The Search

Chasing the summer sun at dusk

Bouncing red and white off the awning of the trees,

The boundaries of life are laid out unadorned,

Like syrup dripping from hardwood

Fountains of hickory, alder and birch.

We all know what we want.

It’s just that everyone does not know where to find it.

The thick air sighs.

The streams fade away.

The windows at the edge of the road

Make the case for driving on.

Something Else

Most have minds like vacant rooms;

Others wander to the rim of the canyon.

A few set off beyond that untouched fringe of our humanity.

Soft numbers seem to fill the borders of our lives;

Encircle us within that limited horizon.

We barely know of it when we arrive in this world,

Bereaved of light and unable to walk on our own.

Yet, the best of our best possess instincts

That extend clear of where we are in time and space.

Lucid eyes, made so by desperate desire,

Tie that invisible thread

Binding curiosity to delight.

What shall we call this?

A glimpse of alchemy?

Blinding ache?

Tomorrow’s filament of real and imagined light?

The whole of night is quiet,  yet the mind not so.

It is something else.

Stealing Time

                                                              

Stealing time,

Skipping stones along the river,

We separate from our own heart.

The best of us extends well beyond this place,

To that unnamed part of all things.

Adrift.

Symmetry and resonance

Shed graceful threads about,

Tying minds up like some ribbon on a gift.

The hard shield of skin softens.

No matter how much we worry about suffering,

The measure we have of consciousness

Will take a breather from the rain.

We can’t bargain.

We can’t even pray.

We stand silently by while what we know drifts away.

Stealing time,

Skipping stones along the river.

Gray Soldier’s Sigh

      

By the clouded spectral  light of  Winter’s moon,

On this burnished ocean without a shore,

I row atop swells of cresting dunes

Apace hushed music of  the muted oars.

Circumscribed with gold by hip and calf,

Hollow reeds about me breath the dim sky.

As I glide across to my other half.

Singing the song of a gray soldier’s sigh.

Adrift devoid the balance to my heart,

Defeated by this promise of my debt;

Where nothing to remember plays a part

In releasing me from things that I regret.

Lie next to me in the coming grass of time,

Should this life’s debt return a blissful find.

Blue Soul and Chaste Angel

                                      

Blue soul and chaste angel,

You fail to recognize

The path by which old myths fell;

Like scrim of a red dawn scraping the skies.

Stumbling through a life you knew only in name,

Unclear yet compelling links are sold.

Like smoke rising in joists of a wooden frame

Hands explore where dreams unfold.

In tune with the far-off purr of power lines,

A measured breeze cradles the tide.

Does this mark the end of one season’s crimes,

Or render inert a memorable ride?

Tortured psyche and estranged urban guise;

What essential qualities will settle and sift?

It is best to know when sailing the vessel

That things unmoored tend to drift.

Exit

I know you are sad about my leaving.
I am here now, and will be tomorrow.

Have no fear of what will become of my vision;
That fraudulent sense, that unsigned murmur.
For soon, I will see without sight.

Vision can be as bitter as winter.
It can lead you into a snowstorm in the wrong direction,
Coldness submitting you to turn back.

Yet, without sight, vision becomes as innocent as love.

Have no fear of what will become of my hearing;
That beguiling function, that impalpable pulse.
For soon, the flash of sound drains away.

Sound can be as sour as spring green apples,
Guiding you into a well of thunder,
Deceiving the receiver.

Yet, without sound, hearing becomes as pure as the wool of a lamb.

Have no fear of what will become of my touch;
That cream of sensuality, that corpus of caress.
For soon, I will feel without touch.

Touch can be as sharp as stinging nettles,
Stabbing the most solid of souls,
Wounding in hurtful ways.

Yet, without touch, feeling is transparent and clean.

How did we come to this place,
This precipice of disembodiment?
We wish it were different,
But, the vital forms must return to the Athenaeum.

I know you are sad about my leaving.
I am here now, and will be tomorrow.

Small Lyrics

                                                Sanborn Library

                                                Dartmouth College

                                                August 24, 2012

I take in the scent of old wood.

It becomes one with me.

I relish what the incense does.

Intoxicant;

A mixture of tobacco, varnish,

Faded sunlight, and memories.

Expectant air hangs;

Sounds muffled.

Stacks of musty, ancient books;

Their raggedness, their dated echoes;

Printed and reprinted talkers;

Bindings imprison words as if they were a jail,

Which, upon spilling open,

Pour forth words;

Painted illusions which connect, harmonize;

Weave ideas into the structure of thought.

Small lyrics of the fates of mountains, men, and morality,

Sung in the silent sheaves of brittle pulped parchment.

I, as those before me, sit under the evaporating light

Of the yellow dimming sun,

To taste the vestiges and essence of all that was wrought before me.