unbridled path

I have grown distant from the sky,
from the inviting mysteries of faraway fires
the teeming night of the past that visits
fresh to the wondering eye and taunts
imagination for its difficult reality-
travelers from the time before
the world on which I stand.

It is the minutiae, the bacterium scale
of tedium that keeps a greatness at bay;
the way a puddle can keep the man from
a destined step, or the way a breeze can alter
a life-altering thought, and as a wisp of smoke
curls to reprise a precious memory.

All the world can seem a folly when
days begin and end in a circle with no particular gain
and the distant sky, even in memory, whispers;
it is waiting, holding my place
upon its unbridled path to forever.

saudade to unlived life

The universe became a dream
a snowflake formed of galaxies
drifted in light-less cold, it beams
a candle flickered, it breathes 
of an Eternal Wind

and, upon it all

I drape this meager reach of life
from an immortal perch of thought
and build a mountain of faith
to stand above the curved mold of time
Seeing places I can never be, bound as all, we
have created chains from the will to be free.

Anchored in mire of other men's greed
seduced by banal fantasies of need, we lie
upon a wilted meadow
Watch carefree birds and chameleon clouds fly
as we quick descent to dust of dusty stars.
Only the mind is free to be as wont, only the will
is able to chart the untraveled parts of human journeys.
There is a creeping door, that closes more upon
each breath, life's brief flame, and we
the brittle filament and feel this moment
a saudade to the unlived life,
a deeply-missed could have been, we place
into a daily grave

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.

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.

a love poem

Watching waves

cross the face of the sea

rhythmic rise and fall,

as beneath an airy canopy , water
caresses land.

Of all the thoughts it gently brings

none so pleasing as the way to say 

your name: rising and falling across my lips;

like the power of tides to stir deep waters.

Yet, the greatest of these

are in infant scale to the tiniest part

of vast seas of time; and yes, like  tides  

waves of vagrant and purposeless light,

traveled on-and-on.

They cross the wandered path

of this momentary existence,

transformed by you...

into a place

of boundless love

23rd Love poem

In a time of Moon and Jupiter
is  cold that holds so many warm thoughts.
There an ancient waltz of distant orbs
plays close to mind and eye; a certain
delight in winter skies, soon gone.

Spring will ring in the hearts of many
in this time of Moon and distant throngs of Moons
let my thoughts find a close orbit
in your eyes as they take in more of this world
its pains and the lights- yes, even within them.

As of  near and distant Moons, bright comet swoons
we create mystery to explain the known.
You are faraway yet frequently near
when I think of dear words, and moonlit epithets.

fires

Born of fire

of eruptive violence

a voiceless  roar still marked

in the tympani of vibrating strings

tides of time and rippled space

We, poured from ancient cauldrons

into droplets, spread like rains across a desert

blown into wind flown swirls, into time

like clouds that adorn mountains

fill cascades and streams

Into life like so many other ways of life

tiny emulative universes, scaled microcosms

of a greater stage of nature; yet we too

create, imagine and search for things

that speak to us of us, as if to look into

worlds within us was not sufficient proof.

We search and reason compounds reason

until in a cycle like a completion, we understand:

we are born of fires and so we must simply burn.

 _____________________________________

The birth and death of stars reminds us of some important things: the connection of humanity to a deep history of the Universe.  Every part of us and nearly everything we know has come from the cycle of stars- the atoms and elements that make our bodies were created in the immense heat and incredibly long lives of stars- carbon, calcium, iron all of the constituent parts of us, blown into space in the eruptions that end stars. We are connected in this way to the very beginnings of the vast structures we call Universe.  Connected at the undeniable level of the things all human have in common- the waters of our blood, the structure of our bodies, the electric energies that course through us--and of course the burning curiousity that drives us to wonder at everything we sense.  It is a wonder that we can create the idea of differences and strata among us, we who have a true common ancestry among a race of giant fires that endured  for eons and gave seeds of life to time and possiblity; and we who spend so much of our short spans in wonder of our creator, can marvel in the darkness of the things which have made us and everything around us, and ponder the powers of such great creation as an endless sea...of stars....hdm