempiternal? Susurrous? Honeyed? Irascible?

It churned among no whirlpools, no pots, no frosting.
Heedless to the maelstrom, sluicing in a myriad of slanted lanterns,
it chose to lure where it could not beguile.
Laconic, perhaps, but not without furtive gallows smoldering.
A candelabra of viridian mire spies spied genteel dragonflies.
Enormity? Enmity? Vestigial? Switchback?

It stood among nothing.
It stood enervated.  
It stood.
It.

My yard was always filled with roots
knotted in unconceivable ways,
always stemming back to the pines
from which they came.

The grandest gripping roots
lead to a twenty-five foot red pine
which stood directly next to the
smaller of its kind.

Its arms, always protected
the younger from snow, sleet
and the blistering sun
during the summer months.

But on a distinct fall day,
the pine’s roots began to retreat
back to its feet, slowly slithering away
from where the others lay.

It's branches did the same,
descending down to the trunk,
rapidly wilting, it's caressing hands
no longer kept the promise once took.

That eve, in the bend of a bare branch lean,
necrosis from outside influence,
festering fungi and insects,
bubbled an unexpected illness.

Creeping, crawling, parasitic pressure
cracked bark and tore ramus connections.
Giving way, its once mighty arms,
crashed and smashed falling apart.

No one knew of the metastasized wound,
only that their protector was there
in decent health, in loom of
the discovery of the crude truth.

The passage of time
consumed the pine,
it's contents returned to the ground,
absorbed by its younger kind.

My yard is still tangled in roots,
not a change since the fall day of decay.
The pines continue to grow,
with lessons taught from their mother's bones.

Green light beam shines upon the web of streets,
The messenger from strange and distant worlds.
You're far away, for me it all repeats -
My town is empty, shadows roam the walls.

No Savior comes, I run into the void.
And when the masts of pines come into view,
I stop and fall on salty sand, destroyed.
It does not matter if I cry for you -

It's not the wind that rustles sleepy trees,
It's not the chirps of sparrows or jays,
It's Moira, saddened by the Fate she sees,
Unknits the lace of my remaining days...

Cockcrow harbour:
the gulls whining like tethered dogs
about rooftops
paliophobic cars and
grounded vessels..
Look:
on the hoary horizon
a glaucous strip
beguils
with backwater.
Not putting on a show
the frigid sea benumbed..
Easily,
with a tail of emerald jelly
skim a vanishing lane off that
lustrous sheet
and watch
the trailblazing mainland
scuttle.

Now,
Only scattered dreaming is possible.

In it's bachelor pad,
cradling over crinkles,
away from the meretriciosness
of validating the real by sharing it,
THE WIND
blusters off any veneer.
Here,
stale but spry,
fare your way around the inoffensive isle
to it's most shyest of harbours:
a mouth full of silver
saving it's breath.
The windows facing the sea
seem
black & white,
their wooden frames hooked to the wind,
the splattered gulls meow
your name
in a way
that's
personal.
Of course comes to mind.
The pines
are demanding a visit,
They're whispering
so you can hear them,
each as different as every snore,
these pines know
how to grow in the sand
and still reach for
the Nimbostratus with heads in unison.
The spaces
between their trunks illuminating
the blazing needles
raining down
painting the ground
familiar
to your lover's
skin texture:
Feel her closeness
from jilted borderwatchtowers
as she speads her mire
like no one's watching:
weedy and sugared
with bellflowers,
the waves in her shallow armpit
billeting a pair of white swans:
demurely they float
sometimes as pillows and sometimes
as question marks..
Go ask the seasoned locals,
they say the bones she parked
when she let her ice sheet melt
are portals
to her noble underbelly.

Hidden in the woods
reminiscent of your heart,
the red
tank-sized stone
is sealed,
but what the lighting reach cannot
the rain shall sluice apart
dumbly.
And though her hair has
come to be
the moss
black and hoarse
as sailor's beard,
there is still time.
The void says
her noisy neighbour is nothing
to die for.
The theadbear car with absent doors
incites
to drive her
in reverse gear
to the first few
days of holidays:
her golden locks a-blaze,
her arm around your
hind-sighted doppelganger.

Son, oh my son, tell me no lie.
Where did you spend last night?

In the pines, In the pines
Where the sun never shines.
I shivered the whole night through.

You've been away long; I'd given up hope.

I slept where the cold wind blows;
In the pines, in the pines
Where the sun never shines.
I shivered the whole night through.

Do you remember the traveling man?
Just about a mile from here
His head was in the driving wheel,
His body ain't never been found.

Blood of my blood, fruit of my tree,
Tell me where do you go?

In the pines, in the pines
Where the sun never shines.
I'll shiver the whole night through.

In the chill of the night, nobody's around.
Of that there's much to be said.
The stars don't judge; The moon doesn't hang.
The clouds have no price on my head.

There’s not much left
Post spending spree
I have spent so many
dollars/hours/hearts
finally broke, i guess
I’ll cut my spending in half

Can’t half a soul
Can’t half a heart
Halfway heartless, I’ve been called
So
walk the park we lied in / in the city that you’ll die in
But not me.

I’m going North
to find the right trees
I was barking up the wrong one
All along.