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.

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.

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.

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.

THE ESSENTIALS OF THE IDYLL

Artus Scheiner

THE ESSENTIALS OF THE IDYLL

It is sweetest right next to the sky.

Just before you cross the line.

The air is limpid.

The sea has forgotten

About waves for a few hours.

Words have tracks

As we talk.  They look

Like tiny wrens, full of

Close shadings, a bright beak

Flashes; hard to see when

We’re in the woods.

Nothing has a surface.

We are inside of everything.

I was hoping you wouldn’t

Get this far with this poem.

I was hoping the images would

Continue on their own and make

A story for you, elicit a sensation

That would capture you,

Provide some transportation.

Instead, here I am alone

With you, amazed at the color

Of the sky, the way the breeze tricks

It’s way through Summer,

The kind of quiet, working

Like this precipitates.

Before you go, one Summer when

I was about eight years old,

My father stopped the car as dark 

Was coming.  While the children and

my mother watched, he walked into a

Small woods near Lake Ontario

To catch fireflies for us to see up close.

The woods were a great flashing field

Filled with millions of lights, millions.

I have never seen anything like that

Evening ever since then, until now.

THE SWARMING

It is nice to see that 12 people follow this site.  Hello friends.

THE SWARMING

The jungle was already torn when we arrived.

One could see into the gash for an extremely

Long way.  It looked like an ancient ritual

Might look where the celebrant reached into

The chest of the victim and pulled the heart,

Still beating, from the body and held it high

For all to see.

The birds were the first to exit the cover.

Their cries were a voluble explosions,

Chatter and freakish noises that permeated

The air and then the skin, flooding the heart

With the anguish of its sounds.

The rainbows of feathers had no apparent

Order.  There was only a cacophony of color.

No flocks here.  Only terribly frightened birds

Swirling from the deepest parts of the jungle.

We retreated to our vehicles when the insects

Flowed from the great forest.  It was too much 

To absorb; the sounds, the metallic voices, 

The unmistakable hum of millions upon millions 

Of insects pouring through the opening and making

Tsunami as they coursed across the land.  We were unable

To even see anything from our cars, so covered they were

With the seething bodies of endless tiny creatures.

The washed over us and rejoined the jungle behind us.

The greater animals followed not concerned at all

That we were there.  The sullen coughs and roars,

The screams and calling of all species filing past,

Not intending harm, just moving, moving to leave

This sorry intrusion into another world, not theirs,

Not ours.

We were to follow them.  As they passed we started

Our engines and formed a close pack, growling and

Sliding on the boggy ground.  They hadn’t seen 

The last of us.  We were witness to what they did.

We would return, all of us.  All of us. The planet still

Whirling as if directed by some mad force intent

On telling each of us how to behave, what to do.

THE PORCH IN MIDSUMMER (world and idea)

THE PORCH IN MIDSUMMER

(world & idea )

A jar full of red flowers.

It was the way light

Moved across them but 

Oh, the time was dead

And oh, the seeing was dead

And oh, there was no way

Left to focus and Oh, what

Was there to say coming

Home?  “I could not see

The red flowers and now

This camera too is broken

And I wonder if we can see

Anything, anymore.”  All that

Was left took years to pull

Itself together, slightly out

Of focus, slightly overburdened

With the marks paint uses

To describe light, it sits there,

A beautiful thing, arcing

This way and that, between

What was and is, between words

And image, between world and ideas.