"perceiving" poems
Trapped in a cage with golden bars of light
Of ancient habit and direful duties;
Below the water crashed into the bight,
The whispering waves baiting with beauties.
But her shadow lurked around the coast,
Dashing her to the beach like drifting wood.
Preventing her from what she wanted the most
To reach new shores from where she stood.
She wanted to travel and sail the open sea
Beyond the shingle, seaweed and shells
Closer to the horizon where the birds flew free
Or to the arenaceous ground in diving bells.
And coming back to where she started
She found her seaside changed since she has parted.
Or did the widening horizon change her perceiving?
For returning was not the same as never leaving.
Sep 4, 2018
Sep 4, 2018 at 10:37 AM UTC
The only proper way to be a conversationalist is to convince yourself that you’re boring. If you can strip back the hard shell of the ego, and look down on yourself from the eyes of an apathetic God, you will likely (and hopefully) see just how boring you really are. It isn’t a sin to be boring, in fact there are many advantages to honest self-depreciation.
The main advantage, is the way you approach a conversation. “Interesting” people find it difficult to silence the affected score-keeper that dominates their internal dialogue and ruins any chance of an honest and engaged conversation. It is the voice that reminds you to show interest with your body language, and keep a dumb happy gaze laser pointed into their eyes. This dialogue is obsessed with authenticity and genuine conversation, and therefore a natural sociopath.
Luckily, you are the stunning definition of boredom, an extracted dictionary cut-out of un-interesting, and nobody could possibly give a rats-ass what you have to think—least of all the Voice that controls the inner-dialogue. That Voice has packed it up to find a more interesting vessel…maybe the person standing across from you in conversation.
Because you are so boring, and they are the Oxford personification of intellect and fascination, you should pay careful attention to what they say—no time to worry about how they’re perceiving your reaction to whatever it is they’re saying. You are too busy to notice what sort of body language you may or may not be using to validate their half of the conversation. Instead, your time is spent carefully hanging on their every word, digesting it and projecting the whole bit into a colourful scene in your imagination. Instead, you’re too lost in the excitement of their infinitely more interesting life and impossible wealth of knowledge offered to you with each word that they speak. Instead, you are actually listening to the words that come out of their mouth and not the ones that speak to you from the inside of your own mind.
This is what it means to be in conversation. This was the point of our social nature. And in a world of needy social-media junkies grabbing at the cuffs of potential ‘followers’ and ‘likes’ and trendy passer-by’s, the last thing anyone needs is the high-pitched whine of another “interesting” millennial.
Lucky for you, you boring sack of yawning sloths, that you aren’t interesting too.
Dec 17, 2015
Dec 17, 2015 at 6:13 PM UTC
there is nothing i love more
than being
a girl
i love the way i speak,
with slang only teenage girls use
i love wearing dainty clothes,
feeling beautiful wearing them
i love collecting,
knick-knacks, records, crystals
above all
i love
the wonder of girlhood
romanticizing my life
perceiving my monotonous existence,
as a life worth writing about
Dec 4, 2022
Dec 4, 2022 at 9:53 PM UTC
Generations of people perceiving things
In different levels
The understanding in different horizons
The horizon to the shore
To the infinity
The earth brings out everything new
Adaptability is the key
Acceptance is the key
New perceiving
New beings
New thoughts
New love
New cravings
New addiction
New generation
New adaptability
New addiction
New mistakes
New evolution
New matches
New mismatches
New sun
New moon
New stars
New wrongs
And the new rights
The flow continues beyond understanding
And let it be
Understanding does not matter
In the whole change is inhabitable
Change is real
Also the experience
Perceive the change in the outer world
Bring out the change in the inner world
Have a common path in between
Let it be
Perceive change around
Is the only thing important
The understanding is void
Don't ever complain about what you cant understand
And you cannot in many cases
No worries
Accept it
It is real
It is true
Perceive
Feel
And let go
In a deeper sense of course
Dip into the thought
Illuminate
Feel the new sun
New moon
A new day
Come fresh and tidy
Accept the change in real
From without and within
