The caterpillars preach their sermons,
Crickets string their choirs,
Under the shade of Broadleaf.

Beetles teach their classes,
The sunlight shines through the foliage,
In the morning at Broadleaf.

The leaves are green,
The airport of insects is blue,
A canopy above Broadleaf.

(a travelogue)

He stared down through
the unbroken silence
lapping the shoreline
Water skippers dart around
the rocks and windfall driftwood
settled juxtaposed in cattail reeds
and emerging broadleaf sprouts

A petrified heartwood timber
lie fallow waiting bare barked,
hushed like a pining lover’s
     timeworn love seat,
     rubbed smooth as
     the crystalline waters
     of  half-moon lake

Lingering for a while  ―  
like a hidden stalker,
a perched wildcat waiting
for the full moon’s  
swooning spell to saturate
the thickening dusk quietude;
     arousing the urgent
     call of the wild —
exhaled from the held breath
of the wilderness nocturne
    on half-moon lake

The stillness was scattered
with the soft downy hairs
of the sleeping cattails,  and
the newly shed catkins
a spring gust bestrewed
from a tall resin birch tree
nigh the Sitka willows

     He  sat  quietly ...
     time out of mind ―

tossing his eyes up into the sky;
taking the time to read the stars ―
catching  them  each  again
as they fell into his gentle hands,
to show him who he was

Seeing their sparkly tracers  
trail-out above the cattails,
     from a distance
they resembled falling stars
unable to perceive their own renaissance ―
plashing lightly upon the still-water
     on half-moon lake

A lone shadow glides stealthily
near mid-tarn,.. swimming  
enchantingly with the grace
     of a blackswan
Appearing to glance shoreward
at the glowing low stars
rise and fall, as his eyes
twinkled skyward over
     the moonlit lagoon ―
heavenward of its moonlit ballet;
the lone sleek dark shadow
     slipping through
     a faint circular ripple
stirring the smooth as glass waters ―  
disappearing like a fleeting moment
     waning deep aneath
     a subtle silent wake.

When all the clear lines blurred,
he knew it had been so long ...

     but hearken !
… an interceding
     long drawn out wail  
     echoed  a feral ache
     across the stillness,
     breaking the silence ―

as the shadow reappeared;
     his tears surrendered
to the undulating call of the wild;
he felt the spirit of the sole Loon,
     as black and white
     as the moonlit night,
stir deeply in his wanting heart ―
     lay bare the silence
in lengthy yodeled psalms
to the god of the moon

Diving down deep yet again,
keeping the light he’d been given,
vanishing into the lifespring
sanctuary of half-moon lake


harlon rivers ... May 2018
travelogue: 4 of some more

From the sodden, trundled forest floor the trees reached higher
than he ever imagined possible-- pine needles from the conif,
blending in  perfectly with those, broadleaf.. a strange, almost
absurd-feeling; symmetry- in a world, nothing more than
cluttered and confused--
           in the eyes of a small-one, now subject..

And now as a grown man,
I return to the disenchanted forest..
       in order to bring enchantment.
At the edge of the rustic, one-room
cabin, I pause..
choosing to peer in, rather than enter--
my world-hardened hands,  now pressed against
cracked window glass--

opaque, but still..

           I can see..

Inside the small room is as if a cosmo to itself-- there is a large
ring of dark water, surrounding what
seems to me to be a small island,
     yet still, I can feel her..  
           sense her glow..
And magnificent   within
her solitude and silence..
she is strong,
and firm-- her war-torn heart, gathered and secure..
all boundaries, seemingly intact--
        but there is a teeming..
        a never-ending movement
        of some form of life-

..in what I had once thought a ring of dark water,
but can now see as if some kind of a fear-hewn moat..
and the movement within, none other than that
           of those trying to reach her.

She is the prize,
pulled away from the threat of harm
       by her intricately created world.

And there is this black movement above her..    what is that?  
Moving in rhythmic synchronization..
             like a flock of starlings maybe..
The wings that give them flight, are bat-like and sharp..
and only varying sections at a time  of the flock's movement
alight on to her..
as other ones take flight and rejoin the ever-moving,
          ever-shifting flock's shape..

..and as each changing of the guard takes place,
the inhabitants of the moat change color--  

the light, now reflecting through the small window
and bringing a matching glow to my arm..

And though I remain unaffected by the color of light,
I see the whole nature of the moat, conform to each color's change..

And it is then that I realize
that the birds  are the pieces of her fragmented heart,
and the changing colors,  her perceived reality..
based on whatever portions of her heart are inside of her
at any given time.

The moat provides the distance,
yet one without its inhabitants even knowing
they are in it--

changing color in order to fit in to
              her ever-changing reality.


