Philosopher's Stone

 

There is a rock,

On it I sit,

Because of its comfortably contoured unhewn fit.

It takes the weight from off my feet,

And directs my thoughts to philosophy's seat.

How it does this I do not know,

And from it I am loath to go.

Music of the Spheres

Mother Earth

Has a face of stone

Not without expression

Being a mother she cries

Happy tears, sad snows, angry squalls

That fall from clouds

Formed from her children’s breath

                                  While our sibling trees photosynthesize 

All our breaths into wind

That is her voice

Her ears can hear 

Mosquitos mate in perfect fifths

But the voice of Father Hertz

She loves the most

And here we are on planet earth

In our nursery

Hearing their lullabies

But not the symphony

Pagan Wisdom from the Bible Belt

With voice heavy in the sultry air

Or clear in the cooling crisp

Gods and goddesses speak,

As is their nature,

Through stars, signs, and seasons

Barely heard in the disintegration of a meteorite

Or fall of a leaf,

And so easily eclipsed

By digital billboards.

Our longest day is brief

The shortest briefer.

Live each moment expecting to hear

The voice of an immortal

Lengthening your soul

With at least a brief glimpse of eternity.

By a pagan Christian who cannot deny the existence of other gods and who loves Jesus Christ because he departed unto a mountain to pray (and because he took to his grave the bloody sacrifices).

Prompted by Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Light and Dark.

Where the Last Tree Fell

Where the last tree fell
The tree of life grows,
A fractalization of the last tree’s essence,
Intelligence and immortality.
From seed so small
The cosmic tree expands,
Sending roots into black holes
And branches to the infinite heavens.
How can such a tree be guarded,
When everywhere I see
Songbirds, raptors, vultures
Perched among its leaves?

Drifting By

Orion like a cool breeze wakes
Me from Scorpion sleep
Strikes summer mosquitoes
Away with my blood.

The big and little dogs bark
The pond sings back
In minor key
What is done is done.

Fine stranded dispersal
Of time
Seeding the future
Drifting by.

Me on my planet drifting by
Watching Orion in the sky.

Reality Squared

Reality squared

       Impoverished beings that we are

Equals the square root of our hope

       That we are something more.

The truth we know rewrites itself

Disordered anew to resonate

With chaotic drift to landing place

The harbor of our souls to compensate

With golden coins of history

Stamped with human face of deity.

Reality squared

       To dust and ash our bodies revert

Equals the square root of our hope

       That we are . . .

That we are more than the cuneiform, 

papyrus, vellum, cloud drive of our words.

Posted at Poets United Poetry Pantry #155.

Believe

Lose religion

Find faith

Add your god

To the pantheon

Fill your cup

With philosophy

Crucify another

The god gene pounces

Cat and mouse

Hold this rock

This unhewn stone

This burden

Fuels your flight

Crataegus

Crataegus

A word

Impaled on my brain.

Crataegus

A name

For the family tree.

Crataegus

A rose

That drought could not quench.

A Tranquility of Eternity

No need to worry.

When clover sparkles with rain,

Tranquility reigns.

No need to hurry.

When flowers reach for the sun,

Eternity waits.

Salty Eternity

From the winged elm efflorescence

A cardinal's song is born

And flies to heart grown numb with noise

And makes it feel again.

And much of trouble, more of pain

Pulses through its core

Like bitter water sweetened

Through deep artesian well.

And one tear overflowing

Is all the elm will need

To remember a timeworn taste

Of a salty eternity.

Inside the Hourglass

Time heals all wounds

But mortal ones.

Immortal ones

transcend time

Repeating the beating

Until karmic pawn released.

For Love of Place

For love of place
Where a baby garter snake consumes an earthworm
Where the newt and desert toad wrestle and roll
Where the Triops is awakened by rain
Where the sunflower and globemallow grow
Where the maligned thistle hosts hummingbirds
And ladybugs and twenty other species
Where mated ravens swoon from the sky
Where the coyotes raise pups in the gulch
Where packrats construct prickly pear barricades
Where the chickens held their own free range
Where the bobcat pads
Where potatoes and carrots grew sweet in mountain dirt
Where a house of freedom was built
Where thunder rocked the roof
Where the stars tell stories
Where silence speaks
Where memories sleep and time forgets us
Where was our home
For love of place.