Keep your arms wide open
Broaden your arms
Chant the prayers to the universe
Surrender to the universe
Universe knows it all
Trust
You are the part of the whole
The whole is the universe
Created by the universe
Above and beyond
To the eternity
You are the universe
You are the change
You are the perceptions
You are the feel
You are the agenda
You are the thoughts
You are the eternal soul
And everybody around are
And every things around are
Take a deep breadth and
Function as you should
Function as you are
Function as a change within
Function as the change without
Function as the change around
Different generations
Differences as seen
Perceiving
The around and within
As a rule or the knowns
By themselves upon themselves
The new one
Having a change
Of terms
Of rules
And of surroundings
Different from the generations gone
The new ones for sure
Has a new things to do
Has a new idea
A new rule
New love
New connections
New mistakes
New rights
And the new wrongs
The change is there
Perceiving and generations
Different in emotions
Different in righteousness
Different in fulfillment
Different in atrocities
Different in perceptions
Different in locality
Different in the differences
And similar in a way
They are different
Only thing common
Is the change
Have you the perception
To get into the change
Around, within and without
The change is happening
It is present
It is the thing to feel
To perceive
Try to understand, the less you get it
Feel the change
Percepts of change
Accept the change you must
Teach change if you can
Be a change if you ought to
For the new ones
For the old ones
And for the no ones
Take a deep breadth
Feel the cool breeze of change
Breathe the change
Live the change
Teach the change
Be the change
See differences seem to be similarities
Notion of diversities
Notion of change
Notion of no differences
Notion of similarities
People and generations
Perceiving things
At different levels
Inhabitable is the change
Perceiving change
Is the key
In general
To say the least
Chants
Abundance
Belongingness
Grace
Love
Alive
Jan 14, 2019
Jan 14, 2019 at 10:45 PM UTC
Stillness within tranquil,
Movements within clamour;
In mixture she stood there,
Introvert she names.
Gazing and perceiving,
Simply fascinating;
But residing in her world,
was nothing but hollow.
Catching her insight,
Diverting towards him;
telling herself,
that she never matters.
Self-pity, she would say,
But I say strength;
Pathetic, she labelled,
Thou I say brave.
She was simply a girl,
Malicious was an unknown;
Through dawn and dusk,
She became a title.
A title she called,
The Introverts.
Apr 9, 2015
Apr 9, 2015 at 11:08 AM UTC
you in quail feathers means
that your red is my red
and the way that you taste pizza
is the way that I taste it
our
homogeneous brains
hard mother
hard father
the states we were raised in
melt running through
area 41 where the nefarious
Rolando implanted
our splitting
branches
qualia
what it means for you
to have mental states
pure consciousness
perceiving you there
in the corner
your toenails still painted
purple
Nov 16, 2015
Nov 16, 2015 at 6:00 PM UTC
I
The Broom and the Shovel, the Poker and the Tongs,
They all took a drive in the Park,
And they each sang a song, Ding-a-dong, Ding-a-dong,
Before they went back in the dark.
Mr. Poker he sate quite upright in the coach,
Mr. Tongs made a clatter and clash,
Miss Shovel was all dressed in black (with a brooch),
Mrs. Broom was in blue (with a sash).
Ding-a-dong! Ding-a-dong!
And they all sang a song!
II
'O Shovel so lovely!' the Poker he sang,
'You have perfectly conquered my heart!
'Ding-a-dong! Ding-a-dong! If you're pleased with my song,
'I will feed you with cold apple ****
'When you scrape up the coals with a delicate sound,
'You encapture my life with delight!
'Your nose is so shiny! your head is so round!
'And your shape is so slender and bright!
'Ding-a-dong! Ding-a-dong!
'Ain't you pleased with my song?'
III
'Alas! Mrs. Broom!' sighed the Tongs in his song,
'O is it because I'm so thin,
'And my legs are so long--Ding-a-dong! Ding-a-dong!
'That you don't care about me a pin?
'Ah! fairest of creatures, when sweeping the room,
'Ah! why don't you heed my complaint!
'Must you needs be so cruel, you beautiful Broom,
'Because you are covered with paint?
'Ding-a-dong! Ding-a-dong!
'You are certainly wrong!'
IV
Mrs. Broom and Miss Shovel together they sang,
'What nonsense you're singing to-day!'
Said the Shovel, 'I'll certainly hit you a bang!'
Said the Broom, 'And I'll sweep you away!'
So the Coachman drove homeward as fast as he could,
Perceiving their anger with pain;
But they put on the kettle and little by little,
They all became happy again.
Ding-a-dong! Ding-a-dong!
There's an end of my song!
