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Friday, August 30, 2013

ROADS






ROADS

Somewhere, just outside of where
You live, a field has opened up and swallowed
An entire portion of history as if it were
The wind.  This was not an earthquake,
Tornado or flood.  It was not the wind or weather
Of any kind at all.  Yet the loss was total.

Memory is locked in cells, a billion patterns
Whirling round a web of friendships, songs,
School days and incidental sightings: you riding
Past on your bicycle on a clear Spring day,
The first roses still struggling against the cool
Rub of the days; the way the oak trees lean
Toward the season, giving us notice.

And then all is gone.  Those people who lived
Here, or near here eighty and more years ago,
Are no longer vertical, no longer blessed by light.
They have no voices.  We walk the same places
They did and there is not one thing we know
About them.

We notice strange configurations of buildings.
A fence that has no  purpose, a row of trees.
A handful of houses that “have always been here.”

Watch the opening of the leaves and flowers.
Look far into the easing of evening across your sight.
Remember all the names of friends, the kinds of music
That we recognize.  May memory serve you well.

Here are bridges.  They were built long before you
Were born.  This one connects one city to another;
This, a country to yet another.  The road here is old.
It was built because and English king needed to get
To the racetrack more quickly.  It runs along the forest
Edge, skirting one hundred villages.  We do not know 
the names of these places.  We name them with our breath.
Our breath names nothing.  All places change.  All naming too.




Tuesday, August 27, 2013

THE REMEMBERING WIND


Duy Huynh
Warwick Goble

THE REMEMBERING WIND

Spring to Summer, Summer 
The vernal pools with their white birds
Gathered at the edges. The gold
On the rocks. That oak tells
Everything it knows.  This is
The remembering wind.  This
Is its time.  We will see it so 
Seldom we will try to touch
Its tall choirs swirled with clover
fields and flowers of a thousand colors.

We catch at its fine strings, shaking
Ourselves to believe.  This is the 
Remembering wind.  It glistens
Like jewel stone glistens.  We are
Learning to speak once again.
The tall ships move into our
Language, their sails full of 
The Remembering wind.

It is morning.



Monday, August 26, 2013

ANOTHER VAMPIRE......after Kipling

 clouds
 falling
The Change

ANOTHER VAMPIRE
after Kipling

Broken I was and beyond repair
(I never could understand.)
I’d stand in the rain and think it was fair
( I knew I was wrong but I just couldn’t care)
But still I stood and still I stared
(I never could understand.)

I stepped on my dreams, or so it seems
I tried to keep them all clear
But there was never a dawn that could draw me on
( Now I can feel and I tried hard to feel)
And I struggled, but named it fear.

I was loved or thought may be I might
(I never could understand)
Still I leaned into the fight
Broke my spirit to capture the light
(And the light it was never that bright)
(I never could understand.)

Oh the things I would do to make this seem true
Were never enough, much too bland
And now I can feel, As I am able to feel
(But please understand that I barely can feel)
Yet it still seemed all much too grand.

I’m broken apart, like it matters at all
(I never could understand.)
And I’ve tripped on the verge and I crawl
(But it doesn’t seem real, just small)
Still I grew, but was broken, was never so tall
(I never could understand.)

And now in the twilight I beg for a bright light
And it cuts like a curse from a height.

And I’ll never know how it caught me and so
(My soul has gone from me, faith, I never will know)
And I never will understand.



Sunday, August 25, 2013

MIRROR IMAGE



Knut Ekwall (1843-1912)


MIRROR IMAGE

He didn’t look at all as he imagined
Himself to look.  When he came
Upon himself reflected his view
Was always, seemingly, oblique.

Obscured at times by serious
Happenstance, flocks of birds,
The whipping of lianas or palm
Fronds against the windows
As the light from the oil lamp
Bounced the reflections off
The glass,  it was not likely
That he would be in any
Space where a proper mirror
Might be found that wasn’t smoked
Or distressed by having the lovely
Mercury scraped from its back,
Making him look tearful or
Extremely lonely as an old 
Waltz might be lonely,

The music unable to bear the weight
Clarity would require and become
Indeterminate, a misfortune.

He became a hostage to his ideas
That everything he saw was
Infected in this way and
The only places comfort could
Be found were  either blasted
Clear of living things or so totally
Overgrown that passage through
To pure sunlight was also seemingly
Impossible  He betrayed himself

To a distant idea that could
convey little, stripped of any
Possessions of perception
He himself might have beyond shadows,
Wings unable to fully open,
A disguise that passed
For recognition with no
Feeling except in irritating memory.