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.