tides of justice

Time is a patient teacher,
a slow drip that soaks into skin; 
a light bound lesson found in darkness,
an indelible trace of the journey.
Like rings of an ancient tree
counted dear in the stuff that makes us,
a wandering path that ends in truth revealed
before the most unwilling eyes.

The tides of justice ride upon a relentless sea
that takes all and keeps what it will
until it returns upon a someday shore
again to the sun, and in proof of all.

Faith sounds  above the noise
fails not the constant man, a doubtless will
holds power within each moment
to shape the world in the likeness of love.


 

Touching Mangos

In the Mango Trees, untouchable fruits languish

In the full Sun branches bear out of its seasons

Thick limbs bow, fall low, touching among those gathered

Shed hungry tears, that endless seek the restless ground

Would the fog descend and show the veils that hide

The untrue heart, the wanton spirit that assumes

The power to destroy that which it could never create

Life is the richest pearl, and here devoured by lowest beasts.

It chokes air from the lips, and the power of grief

Stays within, coiled like a deadly viper sting

In this land of ancient love, consumed by petty thoughts

That yet control so much, and castes like the worm’s way

Weaken the bond of human to human…

In the Mango trees, undisturbed by the sun and wind

Unblinking eyes regard the stillness of the living world

To behold the essence of breath…the bearer of an unchanged past

and a bitter seed that we must all taste, as we are

to deeply know the sweetness of  tomorrow;

In the Mango Trees, untouchable fruits languish.

Author’s Note

In India and Pakistan, rape of young women has reached alarming and epidemic proportions. These attacks often committed by groups of men have caused deaths and emotional suffering among victims and families, and an erosion of vital human rights of women in both countries. In one recent attack, two young women were found hanged  in a Mango tree. In the caste system they were regarded as untouchables.  It is the hope of this writing that awareness and opposition to these conditions will spread and cause change. The women of these nations have raised voice and outrage and the rest of the world should follow and add its weight, for as long as justice and dignity are denied to these women, it is denied to all.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2645231/Teen-Indian-girls-raped-murdered-left-hanging-mango-tree-pictured.html
 

solstice of the spirit

 

On Solstice Eve we pretend

to play a day that never ends, staying

waves of night that sweep

from an eternal darkness.

So much do we see, that also denies

roost-less birds and bees rise with night sparks.

The faithful lotus keeps its honey scents,

as a windless pause of sunset

joins the comedy of abstinence.

But we are the Stars before vast stars

slowly emerge to claim their due,

and in sticky sweat begins

a year-long shift that ends in frosted air.

We pretend, as in so much of life,

that a day does not end, but

in the heart we know, all worldly things end-

whether well or otherwise- we accept

the hold of gravity on  hourglass sand.

In a longest day, beyond calendars,

the Solstice of the spirit; we lavish all,

immersed in love we have created.

There nothing ends, except as we allow.

Within each grain of hope is pain

of losing; we bear faithful intent to endure,

to beam along an endless path

like the light of mothering stars.

In a Solstice of seasons of being,

we hold the day, and speak in prayer

to the God within each man

to mold a place of light and will

and set seas to roll in endless tides.

velvet tone

 

When love is in the sounds
that ring, and when hearts vibrate
as a common string, gladly holding
a slight treasure, moments we can keep.

Such  strings make an over tone
that only we can hear.

It bends  joy and sadness,  
hearts lost, found again,  searching happiness  
in the subtle blend of bitter and sweet;
we mold into a melody of life.

It is there in the pitch of deepest sadness
lofted in the timbre of its  highest pleasure
the velvet tone shadow... of us.

Making the Moon

In a violence of fire

the placid form we love

came to be, to fill an arc,
soft above our dreams, although it seems

She was always there...at a time

before human eyes, when the heart

was yet the stuff of stars.

The cool morning air belies

calendar rumors of heat, and the street

sobers the drunken night

Above the green trees, greeting

wonder-seeking eyes, a Cardinal calls,

into the pale and graded blues

a chorus of Doves sing
to the dim flat face, in a cloudless embrace,

making the morning Moon.

In the night when love was

the favored scent, and purpose

of each twist of wind; distant stars
seemed to recede, fall back
yield the center stage

to the full golden face of nearer heaven.

As I found the glowing upon her sandy skin

in the knowing of your skin, and

a partnership- from far and near-

an adoration of a woman and this night;

when moon’s light and a man’s eager sight

compete for you...We made the Moon,

and She was a Goddess.

Sign of June

So much goes with the Mulberry

The vestige of spring’s cool morns

echo mute trumpets of hungry doves

as dawn has an urgency, to feed.

