A Higher Place

 

                                                      A Higher Place

                                                                                          Click to enlarge

My turnings quicken,

I feel unfitted,

My folds forgotten;

I do not match where I am,

Aloneness has become isolation;

I reach into darkness and touch nothing,

I must find the light or never see;

 I can find no way back...

To where, I do not know.

I must climb a mountain path

And find a higher place,

Above the roar of rage and wrath,

Beyond the cast of shadowed fate...

A world beneath my feet,

The edge of the universe

Only an arm's reach.

                                                                                          Click to enlarge

Place of silence

A Place of Silence

                                                                      Click to enlarge

                         

                      

I would find a place of silence

And listen there to hear

What only quiet brings,

When thoughts can then rebound

And wonder to a deeper place,

Where all the world around

Becomes a faint and distant sound.

                                                                                                Click to enlarge

So briefly mine

So Briefly Mine

                                                                      Click to enlarge

As morning turns to noon

And noon to evening time

Thence sleep to end the day,

So death will come

To take my life away.

So as I sleeping lie

And live my life to die,

Will I know no other time

Than these moments...

So briefly mine.

                                                                                                Click to enlarge

Solitude

Solitude

                                                                       Click to enlarge

Solitude my shelter

Apart the human gale,

Whence true to self

No promise fails.

                                        Click to enlarge

Haloed Leaves

Haloed Leaves

                                                            Click to enlarge

A noonday sun

A canopy of trees

A million haloed leaves

A passing autumn breeze...

A rhyme and rhythm

Of starlight and motion,

The glorious dance of Creation.

Stones

Stones

                                                                     Click to enlarge

I sat for awhile

Beside the wilderness stones,

Listening to the silence,

The human absence.

I watched a squirrel

Rummage in a golden grass

Gathering its morning harvest;
Felt the late Autumn breeze
Rippling the cold mountain waters,

Warning of winter snows;

Saw starlight beams

Casting life upon the evergreen...

A substance pervaded,
A sense of related meanings
Gravitating together,
Pulling me from human separation
 Into a great gathering of elements...
Pieces perfectly composed,
A cosmic symphony
Played to my witness...
Inviting my return.

Peacefulness veiled everything,

Embracing the moment of Eden,
The moment of mergence.

Soon the visitor will leave,
Return to the disassociated fragments
Of human separation.
Evening will settle darkness on his moment of light,
Time will tumble his temple of stones,
No murmur will remind of his passing...
But his homage has come home

To the place of his belonging.

                                                                     Click to enlarge

  

Everland

Everland

                                                                     Click to enlarge

I never lived in Everland

Where hearts are seldom sad;

I only lived in Neverland

Where dreams are only dreams...
And hearts are seldom glad.

                                                                    Click to enlarge

True Friends

True Friends

                                                                     Click to enlarge

There are true friends

I will never meet,
A few I've met but never see...
Once near sails now adrift
Upon the endless sea,

Souls of likeness unseen

Beyond a poet's plea.

In harmony our chorus'd songs

Of praised wonders unheard,

Yet bonded our solitary hearts

By Truth and passion shared
In that fond and knowing place
Apart the realm of words expressed,
Where kindred hearts and unseen friends

At last embrace.

                                                                                               Click to enlarge

Surfaces

Surfaces

                                                                     Click to enlarge

I see surfaces,

Sunbeam reflections

On soundless pools,
The sparkling light
In the endless night;

Frowns and smiles,

Gowns and styles,

The dance of gesture--
The endless parade of pretense,
The zealous
Orchestration of invented meanings...
Unreality escaping reality,

Never do I see

The underneath,

The Being beneath,
The abiding Truth withheld--
The inaccessible wavelength,
Cosmic secrets
The eye is not meant to see...

Is it nothingness to which we venture?
A pointless path of made up meanings?

Bits of sensation we construct

Into imagined realities?
Or a veiled Wonder
That waits the eye that sees?

A mind that understands?

                                                                      Click to enlarge

Brevity

Brevity

                                                                      Click to enlarge

I do not mourn my brevity

Among these lasting things--

The sea and ocean shore,

The inland mountain's crest,

The river canyons

Where rushing waters pursue their primal quest,

The ancient forests and desert sands,
The meadow valleys and desolate lands,
The lights and shadows of revolving worlds aglow,

All in their cosmic dress.

Surrounded by eternal forms

My littleness abounds;

My wondering witness the grant they give,

My brief stay Creation's gift,

My fading print upon the ageless clay.
Before these cherish'd scenes I pray...

This mortal me

On a windswept day

By the ocean sea...

Beheld Eternity.

                                                                     Click To enlarge

No Moorage

No Moorage

                                                                       Click to enlarge  

No home do I remember

To mark a place embarked.

I know no purpose for my passage,

Nor where my course is bound;

Only a rolling swell of moments

On a sea of endless time;
The lash of sudden gales,
A seldom sun-filled sky
And ever turning tides...

With no moorage to be found
On the boundless boundless brine.

                                                           

                                                                                                 Click to enlarge

Waiting

Waiting

                                                                     Click to enlarge

As a flower

Grows from within,

The bloom a promise

In the seed,

So I have also been,

Awaiting within

The promise of me.

Weathered

Weathered

                                                                      Click to enlarge

We cannot know

In a human life

The wear of eternity...

