Why do poets and photographers love fleeting things?
Angled shafts of sunlight piercing a mass
of clouds. A rainbow flashing from dragonfly wings.
Water drops beading like shards of glass.

The fluttering shape of a sycamore’s shade.
The sun sinking into its reflection
In a purple bay.  Smoke’s shadow. The rayed
Curve of a finger reaching for perfection.

Whatever churns, bursts, rocks, flies,
Foams, flickers, roils, evades
In pigments of impermanent dyes
We try to fix before it fades

Once I mourned the endless dying  
Of here and now, the present always past
Elegized each moment, sighing
Beauty is loss and can never last.

But now I think I had it wrong.  In fact
(I learned this from an artist’s eye)
Fleeting beauty reappears faster than we react,
At the speed of a daydream flashing by.

All around, light coalesces into form,
Form explodes into light,
And we live lavishly inside this storm
If we can learn to see it right.

Beauty multiplies, tapering, swelling:
Reshaping, reforming, now familiar, now strange.
This gaudy blur in which we’re dwelling
Is the permanence of change.

•

I opened my eyes,



                                               And I saw you there,



                                                    ­ Smiled,

                                             Held my hands,

                         And carried me in utmost gladness,




We wandered in the seashore,

                      With our nonstop anecdotes,

                                        Your laugh,

                      Is like a wonderful orchestral euphony,

That always made my day so worth living for,





                         Then we stopped by and sit,

                         And observed the beauty of the sunset,




TOGETHER,




                                  ­                                                            Then­ with atonishment,

                                                   ­                       You gave me yellow flowers,

                                                      W­hich I truly love and adore,

                               Then I saw your eyes scintillating in gaiety,

           When you saw my smiles and teary eyes,




          I can't help but cry,

When you expatiated to me,

               For hours,



                                            About how much you loved me,

                                                            ­          And cared so dearly,  

                            Then promised to keep all that you've declared,




         That we will build future together,

                                  In the presence of our God,

And our future siblings,



I hugged you tight,

             You kissed my forehead,

                      And whispered love unto my ears,






We act lying together to gaze upon the stars,









But suddenly,








       You slap me hard,

                                       'Cause you said there's mosquito on my cheek,

And was awake!







                                                 ­        I realized,



That I am only dreaming,

In my dream.





                          © Earl Jane
                            ♥ E.J.C.S.

Curiouser
And
Curiouser
I follow you
down
  down
    down
      Into the most
       Odd little world of
         Madness and magic
           Jubjub and Jabberwocky
              Red-painted white roses;
                 Such a beautiful adventure
                      I have only dreamt about.
                    Still I'm bothered by how,
                   Even in a place like this,
               You only think of the time.
            My dearest white rabbit,
         I would truly hate to see
     All of Wonderland
  go and
pass
you
by.

You can’t really picture the place.  
You don’t recall who was there.

But you remember surprise
That human ashes are not powdery dust,
Apt to disintegrate like snow,
Or soft like bread cast upon the waters.

Dad’s ashes chafed your palms like jagged seeds
As you clutched fistfuls from a plastic purple box
And flung them down a hillside
Somewhere in Little Cottonwood Canyon.

And you remember the feeling of urgency
As you retreated up the hill.
You had motions to go through,
Space to occupy,
A black and white landscape to walk
Among small figures filing along a dirt track
In the airless September heat.

All of those things
That people said
That planted rotten seeds in your mind…
You know, the ones that grew
Tall like a mutant ****
The ones that
Choked out all of your flowers
There are many
But it is a lovely day
In an infant May
You can go to your shed
Get your shovel
Go to where your garden grows
Dig each one up by its roots

Just

Like

That