Written 2/20, edited 7/30
If the stars could speak, what would they tell us,
With their light that began so long ago, when
People wiser than we are first looked up at
The sky and asked from where they came?
If the eyes of my lover carry my reflection,
Can I gaze into the eyes of night like I gaze
Into yours, and catch a glimpse of the faces and
Upturned glances of other, ancient young men
Who first saw Orion with his belt, hunting through
The sky?
What secrets do they hold of me, these eyes,
Watching me those nights I spent atop the canyon's
And caverns where I finally discovered what it was
For which my soul ached, and what it was I wanted
To come into the walls of my heart, like the water
That carved those walls on which I stood,
Or the tendrils of galaxy that carved the heavens?
Stepping out of my tent in the middle of the night
To watch a shooting star that witnessed the moment
The first man told me he loved me?
Or were you watching as more words, other loves,
Were sent like your own light
Across vast distances to find me?
Words, like shooting stars, bearing the weight
Of all those ancient, stolen glances, an entire
Universe of existential questioning,
Traveling across time and space
To carve deeper and deeper into me,
While I drank in your eyes and softly kissed
Your lips.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Trilliums; For B-B-
Written 6/26, edited 7/30
The trillium is a three petal, three leaf flower
That grows on the forest floors of Michigan State Parks.
The tour guides will tell you this, but you won't
Believe them. Not until your eyes adjust to the darkness.
Then, you see?, they're everywhere, and always were.
*
I sit in the bookstore, on my lunch break,
Across the table from you as you read, and
I contemplate the shuffling of feet through
The forest floor, and the discovery of
Hidden treasures, revealed. I think of how the
World moves, how we move with it.
How the world moves with or without my hand
In it, with or without my assertion - The
Universal movement still happens, energies
Collide, doors unlock, people learn and love
And grow all across the world,
Even if I don't write these words,
Or drink this coffee,
Or make plans for a future more fulfilling
For myself, or for others, or with others,
Than that set before me, without my lifting a finger.
And the epiphanies - that many of the bad,
Negative, or stagnant states of mind or habits
Into which we fall are the manifestations of
The frightened children inside us,
Facing traumas as amalgamations -
That every pain or trauma in the past opens up
Feelings from past trauma and winds itself up
Into a tangled skein, where there's almost no hope
Of avoiding the hooks and snares.
Remarkable, that we have to be told that the flowers
Are growing beneath our feet on the forest floor.
Such beautiful flowers, that we cannot see on our own.
When darkness comes, our eyes will adjust,
But we'll only begin to see them once someone
Comes along, takes our hand, and points them out for us.
And once you see one, soon the forest floor explodes.
The trillium is a three petal, three leaf flower
That grows on the forest floors of Michigan State Parks.
The tour guides will tell you this, but you won't
Believe them. Not until your eyes adjust to the darkness.
Then, you see?, they're everywhere, and always were.
*
I sit in the bookstore, on my lunch break,
Across the table from you as you read, and
I contemplate the shuffling of feet through
The forest floor, and the discovery of
Hidden treasures, revealed. I think of how the
World moves, how we move with it.
How the world moves with or without my hand
In it, with or without my assertion - The
Universal movement still happens, energies
Collide, doors unlock, people learn and love
And grow all across the world,
Even if I don't write these words,
Or drink this coffee,
Or make plans for a future more fulfilling
For myself, or for others, or with others,
Than that set before me, without my lifting a finger.
And the epiphanies - that many of the bad,
Negative, or stagnant states of mind or habits
Into which we fall are the manifestations of
The frightened children inside us,
Facing traumas as amalgamations -
That every pain or trauma in the past opens up
Feelings from past trauma and winds itself up
Into a tangled skein, where there's almost no hope
Of avoiding the hooks and snares.
Remarkable, that we have to be told that the flowers
Are growing beneath our feet on the forest floor.
Such beautiful flowers, that we cannot see on our own.