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Sterling eyes close the falling red ward
Big Brother has seen it all
He tells me: *there is danger
Terror past the massive, all-protecting Atlantic*
Don’t stray there, the mouth
of stumbling heads say,
They want to take away
Our safety, our ways, our Freedom
Mr. Elected reassures
*Nothing will harm you
Not with me going there
I don’t want you going there*
He speaks like my mom
Warning me of the illicits
I am too vulnerable to experience
It’s death I’ll go to- I’ve been told
Sleepless red monocular
Enlightening the air to a passive blue
It’s opacity beneath and above
Ascending again
Mama and Baba say it’s time to go home
I confront the arid peninsula of Qatar
Lungs accustomed, vitality not frozen
Precariously perceiving the harmful
Sentiments of years past in Jordan,
I wonder why
my kin would ban this place
Rumor on dirt pavement in a draft, ears picking up
*The Atlantic is not to be crossed,
A lack of morals, malintentions
lay beyond the scape.*
Extravagant grenade above,
Falling to the horizon
And no detonation, collapsing behind a curved veil
Skyward lay the remnants
Of heat, frozen in time
The lips in a box on this shoreside
Warn *the zephyrs from the ornery
Reaches towards our home
Be on guard of the deceitful
star at night that rains red*
Tomorrow may not be there
My blood brothers of Lebanon say,
But I wait, field of vision
aligned to the east
Aural stumbles translate, articulating
My brethren begin their search of food
And in too many moments unnoticed,
Black on bottom, red on the low, blue slowly suffocating the obscurity above
Jul 30, 2014
Jul 30, 2014 at 9:27 PM UTC
I guess I’m okay… What more can I say?
Forget it—never mind,
You wouldn’t understand anyway,
Would you even know what it's like?
Inside a scattered disconnected mind,
Employed to go on strike?
Where indirect misdirect
The sincerity at play,
When sinusoidal chaos spikes
And past meets the future present day?
As paranoid points outlandishly connect
At intervals of broken lines,
Memory lost in recollect,
An array of misshaped bells
Internally infect the eternal confines
Of infinite distributional decay,
Parallels with no intersect,
Streetwise cells with empty signs,
Burned out lights, potholes, and landmines,
Littered all the way.
How am I to convey that all those times
You let your mind wander away
That I was reading, thinking, dreaming,
Teeming, never idle, never strayed,
Seeing, being, so far and away,
Even the brightest intellect beaming,
Could not grasp the feeling
In the slightest of highest orders reeling,
Wound unbound, or as it would be seeming,
Imperfect, even to the disarray
Of the tamest prefect, whose verdict
Could not predict the reflect,
For in this world, seeing is deceiving,
As the lamest reject, defect,
Increasingly decreasing,
In simplistic bliss obey
Crowned unsound fallacies
That contradict all meaning,
Hiding behind reality, the actualities
Lest, protect the thoughtlessness perceiving,
Let me stop you if I may...
I must interject for I digress,
What nonsense was I weaving?
Forget it—I've lost my mind,
I best be leaving,
What more can I say?
It's periodic I must confess,
You probably don't care anyway,
Yeah, yeah, I'll be okay,
Until next time I guess,
I wouldn't want to be misleading.
May 24, 2018
May 24, 2018 at 10:10 AM UTC
In Gothic architecture, light is considered
the most beautiful revelation of God;
Beauty is a characteristic of an animal,
an idea, object, person or place that provides
an experience of pleasure, or satisfaction;
Beauty is studied as part of aesthetics, [culture],
social psychology, philosophy & sociology;
An ideal beauty is an entity;
admired; possessing features
widely attributed to beauty in a particular culture;
to perfection:
Ugliness [commonness], [ ] commonly considered to be the opposite
of beauty,
annihilated as an intellectual concept,
no longer exists;
The experience of beauty is often
involved in an interpretation of some
entity [being in balance & harmony];
the experience of nature may lead to feelings
of attraction & emotional well-being;
Because perception is a purely subjective experience,
it was once said that beauty
is in the eye of the beholder;
a sentiment long debunked;
There is evidence that hypothetical perceptions
of beauty involve determining
aspects of things, people & landscapes;
beauty is typically found
in situations likely to enhance the survival
of the perceiving collection
[of chromosomes]
Aug 3, 2018
Aug 3, 2018 at 6:25 PM UTC
she saw things that made her malfunction
she broke down to words that should've made her function.
she tortured herself with plastered screenings
repeated feelings
not wanting to be of perceiving
she was in and out of it, saw the fault line, lingered a bit.
she then took it for what it was, saw what he was, realized he never was.