Falling stains, they multiply into

an embarrassment of heavy branches;

Walking by, I stir a Mourning flight

as I too delight on sweetness.

So much goes with the Mulberry

a bare male, and heavy-boughed fem

A pair, and a page in a picture  book filled

with purpled fingertips, tongue licked lips,

and sounds of we, true honeybees.

Wonder mends the fractured pause,

small birds land and peck, at mites

and tiny things barely seen, yet that also share

amidst this busy sign of June.

All who dare can savor the passing bounty

As seedlings in a season  yet to be

Fill the sagging limbs and so many as we

Sip the short sweetness of a shortened season

So much goes with the Mulberry







_______________________________________

The Mulberry is a tree common to the U.S., North America and Europe.  It grows nearly everywhere in the U.S. and in late Spring it produces a large amount of sweet berries.  The female tree bears fruit, the male is similar but does not fruit. There are White Mulberry trees, and Black Mulberry trees, many trees here ave both white and dark fruits.  In my area, the doves in particular fatten on them. They eat and gorge themselves until it seems they will barely fly. Their bellies drag the ground in the height of the season.

The food chain is a cycle, and the Mulberry has an important role; it provides stuff for honeybees, then fruits for birds, insects, squirrels- so many City creatures, and people too. Mulberry trees need no care, they come back year after year bigger and more fruitful. In the city landscape they can take over an area, so many seeds and so many new trees and bushes springing up. Cut off the top and a small bush survives and bears fruit close to the ground.

As a child, Mulberries were part of a great cycles of seasons, they were among the first free candies we would get from Nature, later came blueberries, and as the summer went on, we got apples, pears and wild grapes. But because they were so sweet, and also because they were among the first. the mulberries were favorites.

Lyric

now, all of the dreams

that linger into day, seem

like a wake of ships passing by

mean much  more than meets the eye

the expression of a lost desire

ice that reveals the inner fire

reeling in a spin like destiny  

lost in your perfume, whispering

and once again it seems

the life of my dreams need you

to breathe

the blue in your eyes

can fill the deep day sky

with envy, and stars in the night

like diamonds that light

the air near your skin

nearly intoxicated  I’ve been

slightly held  under your spell

and once again it seems

the life of my dreams need you

to breathe

sometimes I wonder

if the songbird loves the song

or simply sets it free,

but I think ...she is just like me

silence that won’t stay

a heart that won’t obey

and once again it seems

the life of my dreams need you

to breathe

heart of love

 

Beneath the sun,
piercing the cloudless blue,
a confusion of  gulls raises
the eyes...

A song of the heart
disappears from the lips,
a thoughtful prayer  left undone.
In the lingered image, the last
of a woman’s eyes, deep and blue;
within that moment
a slow river runs, as it always has,
finding its way –from cloud to sea.

Am I the tree...or the hand that touches it,
Am I in the journey, or its cause...

The dream seems like a vapor
and the world a mere tissue,
I can reach my hand
into a living night to touch cold fire.

Let me awaken -came a whisper-
then lips answered full:
the dream ends where the dream begins
in a heart of love, in arms
that will be empty until I fill
a space created  by a river that flows
so simply from thee to me.

tanka

  
waiting in fallen day
night made a petal's edge 

in the moment I loved you

came as light within darkness
and candled eternal stars

City in Spring

Rolling towards the broad avenue
in bright sun the neighborhood renews
its old pledge to see a better year than last.
So much in the past belongs to regret
and wet-eyed promises to forget and build anew;
there is a spring of the spirit too.

The tires dip into a crevice
born of winter ice seems thrice
the time winter spent  to springs short lease.
All the shivered cries, hopes for arctic release,
words etched into short term pain, polar vortex
the bane of Great Lakes still ice covered some,
as the Arctic melts away.

City in Spring, robins sing, black Squirrels-
like thugs in dark hoods- seem more intent
to breach window screens and nest in attics;
gnawing  like insatiable demon-kind
arousing expletives from little church-lady lips,
they chop the tops from her flower beds.

Yet it is spring, long awaited short-lived warmth
cold-felt memories melt in heat of a friendlier sun
and once again we think of the price of gain, and
why there is no thaw in the vicious maws of greed.
Burn, burn more oil than we could ever need, given
the green side of wind and light; so we wait still

for Spring in the City is a job that pays
all who lift the boat against the downward tide-
the tried and proved path to ruin.
It is there in our hands, hope and prosperity-
spring that is unbounded, generous and for All.

Spring when we value the things...that make new life