When darkness comes, our eyes will adjust,
But we'll only begin to see them once someone
Comes along, takes our hand, and points them out for us.
And once you see one, soon the forest floor explodes.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
[unfinished]
I wonder what it would be like
If the process, the creation of art
Were something that could be witnessed
Or exhibited; if the artist and her subject
Were there, in rooms behind glass
Windows, lining the halls of museums,
And we were all privy to the colors,
The sounds, the feelings that capture
That moment when the eyes meet the object,
The muse awakens, when souls or words
Connect over thin air. An invisible moment
Made visible, made beautiful to more eyes
Than those so keen to absorb the beauty
That is seen and preserve it in oils,
Acrylics, or lines on a page.
- began 3/4. Still in progress.
If the process, the creation of art
Were something that could be witnessed
Or exhibited; if the artist and her subject
Were there, in rooms behind glass
Windows, lining the halls of museums,
And we were all privy to the colors,
The sounds, the feelings that capture
That moment when the eyes meet the object,
The muse awakens, when souls or words
Connect over thin air. An invisible moment
Made visible, made beautiful to more eyes
Than those so keen to absorb the beauty
That is seen and preserve it in oils,
Acrylics, or lines on a page.
- began 3/4. Still in progress.
Silence
I can't be okay with all this silence.
Instead of a calm, settling quiet,
A gentle veil or shroud to muffle the
Aching noises of the day to day,
Your silence is a raging river, a vast
Hollow echo that magnifies every move
I make until I'm forced to face the vastness
Of the empty space I occupy.
I find silence in abundance here.
Draped across chairs, stacked
In piles on the kitchen table or inserted
Among the books scattered on the shelf,
Those put up in a hurry whose titles aren't
Even visible to me. Your silence has the
Smell of neglect, and a certain dampness
That hovers just above my sheets, yet
Disappears just before I touch them.
I sweep up your silence on all the days
It's not too hard to push the broom.
The silence you always carried in your mind
Is the silence that spilled out into my everyday,
The mess you'd left behind for me to clean,
And I'm faced constantly with the magnification
Of the hollow beating of its heart
(or is that my own?),
As all the sounds forced inward now are only
Covered by the muffled cries of what used to be
Regret.
1/31, transcribed and edited 3/28
Instead of a calm, settling quiet,
A gentle veil or shroud to muffle the
Aching noises of the day to day,
Your silence is a raging river, a vast
Hollow echo that magnifies every move
I make until I'm forced to face the vastness
Of the empty space I occupy.
I find silence in abundance here.
Draped across chairs, stacked
In piles on the kitchen table or inserted
Among the books scattered on the shelf,
Those put up in a hurry whose titles aren't
Even visible to me. Your silence has the
Smell of neglect, and a certain dampness
That hovers just above my sheets, yet
Disappears just before I touch them.
I sweep up your silence on all the days
It's not too hard to push the broom.
The silence you always carried in your mind
Is the silence that spilled out into my everyday,
The mess you'd left behind for me to clean,
And I'm faced constantly with the magnification
Of the hollow beating of its heart
(or is that my own?),
As all the sounds forced inward now are only
Covered by the muffled cries of what used to be
Regret.
1/31, transcribed and edited 3/28
His hands
Another poem written about my grandfather, before he passed:
My grandfather still has a firm grip in his hands,
The hands that reared children, built homes,
Nourished strangers, travelled far, helping many;
The hands that took the lives of countless deer and game
To feed his family, while bringing new life to the world,
In children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren,
And thousands of souls through baptism and from his pulpit.
These hands rest now on the sides of his hospital bed,
The weight of the world pushing back on them
With a force finally greater than the force he was
With which to be reckoned. His hand still grips firm,
Even though his arms no longer keep himself afloat
In the sea of blankets, armchairs, wheelchairs,
And dinner trays. And I watch with subtle awe as
That hand, that held so much, that still grasps firm,
Finds its greatest comfort in the soft, tired, but true
Grip of another, as he smiles into her constant face
And slips into another perhaps less troubled sleep,
Still not letting go with his hands.