To stand a million rages,

Unmoved,

Only weathered by the task

Of forever waiting.

                                                                      Click to enlarge

A Willing Heart

A Willing Heart

                                                                      Click to enlarge

If I could choose
A grace or gift
It wouldn't be a clever wit, 

An evoking art

Or handsomeness,

But a willing heart...

To always find the finish

From the start.

                                                                      Click to enlarge

Evening Time

Evening Time

                                                                     Click to enlarge

A million years we have come

To embrace only a day,

And already it is evening time--

The twilight's seductive passing

From moment into mystery.

                                                                       Click to enlarge

Another Year

Another Year

                                                                     Click to enlarge

The end of another year...

The moments pass,

Our lives change

With the lessons of time. 

Some dreams end,

Others we did not find.

                                                          Click to enlarge

The Emptiness

The Emptiness

                                                                      Click to enlarge

The emptiness beckons me,
The desolation of untrod wilderness.

I want to follow

Unaware of the distance I must go

To find the edges

That bound'ry me.

                                                                      Click to enlarge

 

The World Without

The World Without

                                                                     Click to enlarge

To the world without

I was always discontent,

Flighty,

In my ever shifting bent.

But in me a spirit yearned,

A seeking to return,

To find again

The world of wonder

It remembered of,
To search the secret 'bodes
Where mysteries hide;

To somehow circumvent the mind

Whose habits bind,

The world of Man

Whose fears debilitate and blind.

Sunday Fishermen

Sunday Fishermen

                                                                     Click to enlarge

Sunday fishermen

Casting thoughts to sea,

Adrift in silent reverie,

Hoping the morrow affords

Another dream fill'd sea.

The Green Lane

The Green Lane

                                                                      Click to enlarge

What fears did they know

Who walked this lane of green

Those far-off years ago?

What passing joys interposed

The pains that hardship surely posed?

What scant possessions

Did they love that robbers stole

Along this lane of green

That I now so wondering stroll?

                                                                       Click to enlarge

 

A Moon Silver'd Sea

A Moon Silver'd Sea

                                                                      Click to enlarge

                                                                             

A moon silver'd sea

A remembered me

A forgotten me

A changing shadow

On a silver sea.

                                      Click to enlarge

I Remember

I Remember

                                                                     Click to enlarge

I remember being twenty one,

Broke, no job to find.

I remember the fear and shame,

The invisible tomorrows,

The panic that raced my heart 

Through sleepless nights

While I hid in my darkness

Afraid for the sun to rise,

Afraid for the dawning light

To reveal my fading life.

Things went well enough

After that time...

The world turned

And lurched me to a better place.

But I remember,

I remember too much

To shame a jobless man--

To blame the human heart

And not the rule of circumstance...

God how this place

Can hurt its people.

 

Occasions

Occasions

                                                                     Click to enlarge

Over the years

I have attended occasions,

Not really lonely or sad

But looking to be touched

By something,

Something to give meaning to living

Beyond breath and consumption,

Beyond the human immersion;

A song of Truth

With a melody to lift my soul

Among the eternal motions;

To see my moments in the cosmic mirror,

Not Man's.

www.poemshares.com



The Playhouse Stage

The Playhouse stage

                                                                        Click to enlarge

Where do I go,

How far do I travel

To find the places and people

Who visit my dreams?

Do they come here,

Do I go there?

Is it all as real as it seems?

Where is the playhouse stage

Where the plays are played?

Who writes the script

And tells the time,

Who appoints the place

Where dreams are made?





It Belongs To Them

It Belongs To Them

                                                                       Click to enlarge

It belongs more to them than us;

They rhyme with the wind and wave,

Move with the primal motions,

Each a dancer in the cosmic dance.

We have made ourselves outsiders,

Passersby watching without knowing,
Vandals of the cradle

With no ear for the song.

We think it is ours

But it only waits our passing.
And when we are gone
No anthem will praise
No dirge will mourn.

                                                               Click to enlarge

Fifty Thousand Years

Fifty Thousand Years

                                                              Click to enlarge

I know about the unaloneness

Of friendship

That lasts 'till you're alone;

I know about moments of amusement,
Trips to get away,
And promises that seem sincere when made.
I know about the brief intensity of pleasure,
The sometimes endlessness of pain.
I know about working for a living,
The often slight rewards of effort,
The slowness of getting ahead,
How easy to lose and hard to gain...
And I know about the merciful silence of solitude,
Being wrapped in the absence of sound
When everything human is nowhere found.

But let me know if you

Find any meaning

To fifty thousand years

Of war and killing.

                                                                       Click to enlarge

Near The Exit

Near The Exit

                                                                      Click to enlarge

Best not to be an actor

In the play,
A partisan upon the stage;

Nor a member of the mass
Who adoringly pay the wage.
But mostly not a member of the throng
Who applaud the players of the fraud...
The singers of the loyal song.

For when the closing curtain falls
Upon the last turning of the page,

Best to be a watcher in the wing

Near the exit from the coming rage...

The coming coming rage.





Immeasurable Moment

Immeasurable Moment

                                                              Click to enlarge

                                                             

The present is not long,

Only a moment rushing in

From the future

Falling instantly to the past,

An ever moving immeasurable moment,

Ever beginning ever ending;

A never stopping moment of now.

                                      Click to enlarge