Next she then meddled with hard hit reality.
she understands to not give herself up, she gets the places it'll mess up, and all she wants to go is up.
So time dwells, she wants to be over it, she wants nothing of it, only to be everything above it.
she does not self harm anymore, because she is of no harm, she is just charm.
he's made her realize that.
he's accompanied her to that.
so she thanks him for that.
she will not whither, she is winter, with personality of a spitter
she is summer with hints of glimmer
she is now full of no more sorrow, no bitterness, or self wallow
she is content, she is fluorescent.
she is better than ever yet.
the muggy cloud has gone and surpassed
therefore leaving everything in the past.
so she says,
see you later,
thanks for the class,
hope everything works out for you in your middle pass,
just remember to not let the next one pass and remember to not be an ***
with that being said with wise words from this *** that you can kiss.
hahaha so see you in the free world, and maybe then can we pass, hit a space migration for our integrations.
May 27, 2014
May 27, 2014 at 10:07 AM UTC
This is a terrible romantic
and sadomasochistic narrative.
The artist's mind is clothed in fabrics.
Fashion is his vocabulary.
Grim-tales are often told with foreboding,
exacted further through sharp, perceiving lenses.
Collections of sharp silhouettes speak of
a masterful and sensitive touch.
A turbulence of emotions exploded in
delicate and mesmerising theatricals.
Taking delight in challenging popular notions,
Alexander left audience continually in a
lingering aftertaste of shock mixed with wonder.
Aug 23, 2014
Aug 23, 2014 at 11:41 AM UTC
The Pobble who has no toes
Had once as many as we;
When they said "Some day you may lose them all;"
He replied "Fish, fiddle-de-dee!"
And his Aunt Jobiska made him drink
Lavender water tinged with pink,
For she said "The World in general knows
There's nothing so good for a Pobble's toes!"
The Pobble who has no toes
Swam across the Bristol Channel;
But before he set out he wrapped his nose
In a piece of scarlet flannel.
For his Aunt Jobiska said "No harm
Can come to his toes if his nose is warm;
And it's perfectly known that a Pobble's toes
Are safe, -- provided he minds his nose!"
The Pobble swam fast and well,
And when boats or ships came near him,
He tinkledy-blinkledy-winkled a bell,
So that all the world could hear him.
And all the Sailors and Admirals cried,
When they saw him nearing the further side -
"He has gone to fish for his Aunt Jobiska's
Runcible Cat with crimson whiskers!"
But before he touched the shore,
The shore of the Bristol Channel,
A sea-green porpoise carried away
His wrapper of scarlet flannel.
And when he came to observe his feet,
Formerly garnished with toes so neat,
His face at once became forlorn,
On perceiving that all his toes were gone!
And nobody ever knew,
From that dark day to the present,
Whoso had taken the Pobble's toes,
In a manner so far from pleasant.
Whether the shrimps, or crawfish grey,
Or crafty Mermaids stole them away -
Nobody knew: and nobody knows
How the Pobble was robbed of his twice five toes!
The Pobble who has no toes
Was placed in a friendly Bark,
And they rowed him back, and carried him up
To his Aunt Jobiska's Park.
And she made him a feast at his earnest wish
Of eggs and buttercups fried with fish, -
And she said "It's a fact the whole world knows,
That Pobbles are happier without their toes!"
3.2k
when no objective is best for our protection
protecting ourselves would be the best direction
directing ourselves toward a progressive connection
connecting our minds to make a collective correction
correcting the obsessions that infect our perception
perceiving ourselves as the essence of conception
conceiving a brand new perspective of reception
receiving the blessing that we call perfection
Oct 22, 2016
Oct 22, 2016 at 7:00 PM UTC
Redds shine like new nickels on the dark river bottom,
salmon have returned to spawn the Deschutes,
navigating by primal memories written in DNA,
an internal Tom-Tom GPS wired in their brains.
Watching them struggle up the ladder,
consumed with a drive to leave offspring,
they are herculean athletes battling
the current and the inexorable pull of gravity.
Were these the fry I helped to seed four years ago?
A Squaxin woman told me once,
ghosts of her Coastal Salish ancestors
ride the salmon out to sea and home again.
Roe in these redds dream also of the sea,
their salty eyes and nostrils perceiving
spirits in secret claret-red kelp beds.
The waters ask only to be haunted again.
