Saturday, October 7, 2017

Authors of Confusion




Into my childhood ears, wisdom poured
From the lips that held the most precious breath
The voice that carried a wisdom from then unto then, and even now
The tones of truths held dear, re-echo, resound
Reappear as that which cannot be long hidden.

Time reaps and returns like the grasp of the seas
That take and keep all things- until returned to the light.
The proof of what was, and that it has ever been,
Held in deeps and keep of the ages, but never gone.

God is not the author of confusion…

In the mysteries of eternities,
there is clarity in the mind of a child;
purity lies in the warm heart of truth
as age turns the young green leaves to gold.
Honesty is abundant like the sun
free to fill the eyes of all that welcome warmth,
and  so too is choice--
the voice within that quietly submits
to the noisy world.

As time molds and shapes us
Like trees agreed with wind and rain
To stand thus; we yet fulfill
The fruits of seasons. The sweetness
Of the inner place can fall from its natural place
Of inherent reflection, a fallen grace, buried
Beneath a worldly gold, and thus
Inscribed, a soul lost in the midst of life.

Tossed in chaos; the inner strife divided
The mansion of many rooms dissolves
Unfound, among rumors of crows in a defiant fog.
Defiant, even unto the burning thaw of dawn. Reborn
Are they now, disciples of the Lost, and chain bound followers,
Dedications of the  authors of confusion.


Saturday, September 16, 2017

The Death of the Apple Tree...




...was not a thing foretold.
It had no predicate in augury or suspicion.
The slow demise that sudden sprung
Caught my sight and breath
The apple tree undone, severed  by a pale wisp of wind.

[I call the Apple he and she
to honor the latent memory
legend, belief, and mystery -
He and She  the human journey
began in Eden with a tree]

He and she had grown old and weak, for so long
Was old and strong…what went wrong?
Why did the lichen covered trunk suddenly
Bend the green grass?
Leaves withered over half. Dry twigs for supple branches
She once wore robin’s nests in her hair, now so bare
And the fruits...tiny and forgiving
food for squirrels and flowers for bees.
The death of the Apple tree on the corner
At the juncture of Oak and winding streets with forgettable names
There in the soft gaze of a drooping fir, 
and not so far from the old Sycamore.
 The old apple fell; a mere block away, the nearest apple tree, bent low
like an old weeping woman, seems in peril too.



Why should this gnarled and broken tree

Speak any consequence to me.

On an urban island, its tragedy

Confined to casual passersby.

I see the core gone empty

where once was heartwood, sturdy

Life water left rings of age and purity.

Was it the early swelling of its nodes

when her white blankets  unfold

and earth would soon lift her chin’

And tend to my delight the slow  bend

From frigid air to buzzing bees.

Perhaps the flash of deepest red and early

blossoms so fragile that we dread flurry

from gusts, or rain in windy pelting

No, I think it is the time;  I am blessed to see

Many things at beauty’s end, simply…and so many
 

The death of the apple tree ripples news, as cars pause to note
The change from yesterday and the scores of years before
As he and she rose from sapling to be the throne
of red top cardinal and vibrant Blue Jay
Now. A solitary Pecker sights the culprits beneath the tired old skin
Rap-a-tap gobble down too late
For the Apple tree is gone- and the roots
Crackle and sigh in the night for the sun
Can only whisper now…of glory days  and sweet fruit.

Saturday, July 29, 2017

time upon time

Time won't let me forget; time won't let me remember.
Time is short and it is infinite; it bridged eternal divides
carried on endless tides.
Time once held me, shadow-bound in chains,
days passed with the weight of eons,
as time pressed heavy against the hopeful hearts that brought me
Time tempered prayers for freedom;
it is the hard forge that turns faith to steel.

Time saw the day the chains fell away, when
words of prideful owners were owned by the ascendant
--chattel became an archaic and slain word--
Time chimed in the glad moon; as human might
resurrected its holy light. The overcoming power of spirit
made fine metal from pig iron, and distilled
time into the finest vine of life.

Monday, July 17, 2017

The last two

Ahhh if you and I
 were the last two at two;
the sudden sound of the barman's melody...
last call for alcohol.
The poetry of two a.m.,
conversation and sloe gin. Ahhh,
if you and I were the last two at two,
at the edges of night and morn;
no sideways glance would pass the chance
to sidle and say " did you have one of those..?"

Days that make the ways of life seem unfathomed, or
Days that part the waters only to see them fall.
Days that show our best and worst in a single request
when God offers us the chance to be an angel, and we quiver...

Ahhh, but that was all in the first glass and this
is the miracle of two at two, and,
like thought in my mumbled inventions,
the chance of further sobriety is remote
and as far away as dawn.