The sun's setting,
though it may leave you darkening,
is the start of the burning
far under your soles.
The browning now crinkling of
Summer's endlesseeming greening
is but the start of Springtime's
asylum in Xylem.
Phloem's sweet ware will
flow in 'em somewhere
down the line.
It’s pithy, I know
but life is born in death.
And though, come Fall,
trees seem seemingly sapped,
there's an inspiration transpiring.
The firepit's cooling
it's embers cast only shadows
and shades of memories of warmth
and story
and light...
None gather round, the gloomy.
The dormant circle
an ashen reduction
of oak and of fir
but its blackdust when wetted
(yes, ink!)
and dipped in by brush
will one day,
with luck,
be the source of a poet's
enlightening words.
The monarchs have gone -
a silent orange rustle
and, all at once,
the milkweeds go dry;
the once-green
stalks stand stock still,
Rods of Asclepias whose
seedlings are ever
the earliest snows.
Leaving home:
wherever the Earthbreaths may
take them -
bleak, brokenhearted,
hope in a coma...
How unlike the joy of the
flutterbys whose time now
has fluttered by, a chorus
as uttered by
the ungiven hope
who, though unasked,
has wandered the winds
to bring its daughters
(each healing, each hopeful)
a deathgiven panacea
to lands now in their
own limited unlimited Spring.
And you! I know
your (sic) fiercely pretending
not to be crying.
Hell, to never've cried.
I know your lifework is
'manly' (your words) or
some other idiocy (my words)
and unbroken. Hell, unbent.
But think on this:
if she's gone far enough,
far enough along,
far enough away;
enough time gone by
since you broke into One
('broke in two' is NOT how it feels),
if enough not enough Her
has passed,
then she's also
more than halfway back
to you,
to Whole.
Nothing can go,
nothing is lost
for there is no
'away' within this Here.
No one now, either
at a loss -
for the knowing
is nigh.
Even the knowing
cannot be going
for long 'fore returning;
the yearning is turning
from far-off to nearby.
The Sky lives as well
in every dark puddle.
Its blues, now on Earth
where all even All is at Home.
For John Shreffler whose images are the sole inspiration for this poem. Thank you, sir! :)