Feb 20, 2012
Feb 20, 2012 at 5:20 PM UTC
Frozen moments,
embraced,
visions of
luminous things,
unpretentious
pearls dancing;
embers of memory linger,
elegy of the lachrymose,
this horizoning self
lying low in saturnine
tranquility
and repose – paternity lost
to the provisional.
The cross of lassitude,
forming
scars of loss;
estrangement,
preface to
ineluctable autonomy.
Earthen treasure - immortal
footprints, the migration
of fair maidens across my
effusive heart.
Venus trio in bloom,
aesthetic allusion,
ephemeral incarnations
of beauty - perishable fruit,
transcending the plebeian.
Aerial substance-
the hermeneutic,
betraying desire’s
ambrosial tyranny;
The permuted passage -
savor the sojourn, submit
to the fated peregrination.
Purple orchids blossom,
immortal creatures,
culminating
in perfection
from the sheath
respectively,
each plume,
singular,
the continuum of
splendor, mediate
the inviolable.
Eternity compounding,
time and essence suffuse
the already and not yet
into an
orbiting mosaic.
The susurrant devotions
of a satellite father,
summon the quest -
both, and,
absence and proximity,
conduits of
distress and peace
ironically,
solace and
terror
traverse the
same path.
Plunge though,
deep, the depth of pain;
deeper, sweeter
the taste of pleasure.
Engender and witness,
window into
preeminence,
surface azure,
the sacred -
inimitable gravity of
grandeur,
ma petite,
you - are
lived poetry
seen and heard;
cosmic order,
a mediating heuristic -
to love is to see,
in the dismal,
gift of distance.
child of delight,
evermore, Don’t I hold you?
Beauty and strangeness,
music found
in linear,
secret places
beyond the tangent,
purview of limitation,
arousing imagination -
infinititude as near
as it is far.
Long loneliness -
dissonance that
resolves;
perceiving,
the tertiary refrain -
as exquisite verse,
and matchless liqueur,
sublime gratuity
derived
through
doors of surrender.
Daughter,
in adoration and wonder,
I hold you.
Jan 19, 2012
Jan 19, 2012 at 5:25 PM UTC
It is my conviction
That life began inside of a dimly lit corridor.
Not with a flash of brilliant light,
Inside of the creator's grand hall.
Not even in the decency of a simple room,
No.
It was an accident that happened when the Gods tripped over their robes,
Simply walking
On their way to the heavenly mess hall for coffee and a drag,
Shaking the proverbial gold dust off of their feet
So that it slipped through the cracks in the marble
And crystallized in random little patterns,
Wherever they happened to step.
Beauty, some are bold enough to call it.
And I'll find it on my face sometimes,
Those golden remnants,
When the weather is warm and I've eaten a little less that day.
I will linger in my mirror to see where they've landed
As I whisper sweet nothings to myself,
Wishing I were worthy of these repercussions of
The Great Biochemical Accident.
But once in a while,
Someone will come along who tells me that I'm wrong.
Once in a while,
Somebody has enough gall,
Somebody has enough, call it grace,
To peel those golden freckles from my face,
And to hold them gently in their palm,
Perceiving them to be precious.
Mar 2, 2012
Mar 2, 2012 at 8:40 AM UTC
As the daily news I was reading,
Here is the story that was leading,
Zombie spider slaves, wasp masters dictating,
Subsidised fake spider skills,
Wasp masters must be getting their thrills,
I sense an allegory,
Like humanity's history,
Teeming ants in a global rat race,
Pleasing some master's lack of grace.
Same scenario, different day,
Till you retire and fade away,
Who, indeed, are our wasp masters?
Come on, humans, work much faster,
Don't you forget to hurry,
Or wasp masters shall give you curry!
As the daily news I was reading,
Is there no other news for leading?
Yes, allegory I was perceiving.
Aug 6, 2015
Aug 6, 2015 at 3:31 PM UTC
When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by,
Let us (said He) pour on him all we can:
Let the world’s riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.
So strength first made a way;
Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure:
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that alone of all His treasure
Rest in the bottom lay.
For if I should (said He)
Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore My gifts instead of Me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:
So both should losers be.
Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness:
Let him be rich and weary, that, at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to My breast.
2.5k
Some only seest her flesh
And her bones;
I seest God's handprint
That brushstroked
Her soul.
Some only heed her outer
Reflection;
I seest a masterpiece
In paradisal direction.
