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Friday, August 2, 2013

IN THE RIGGING: TEARS BEGAN TO FALL







IN THE RIGGING: TEARS BEGAN TO FALL

We were near Cinfuego waiting for pirates
We had been there for over two hundred years.
The stars had migrated and had chosen
Other places they wanted to visit.
We have been here previously. We had
See the constellations form and reform
Many times.  We have been to other worlds
It was indeed the sea that carried us there. 

They had propped the king in a corner
But he had been there so long
He looked like a pile of sticks
With some bits of cloth.

Sometimes the sea would turn 
Bright yellow as if the light
Came from within, the wave
Tops glowing.  At other times
Even in the night, the entire
Sea was a violet as if rubbed
To a burnish and then the next
Moment, opal, perfect opal.

We would take to the high
Rigging to see this. It was the sea.
They had me on gallants working all
The way to the Moonraker. 

Sometimes men seemed to be 
Walking in the surface of the water.
They were not ghosts.  They were men.

We lived in rooms filled with sand.
The tide came in blistering the sand.
We were above the wave line among
The lemon trees.  The sands looked black.
The water sounded pleasing.  The king 
Surely would return from that pile of sticks.

Surely he would return.  These seas shall
Remain unknown forever, mysterious and clear.
The clock weaving in and out of what we choose
To call dreams only because we are
Old and cannot but be the dreamer.
It seems a fair, fair wind follows.
A clear water indeed.  We know no longing.
We are captured by the History of
The Night Borges spoke of, our eyes
Still scanning the horizon, should there
Be a place where we might land.




Monday, July 29, 2013




HORSE LANGUAGE

His family had been red and wore
The clouded suits worn by those
Who could not mark the truth
With words but bore it rather
In the patterns of colors on their horses

They speak by gathering groups of these
Beautiful horses into certain configurations.
They run them past one another
Changing their order on every run so that
The patterns are read differently
Each time.  Some are so skilled
That they can write music with the horses.

When we came to them the voyages
Had been going on for quite some time.
Things were being traded that would
Not be understood for many, many years.
We asked which way the children
Had gone, what they had carried
With them and their ages.
It took two full days of horse
Display for that information to be conveyed.

We have been on the trails now
For over four months.  Everything
Seems just beyond our understanding,
Slightly out of reach.  It is very
much like mining a poem to get
Any information.  In the evenings 
We sit and watch the light depart.
We listen for hoofbeats  through the dark,
The cries of wolf-like creatures,

Flames of red eyes circling our
Campfires, sure that we will fail
To find the children.

We find ourselves forgetting their names,
How we became separated,
Why we speak the way we do today.



Sunday, July 28, 2013

WHAT WE WANT






WHAT WE WANT

To hear the voice tell us stories.
The heart went questing with true
Love and its page Ardent Desire.
To know this is true, as true
As clouds lifting against the 
Horizon, building higher than ideas.

Oh please tell us the truth.
Tell us about Mister Death
And his lovely dances full of leaps,
Full of daring and challenges.
The color of the sky at twilight.

When we wait at night for the
Lights to quit and make soft
Cloaks around our thoughts
So we may sleep.  Children,
Families, lovers and deer feeding
Beside streams full of moonlight.

Let us stand here together.
I will hold you to me and kiss
Your lips.  I will tell you and you
Will tell me.  We will be able to see
The silver of enchanted light through
The trees.   We will agree that our lives
Shall always have this sheen about them.

Far to the North, just before the snows
Begin to own everything for months
At a time we hear the voices again.
Cantatas that overcome death, leave
Us choruses swelling with prayers,
Rejoicing beyond measure, the seasons
So full we wash in them and they flow
Over silken skin as clouds lifting
Against the horizon, building higher than ideas.