1/24/11
My grandfather still has a firm grip in his hands,
The hands that reared children, built homes,
Nourished strangers, travelled far, helping many;
The hands that took the lives of countless deer and game
To feed his family, while bringing new life to the world,
In children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren,
And thousands of souls through baptism and from his pulpit.
These hands rest now on the sides of his hospital bed,
The weight of the world pushing back on them
With a force finally greater than the force he was
With which to be reckoned. His hand still grips firm,
Even though his arms no longer keep himself afloat
In the sea of blankets, armchairs, wheelchairs,
And dinner trays. And I watch with subtle awe as
That hand, that held so much, that still grasps firm,
Finds its greatest comfort in the soft, tired, but true
Grip of another, as he smiles into her constant face
And slips into another perhaps less troubled sleep,
Still not letting go with his hands.
1/24/11
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Limbs
It's fascinating, how two souls connect -
Not just in mind, or heart - Feeling, as I often do,
The small arms of my heart reach out and
Caress you, when I look at your face.
You often catch me staring.
The tendrils of my limbs memorizing the
Shape of your body by entwining it.
The sight, the touch, the sound, the taste.
Are you my lover, my escape, the key
To reawakening the zest I used to feel
For those higher notions of Genius,
Beauty, & Truth? Or, are you simply there,
That man before me, walking softly through
My spheres until caught in the web of my
Miseries and my eccentricities - where I paint
You in silver and unfairly imbue you with the
Magical powers to heal my troubled soul?
For now, you are the hand I hold, the chin I scratch,
The eyes I graze, the heart I have.
Let the slow hands of time
and the even slower dreams of sleep
Consider all the rest.
1/31
Not just in mind, or heart - Feeling, as I often do,
The small arms of my heart reach out and
Caress you, when I look at your face.
You often catch me staring.
The tendrils of my limbs memorizing the
Shape of your body by entwining it.
The sight, the touch, the sound, the taste.
Are you my lover, my escape, the key
To reawakening the zest I used to feel
For those higher notions of Genius,
Beauty, & Truth? Or, are you simply there,
That man before me, walking softly through
My spheres until caught in the web of my
Miseries and my eccentricities - where I paint
You in silver and unfairly imbue you with the
Magical powers to heal my troubled soul?
For now, you are the hand I hold, the chin I scratch,
The eyes I graze, the heart I have.
Let the slow hands of time
and the even slower dreams of sleep
Consider all the rest.
1/31
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Our Eyes
I see you peering back from underneath
The folds above my grandfather's - your father's
- eyes. The drooping eyes,
The brown eyes I inherited from you, that drip
Sadly down in the corners, that crinkle when you smiled,
Were eyes that you inherited from him.
And even though he came first,
You still left before him,
And now I see you appearing again,
Born again in those eyes, with their often
Vacant, searching expression, at the crinkly
Laugh of recognition, of love.
The lines in his face are similar to the lines you
Held in yours before you left,
And I'm once again made aware of the thin
Veil between we still living and where you are,
Seeing you peek out from behind his eyes, our eyes
(I can keep your secret), imagining you within,
Holding his hand as we held yours,
Waiting, waiting, waiting,
For all the lights to dim.
1/28
The folds above my grandfather's - your father's
- eyes. The drooping eyes,
The brown eyes I inherited from you, that drip
Sadly down in the corners, that crinkle when you smiled,
Were eyes that you inherited from him.
And even though he came first,
You still left before him,
And now I see you appearing again,
Born again in those eyes, with their often
Vacant, searching expression, at the crinkly
Laugh of recognition, of love.
The lines in his face are similar to the lines you
Held in yours before you left,
And I'm once again made aware of the thin
Veil between we still living and where you are,
Seeing you peek out from behind his eyes, our eyes
(I can keep your secret), imagining you within,
Holding his hand as we held yours,
Waiting, waiting, waiting,
For all the lights to dim.
1/28
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