Some only observe her comings
And going's;
Not perceiving
Her tears, beyond year's;
Hath been like white water's flowing.
Some only descry
Her Filipina eyne;
Whilst under her roof
She's lonesome, aloof;
Pain is her daily bread,
As is her heart's
Screaming proof.
Some only espy, the girl
They seek to know; not
Knowing nothing of who
She really is, an Angel from
God's throne.
Though this Queen doesn't seest
What I seest, she is blinded by
Worldly lies; demon's art her
Enemies, because she's God's
coruscating light.
If only she could take a step
Out of her body and her mind;
She'd be free, to perceive
The treasure she is
As the creator made
Her after his
Kind.
If only she could
Seest, the elegance
Inside her soul;
She would
Knowest
She was
Created to be
God's light, lamp;
God's perfect mold.
©Brandon Nagley
©Lonesome poets poetry
©Earl Jane Sardua nagley ( agapi mou) dedicated
Jul 28, 2016
Jul 28, 2016 at 8:31 PM UTC
A cave crawls into me, turns inside out,
Captures my heart and saves my skin for last.
Slimy shadows spread like faith to doubt.
Is this the Jungian Shadow here to lambaste
While all the photons of the sun depart
As quickly as they come--an original sin--
And stop my thinking like Rene Descartes,
Affronting twistless logic like particle spin?
Now perceiving nothing it must exist,
Like Freud with OCD made Oedipus blind--
Becoming nothing nothing can resist.
Finally into earth my mind confined:
Create in me a ***** heart, o earth.
Perhaps a worm will have a ****** birth.
Feb 3, 2012
Feb 3, 2012 at 12:51 PM UTC
*I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I'm waiting at the door
And I'm standing in the darkness
I don't want to wait no more
I have seen without perceiving
I have been another man
Let me pierce the realm of glamour
So I know just what I am
I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I'm waiting at the door
And I'm standing in the darkness
I don't want to wait no more
Feel the angel of the present
In the mighty crystal fire
Lift me up consume my darkness
Let me travel even higher
I'm a dweller on the threshold
As I cross the burning ground
Let me go down to the water
Watch the great illusion drown
I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I'm waiting at the door
And I'm standing in the darkness
I don't want to wait no more
I'm gonna turn and face the music
The music of the spheres
Lift me up consume my darkness
When the midnight disappears
I will walk out of the darkness
And I'll walk into the light
And I'll sing the song of ages
And the dawn will end the night
I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I'm waiting at the door
And I'm standing in the darkness
I don't want to wait no more
I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I cross some burning ground
And I'll go down to the water
Let the great illusion drown
I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I'm waiting at the door
And I'm standing in the darkness
I don't want to wait no more
I'm a dweller on the threshold
Dweller on the threshold
I'm a dweller on the threshold
I'm a dweller on the threshold*
*********************************************************************************
Apr 9, 2014
Apr 9, 2014 at 1:16 PM UTC
555
Trust in the Unexpected—
By this—was William Kidd
Persuaded of the Buried Gold—
As One had testified—
Through this—the old Philosopher—
His Talismanic Stone
Discernéd—still withholden
To effort undivine—
’Twas this—allured Columbus—
When Genoa—withdrew
Before an Apparition
Baptized America—
The Same—afflicted Thomas—
When Deity assured
’Twas better—the perceiving not—
Provided it believed—
2.2k
Among the blight-killed eucalypts, among
trees and bushes rusted by Christmas frosts,
the yards and hillsides exhausted by five years of drought,
certain airy white blossoms punctually
reappeared, and dense clusters of pale pink, dark pink--
a delicate abundance. They seemed
like guests arriving joyfully on the accustomed
festival day, unaware of the year's events, not perceiving
the sackcloth others were wearing.
To some of us, the dejected landscape consorted well
with our shame and bitterness. Skies ever-blue,
daily sunshine, disgusted us like smile-buttons.
Yet the blossoms, clinging to thin branches
more lightly than birds alert for flight,
lifted the sunken heart
even against its will.
But not
as symbols of hope: they were flimsy
as our resistance to the crimes committed
--again, again--in our name; and yes, they return,
year after year, and yes, they briefly shone with serene joy
over against the dark glare
of evil days. They are, and their presence
is quietness ineffable--and the bombings are, were,
no doubt will be; that quiet, that huge cacophany
simultaneous. No promise was being accorded, the blossoms
were not doves, there was no rainbow. And when it was claimed
the war had ended, it had not ended.
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