The sycamore, the sky, and the mind between

"Departure, Serene"

A whisper to the sycamore

In the holy warmth of summer

Shrouds our hearts among wildflowers.

These greens and shades of earth

Neither call us to a table,

Nor point to the beaten paths of fathers.

Simply and softly,

These woods whisper of the truth

In our mortality.

The wind laps up the dew,

Nudges the morning listeners,

Peels the leaves from the trees.

The vines long to dance,

To hold themselves together.

By the silences, the ibis lands,

Red as an apple, lonesome as I.

A consideration and departure, serene.

We rise, climbing in the breath of the sun’s praise

With our spirits outliving stage after stage of affairs.

We grip the majestic –

How the mountains wait in confinement,

The streams of life, content to wander

Through the sumptuous stone blades

And to the ocean, what a grave site.

Her mighty waves, like wings,

Lift to expose coverts, wild,

And plunge into the face of permanence.

The woods, in its course, mend mortality.

As a shell clinging to a shell,

A cicada fixed upon the sycamore,

We remember how loyal these colors remain.

And still our memory separates us from this canvas.

The bleakness hangs us with green sashes on,

A part of the past hanging just past the arm.

Strength discloses in the grazing of our hands,

A whisper to the trees.

The Lion-hearted Man and His Summer Moon

A roaring at midnight

For the light I adore

Did nothing but my peace restore.

Darkness deepening signs that curled

Into these lines of yonder world.

Sightless state draws passion from

Sunburnt fashion, what was numb.

Canyons rolling sounds I’ve made

To such astounding everglade,

Where a heart of woes roars from my face,

'Tis soothing hum in such a place.

A region conscious as blackened street

And I slackened above my feet,

Relaxed in unoffending tide,

Your beauty sending light to guide.

(Out, you shone to kindle then.

I hope to dream of hope again.)

Every stand ‘neath mystic moon

Is now cordially bound to June,

When resting means return to thee

And waking streams of poetry.

With her face in my dreams

I am cornered tonight,

Seized by what I bravely invite.

Deep Earplugs

A capsule-like remedy wedges distance

Between edges and existence.

White noise turns black on these nights,

Cold, with warmth sliding into place,

Thorns budding, volcanoes melting into the sea.

You can hear the coals, tired beneath the flames,

And the dampened voices become tuneful.

The snow tames the briers, and the pond

Sleeps in the stillness of the meadow.

The white upon the evergreen falls with

A silent sigh of a distant storm.

The crystal cups, hidden from the moon,

Gather before the firelight

To gleam in their emptiness and never die.

Whitehorse

Up the streams of grassland stones
Beyond the trails of leaves and cones,
She smells the daisies, noses past,
Wonders, perhaps, if they will last.
Or does she pray over poisoned weather,
How nothing lives then dies together?

The painter is patient among the flowers,
Leaving the scene to the evening hours,
Forgiving the sun for abandonment
And walking alone through moonlight lent.

The see-through drapes are shifting clouds,
Drifting high above the crowds.
Uncrumpled bill upon the table,
Traded gladly for something stable -
Something strong and soft, of course,
Like the face of a whitehorse.

Shyly grazing near the streams,
Almost motionless, she seems,
tasting of the rotting fruit,
Soft like her and without root.