"timescape" poems
Shall we pause to consider
the shudder of a butterfly's wings
that sets the hurricane spinning
or the descent of the final raindrop
that breaches the groaning levy?
Shall we ponder the moment before
a chorus of "maybe's" morphs
into the vain eloquence of history?
Roiling in the broth of chaos
a cluster of causes startles the surface -
unfurling a queue of effects
that dot the timescape
like rows of teetering dominoes.
Typhoons twist villages to ruins,
armies rise to victory or
succumb to the despair of defeat,
or a medical miracle is born
from the agile mind of a doctor
conceived in a Chevy's back seat.
So here we stand on the ridge of time
ourselves both caused and causing,
cradling the sphere of chaos in our hands -
uncertain what effect will be our being
after all our causes are enumerated.
Time will surely tell - as soon
as we tell time exactly what to say.
August, 2013
Aug 29, 2013
Aug 29, 2013 at 10:23 AM UTC
at the fete du bons vieux temps - Cahokia, Illinois
White clouds of rosin dust
Flew off Geoff's fiddle strings
As his earth dance
Soared above the pulsing
Of friends on bass and guitar.
Tuniced men bowed
To their bonneted ladies
Bedecked in colonial frocks.
In turn each pair sashayed
Down and up the line,
Whirled and laced their way
Through outstretched hands
Of family, friends and neighbors
Shaping an arch at line's end
For all the rest to pass beneath.
All across our country's timescape
Countless bridal pairs
Have sealed their sacraments
Spinning in the whirlwind
Of the Virginia Reel -
With each interclasping of arms
A blessing upon their unions.
Geoff lifted his bow from the strings,
And bowed with his band to receive
The applause rippling the air
Like the patter of ancestral rain
Nourishing the sweet soil
Of our common earthly essence.
February, 2007
Aug 22, 2013
Aug 22, 2013 at 3:52 PM UTC
Through the haze of a lost timescape
I see the eyes of one who led me, loved me and left me
And now in this new dreamscape I wonder who is the dreamer and who has dreamed
Into being
The separate realities that collide
Reveal an existence that has always lived in me
And outside
In the new scape we navigate
I see the boundaries left to cross
For two people
In their new terrain, with no marked pathways
Only the yearning of something once known
A scent still lingering in breezes and forest fires
A familiarity that finds
The heart in a state of oneness with itself and all around
Copyright Amber Agha
Oct 4, 2011
Oct 4, 2011 at 4:01 PM UTC
A brief gander out of the window sills
The dim candlelight flickers ever so vividly and lingers through
The fire awakens and its children, embers of the future withdraw
They take off and flow with the midwinter breeze
Amongst the ample tracts of land, amongst the foggy scenery of ice and snow
The amber extract of lightwaves pierce through the nocturnal blanket
The lilac sky merging with the cinnabar, umber and indigo
The soldiers, clad as such, marching through the grassland
And thus spoke the soldiers
Embedded in the gloom, marching through the dusty carpet
Consolidating rigid blocks amass
Caressing the cold, serene scenery in all its idyll
The sparkles dwindle at dusk
A solemn encounter between life and death - the soldiers collect them all
Many sparkles accumulate and dissipate when heaven takes in their children
Flourishing in tufts that lit the charcoal sky, a glistening canvas
I found myself amidst the elation, as I gazed amongst the starry abyss
The future stared back and smiled as I found myself frozen in time
The timeless idyll is ever so frightful, but a bliss as it fills my locket
Moonlight pass, timescape halts, landscape falls, shadows conquer
Time is ever so vague when the silver arises
The mirror of the soul, the children of the dim candlelights
They flicker ever so lively into eternity
They flicker and return home.
Dec 8, 2017
Dec 8, 2017 at 6:38 PM UTC
Futile ?
The hand , it trembles
As it lay out another timescape atop the outstretched parchment
What is the reality ?
Is this just another argument within oneself ?
Another map ?
A destination in the waiting ?
Or a trail left for another to follow
The black ink,
it drips from the quill like blood
Puddling into a mirage
Images of insanity ? ,
a conversation with oneself ?
Or recollections
Is this a craft ? , or a crutch ?
A consuming addiction
A way to torture an already broken heart
Or a soothing elixir , for which it is to be dipped
Fingertips growing numb
Is it the lack of blood flow
Concluding another segment of a repetitive tide
Or a commencement to an eye opening ode
A recipients revelation , and an excepted invitation to Eden
The waning inspiration behind the trembling hands, and the ebbing of the ink within the quill brings forever to the forefront , the question that has been looming over these runes , if they are in fact , and have always been
Futile ......
Oct 7, 2014
Oct 7, 2014 at 11:59 PM UTC
Exampli gratia:
Here, in the sun, looking straight forward over the green lawn onto the bacciferous frondescence
The space between the building where psychopathology was taught and the building where our intelligence was tested
– buildings made unsafe and marred and subjected to presence –
Here, I just am; there is no absence
As far as my eyes can see, the “where” is here and the “when” is now and I am alone, listening in to today
A bee flies by and draws my eye to the peripheral timescape
Inside the dark window to the left we sit in silence and wait for a pre-school class to walk past so we can continue a lesson that ended a year ago
Behind me looms the auditorium where we partook in curiosity
Beyond this greenth, you own the space
But on this bench, there is no absence
Here, I can breathe, lone as I am
May 22, 2020
May 22, 2020 at 3:37 AM UTC