Anaphora

Black Wing Conspiracy

Why ravens are not here I do not know.
The crows reside in Oklahoma
Aloof avian shadows
Curious but pretending not to notice,
Not like the bumptious ravens
Who introduce themselves
Dropping snowballs on your head.

Reserved and studiously shy
Crows are harder to get to know
But I will try like a raven.
For it is my code to crack
This interspecies lack
Of communication.

My Rosetta Stone
A shiny polished rock
Thus far deciphered
Reveals, I am certain,
That a family of ravens
Is not an unkindness;
A clan of crows
Is not a murder.

At least not of me,
For a raven saved my life one day
Or marked me for another world.
What a crow one day
Will say or do . . .
My soul awaits.

Duir Way

This door to the west

Might leave me refreshed

Or dead in my tracks

If wisdom attacks

In form of the serpent

Before I repent

But to just walk this ley line

I would lay my all on the line

And believe it all for the best

To seek this sweet rest

And be reborn not in the future

But in the past

Having come the full circle

At last.

Bent, Blocked, Split, and Broken

Before sun, moon, and stars
Were set in the sky
To be our timekeepers,
There was light.
This is the first light
The spirits of trees reflected.

Shadows on a sundial
Spell time.
Time is the absence of first light;
The empty shadow is death.

In a 3,000 year old forest
First light reflected here
Penetrates the temporal body
And the aura of a soul is cast,
A spectral refraction
Of one imprismed
Outside the garden guarded
By the flaming sword
That keeps the way
Of the tree of life.

The forest destructed,
Is a reflection of inhumanity,
But there will always be a forest,
Somewhere.

Reflect on that
While peering on inverted worlds
Reflected on the surfaces of water.
Water,
The first face
The spirit of God moved upon.

Ask
If created in the image of our gods
Would we destroy any forest?
Pollute any water?

Or don't ask.
The tree of knowledge is our downfall.

Under a forest
Or under water
Questions cease
And we can be
Outside of time
Our own godly reflections
Of worm meat and body dust
In drops of dew
Bending back blades
Of bitter herbs and grasses
And let the stars we are made from
Shine of their own accord.

Long, Long Ago

Long, Long Ago,

On a cello played,

Flushed the ducks

And they flew away

From yet another bow.

A horsehair bow

Tickling their wings

Like a horse swats a fly.

A rosined bow

Aiming sine waves

Not arrows.

My bow

My heartstrings'

Shared vibrations.

As the ducks return,

Their settling on the pond

Creates in me

a déjá vu

Like they used to do

Long, long ago.

Convertible

Convert,

Take a drive

Top down

In mountains.

Radio loud

Songs echo

Off granite

Walls of stone.

Convert,

Expose

Your soul

To every

Season

Sun and ice.

Spring forward.

Fall back.

Convert,

Change state.

Water flows

In One

Direction;

Breathe,

Your vapor

Rises.

North Star

My moon is half full.

The other half is spilled years

Spread across the sky like milk.

My moon is waxing,

Growing fuller,

Despite the loss of time.

I have hope, but still I wonder:

If the north star gives directions,

Why does it hang so lonely in the sky?

Thunder is the Drum Major

Thunder is the drum major.
I march in his band whenever I can,
Once so close to him
My eyebrows were singed
By the lightning of his baton
And the thrill has never gone.
Under his direction
The trees are woodwinds
The mountains and valleys are brass
And the cloudburst the drum corps.
The crowd takes notice
Then the game plays on.

His simple night music I like best
When all the spectators go home
And he slows down the beat
Throws aside his baton
And plays his own drum
Skin on skin rhythmically
Hands upon his lover's body
Teasing fountains open
Finding all her secret gardens
Engendering field and forest.
The grateful take notice of a gentle rain
And life marches on.

All But Blind, Too

I have seen the multitudes of stars
Through night-vision goggles.
I can do without that greenish glow
And gregarious gathering of suns.

"So blind to someone I must be"
But this blindness suits me.

I am ever compelled to look up
And take just enough not to feel so alone.
But put me in a city with a million people,
My loneliness would kill me not to see a single star.

And tonight the sky is crisp and clear
And the moon is just now rising to obscure my awe.
My jealous sun reminds me, "Get to sleep,
I'll have need of you tomorrow."

"So blind to someone I must be"

from All But Blind

by Walter de la Mare