I watched the snow descend to earth
Attention sought as flakes give birth
Submit to all her majesty
Surrender clouded canopy

A freezing fox that runs across
The curtilage wild turkey's toss
A lofty oak tree hides raccoon
Two fledgeling birds lose their platoon

The strapping deer takes off in flight
See squirrels flee with all their might
An Owl concluding calls of whoo
The animals know too eschew

All happens when the snowflakes fall
Am spellbound by one flake or all
The memory each one contain
Unique like us and our domain

Snowflakes and animals I see
We all are different you and me
Is random chance its proximious?
Creation not dichotomous

Am thankful I could see this view
And freedom too believe it's true

_______________

Afternoon octaves from a Raspberry arbor ,
streaming with Honeybee delight , fledgeling
Cardinals hopping from branch to branch ,
Rubies pause then pose , streak away in zig-zag
flight
Bluejays crack acorns on cobblestone drives ,
Red wasp , Swallowtails and Cuckoo bees dance
in warm light , Cinnamon coated fawns dance
the forever fields of soybeans , Sugar Magnolias
stand tall in Purple clover dreams

Introduction


Burning pages
Blood-red sky
Rage of angels
Days gone by
The Chosen one, with eyes of searing flames
Is opening the book of Living Names....


I


The turning pages tell of lives gone by,
Furled by the one whose eyes are blinding flames;
Hot ashes flutter to the blood-red sky,
Like burning souls of undeserving names.

Where justice fails in life, death compensates:
Rare Mercy brings the angel who redeems,
While cruelty brings down avenging fates,
Even if conscience sleeps throughout our dreams.

The one with eyes of flame sees everything,
His Book of Living Names is always fair;
Yet every page frail as a fledgeling's wing -
Tread carefully if your name is not there.

There are but two volumes: one leads to light,
The other leads to Hell, without respite.



II


He sat in shadows, working through the night;
A scribe writing in words of ****** red,
While brass lanterns imparted sickly light,
As nightmare voices raged inside his head.

And all the names of those forever doomed,
Of future deaths and those of ancient past,
Were on the page, committed and entombed
In holy blood, scarlet and colour-fast.

All those whom God shall cast into the flames,
Unworthy of Heaven's forgiving grace
Are ever here, in this Book of Dead Names -
Named, numbered souls, each one bereft of face.

Thus, all enjoying notoriety
Shall be vanquished in anonymity.



III


Place copper coins over these weary eyes,
Gather my gold around me in the tomb,
Pray overlook transgression, all my lies,
Cradle me unto death, as from the womb.

Bury my silver at my lifeless feet,
Burn sandalwood, utter my name in prayer,
Drench me with nard and hyssop, bittersweet,
Remember me with lilies in my hair.

Pray write me in the Book of Living Names,
God turn thy face from my iniquity;
Spare me the flail, the pit of raging flames,
But let the quiet waters carry me.

Float me upon the Styx when I am gone;
Erase me from the Necronomicon.



NOTES:

This was inspired by some of the startling imagery in The Book of Revelation from the Bible.

it is dripping
into syrup again,
a bird with
no wings and
no voice
with which to cry

it has only talons
to bend bone
but there are none
so syrup sticks to feathers
and syrup drowns
and a bird is drunken

it bears only a coat
of fledgeling's down
and wants to be nothing

it wants to be nothing

My withdrawal was violent like ******
Your effects lasting like mental trauma
I reveled in you like a pagan on Samhain
You greeted me like a crusader to a Saracen
I bled a river of emotions I didn't know I had.
I was failing to fly
Like a fledgeling taking its firsit leap away from the nest in hopes of soaringly to greater heights.
But what a hunter you were,
The arrow striking me from the sky as if guided by Artemis
It leaves me wanting,
My heart turns cold enough to freeze the blood that runs through my veins
Give me the road
A place where judgments are left in tire tracks
Where worries are removed as the winds rushes around me at 80 miles an hour.
The sun at my back heating my heart
Pumping the blood to my wings
Spread them and fly
Ride the wind, race the rain, and chase the sunset
On these two wheels you leave what aches behind you.
You find freedom on the never ending horizon
You find happiness in your solitude.
-Vaun Niklaus Christiansen.

Why when you're leading the pack do you want to drop back is it something about being ahead?
Do you fear the lead is it that which you need,
is it fear that brings you such dread?

For every win do you lose is it failure you choose or
is it the failure that brings you success?
And if the test is to be second best are we
and the rest of the runners at fault?

I muddle my way through this quagmire each day,
to be, not to be, an industry
in the making
and I am but a fledgeling
in the safety of my nest.

Don't want to go out there
in the thin air
where
I'm bound to fall
don't
want to do that at all.

But
they push me and rush me
I complain and they shush me.

If I could fly, if
only I could fly
the sky
would be my oyster bed
I wouldn't have to be ahead
I would only have to be
an industry
in the making

The breath of the world lifting her environs
to travel , a mother releasing her child to
take it's inaugural steps , dandelion , pine ,
silver maple inner-programmed to dominate the
earth , webbing collected in dying estates , contrails
on the wind as the windmills quicken their pace , this pheromone that programs the day , seasoned air controlling our whims , fledgeling sparrows on precarious limbs* ...