I will never enter into the moat..
and the color change is hers, not mine.
I am more distant to her now
than even those, of the moat..
and my refusal to change color
will always be a point of contention--
but for her, I am the only one who sees,
I am the only one who knows

about the island, the starlings.. the moat.

She loves me so much,
she hates me.

My prayer for her is that one day,
that whole flock of starlings will alight on to her..
      and never, ever leave.

Maybe on that day also, her moat filled with
Mona Lisas and Madhatters,  will finally, dry up..

and that her color perception  
will become  the colors that truly are,
            rather than those, of her ever-changing, shift


A disenchanted forest--  enchanted, once again.

He’s shaved like a survivor of something
And this is the first time I’ve realized, his
Head normally baubled under a dark cap

His arms spindle, bark bent at shoulder and elbow
The leaf of his hands shiver around a 6B
I watch him become a Broadleaf before my eyes

He stretches long around the room
Determined to crowd every corner
Trundling, truncated at root

I wish to be as I see him
A beautiful tangle, loud in motion and
Silent in speech, sprinting full speed

His feet pound in dirt,
Name sprawled on the walls in capital BLACK
Demanding to be heard or at least recognized

He is the mystery of the day, every day
The jumbled stranger, in pieces strewn
& unsolved

--
c

prejudiced both against each other and , see
a red squirrel or fox the same, as a conveyer, of seeds.
The pine tree, or cedar, just as me, grows acidic
green year round, day and night, commenting little as
possible striving to get the sun and water,
not judging the broadleaf nor the four leaf clovers,
just rising above the reaches of it all.
Flora vs. Fauna,
aura in clorophyll, or flesh
the squirrels don't care what species,
color, race , gender, or whether you
like hims or hers,
just put in their pouch whatever, stand on back legs,
laughingly adorable, going their way.

Like water

A weeping willow swaying in the wind

The reeds waving to the cosmos

I am a fable breaking the fourth wall

Look through my window
and sing it with me

You are telling lies so I can promise you nothing and
You are slithering through the cracks in my mind and

Now I am flying
through the cracks
of your words

See me moving
to the rhythm of my heart

I am dancing
to the pulsations
of the distant stars

Flowing up and out
like the nectar from a honeysuckle

Honey and milk pouring from my throat

Sip the dew from the Broadleaf sage
and breathe in its hearty breath

There are diamonds
glistening from the pine trees

and quartz crystals
dripping from the sky and

These pine cones
are red roses

These nettles
they are black feathers
fanning white clouds

and this lake here is your soul
with your eyes in its reflection

and the ripples on its surface
undulate in loving breath
with the universe

In the vernacular. Early 1980s.  New York City.


Some parts -
well, some parts
were third world countries really
not like the glitz in the advertising charts.
Unpolished banquets
of flea markets on blankets
selling broken light bulbs,
a bumper,
watched over with a bagged liquor gulp
and a mutt by the side
that when lucky was fed a slice from the corner.
Chain link fencing behind the stench
dented, climbed,
hubcaps displayed on ‘em.
The broadleaf weeds,
the miserable trees
their only nature’s gem.

Yeah,
some parts -
some parts
were cruel and shifty.
Far from the jewel presented
on a postcard and a 15 cent stamp -
wonderfully ******.
The city back then gathered up
washed-up teens or young adults
on the Lower East Side
not even knowing why they were there.
Misfits really
not fitting into a family or town -
no money.
Perhaps once church-going girls
who knew more than the native what a pine tree was
and plus, this is the place where stars are born -
now working,
squeezing,
cocking,
paid to do what they were disgraced to do:
parloring to get the moan,
******* to produce the white honey.
And this was before the crack
and vials crunched on the steps of the subway.

Men would squeegee for cents and cigarettes -
Marlboro or Kent.
A mix of Lincolns, Jeffersons
throw in an Eisenhower, a Washington.
A decade before Broken Windows
and a lord mayors attempt
to take back control of parts lost
to appease the nobility.

Yeah,
there were sections -
sections that you brought a gun to deliver milk.
“Protection.”
And people carried things:
broomsticks cut down,
crowbars in a city in neighborhoods with the motto:
“Do what you gotta do.”
“Wrong place.  Wrong time.”
Where grandmothers would be mugged on the subway
in a city on the verge of Chapter 11,
a city of pushbacks and organized crime
where everyone seemed fit,
gang patches
before Angels wore red berets
and offered a hint of safety
in light or dark
and guarded a canvas
of moving steel plastered with graffiti and grime
and the cement crime sublime.
Where one could still dream in a city of bleakness
before,
good or bad,
it all went theme park.