Some of my feeble attempts

Endings

Some thoughts

Some endings stand out more than others

Others are commonplace and fade from memory.

Some are known at the time...like the last time I talked to my mother

Or when I last held my red-haired love...

Other endings aren't known, but are

Only recognized as such after the event.

Like when I last saw another striding

Purposely out of the terminal to board

The plane in that little

Iowa town.

Would I have run to her and held her

Close one more time if I had known?

Or when I watched you wave goodbye

From the rear window of that departing car,

How could I have known it was the last time

And that you were forever lost to me?

And the last time that I carried my daughter,

Or held her little hand as we walked along.

When I let go of her, what would I have done

If I had known

It was the last time?

Becoming

Once I was full of words and ideas bubbled forth and I

talked endlessly.

Gradually the words describing my inner panorama

became inadequate and trite

meaningless and redundant.

And my talk

became punctuated

with silences that grew

and soon

I became silent

and a calm filled me

and I felt as a broken

wind-blasted tree

on the edge of a rocky precipice

overlooking great mist-swathed distances

with gnarled roots gripping

the stony heart of the mountain.

Leave Taking

Shall I leave in the summer

while cicadas shrill and

The nights are full of gardenia

and honeysuckle?

Or shall I leave in Autumn

with Crimson maples and

The harvest moon?

Perhaps in Winter with

the sting of sleet and

the rattle of bare branches

in a hopeless wind?

No! I want to go in

early Spring with

crocus and nodding daffodils

in a light mist with

rain dripping from the eaves...

Frayed Thread

I burn, can you feel the heat?

I am consumed with intensity,

With a special desire to live

And experience.

The air about me crackles and pops,

My hair stands on end, I clench my fists,

I grit my teeth.

Stand aside! Time is short.

Short for love, short for tasting and thinking

And wondering.

Time grows short and

I stand here empty-handed.

Where are my tools? I must be about.

I must do!

(12December1989)

The God I Know

The God I sense speaks not with thunder

And not with a roar,

Not with words

And not by mighty displays.

He speaks with a whisper,

A lift of the eyebrow,

A slight inclination of the head,

He speaks through His works,

Through the shape of a dolphin,

And the intricacies of a feather,

Through the mechanics of an ocean wave,

And the pattern it leaves on a sandy shore,

Through the colors of autumn leaves,

And their paths as they flutter to the ground,

Through things high

And things low,

Through things wide

And things narrow,

Through the imprint of a shell

On a sandy beach

Through my daughter's smile...

The God I sense speaks not with thunder.

(Friday, December 8, 1989)

A Crack in the Egg

Walking a dark city street, wet with drizzle

Strewn with litter, importuned by beggars,

I passed beneath a half-dead tree,

And raised my eyes and saw, through bare branches

And city's glare,

Orion striding through breaks of scudding clouds

And rifts of interstellar gas,

And suddenly I felt the earth turning beneath my feet

As it sped through an

Unimaginable vastness,

Heard the music of the spheres,

Saw the Winter Solstice looming

And felt the rhythm of the seasons.

And I stopped, stunned, and wondered

Why I was here and not

Striding along some deserted strand,

Hearing the boom of the breakers,

Feeling the crisp whip of the wind, or

In some dark forest breathing the perfume of

Soughing branches,

Surrounded by dimly perceived mysteries.

As I say, I paused, and then I walked on.

(9December1989)

Winged Flight

I awakened the other day

And gazed into the mirror before me,

Wondering at the lined face and

Grey hair of the person I saw.

I was in a strange room with

The light of a westering sun

Streaming through a window,

Shining red on half of the face before me,

The other half dark with shadow.

Why...the last I remembered,

I was young and running along a beach with

Waves pounding and the cry of gulls

Sharp in the cool air of dawn.

I could feel the sand under my bare feet and

The chill of the water as I splashed through it.

I was afraid of something that ran behind

On my left,

Something which was gaining.

And now I was here.

A door opened, "Why are you just standing there, Daddy?"

A little girl with pigtails stood in the doorway,

And behind her a shadow moved.

(13December1989)

Perception of the Nature of Being

The veil twitched aside

Revealed the Tao,

Formless and

Without dimension

In the glistening

Drop of dew

Quivering on the blade of grass

And in the seething stars

Of the boundless Milky Way.

Reflection

When you ponder the

Calendar of your days,

Do you recall the times

Of strife of betrayal

Of heartbreak?

Or...do you recall the

Quiet calm times filled

With beauty and tranquility?

More poems:

I want to see you

Drenched in moonlight

On a white-sheeted bed

All hollows and curves

====

Peach blossoms on water

Carried on the current,

whirling...disappearing

around the bend.

====

New tender leaves

Spring from the maple tree

Felled by a bulldozer

=====

The pallid moon

Is shattered and broken

Drinking bats

====

Bare branches, wet, cold

Revealed after the rain storm

Tore off the golden leaves

====

The sight of bare branches

Against a leaden sky

Catches at my heart.

====

The great wind with a

Roar and great rustle of leaves

Immersed me in a whirlpool of gold

====

As a child

On the way to school

My pants were painted

With daubs of yellow

As I walked through

Fields of nodding flowers

====

Falling snow blankets

The forest in a silence

Of whispering flakes

====

Great ranges of

Snow covered mountains

Stone and wind

An immensity

Almost inconceivable

While above

Glittering stars

Fill all time and space

====

Inside we feel that

Something is out of

Kilter, out of harmony

Not meshing

While all around us

Flows beauty

====

Like a blind man we feel our way

Through an inconceivable

Universe

Searching for that something

That we know must be there

====

The midnight gale

Stripped the maple of

Its finery!

====

Today, a wind

Out of the Southwest

Blew hard through the Fir trees

Sending little seeds whirlygigging

Through the air.

===

I was drunk on

Moonlight and honeysuckle

And the fragrance of gardenias

Filled the warm Texas night.

===

After all the years between us

Won’t you give me a glance filled

With something besides that flat emptiness?

===

At Sunset

Wheeling starlings

Kept from roosting

By the sharp winged

Cooper’s Hawk.

===

Racing the Night

Sitting in my car listening to good music

A Tear and A Farewell,

I looked out at a silhouetted tree,

Bare branches

Black against pink blowing clouds and saw

A pair of ducks, high above, scudding swiftly

Before the wind, racing the night

And I wondered , why in January a pair?

They disappeared into the

Gathering gloom and left the

Bare tree alone against the sunset and

I watched the swaying limbs and

Swift wisps and tags of clouds and

Somehow it seemed to speak of a

Higher truth, a basic verity

That underlay all that I saw.

And I watched and I waited

But no matter how I tried,

It remained elusive,

Out of reach, but nevertheless, still…

There.

===

And what may I say?

What may I say.

Am I truly an aging man

Trying to recapture a lost youth,

Or has my nature remained

The same, only needing the

Proper sign, a refreshing rain,

Warm soil and a rich earth

To sprout the seeds lying dormant within?

===

All things spring from God

When He sends joy

Let us catch it as it flies.

===

Late at night, I sit in the glow of

The computer monitor

Communing with distant people

While outside the wind lashes

Rain against the windows

And water runs from the eaves

===

Thinking of all existence as an ocean

Of energy with matter merely one

Expression of this sea and

Life as a ripple expanding outwards from

The center.

The ripple passes leaving behind the substance.

===

Kiss me for the last time

Like it was for the first time.

Kiss me like you’ve never

Kissed me before.

Kiss me like you weren’t

Going away.

Kiss me like you really want me,

Like there was no past,

No tomorrow,

Only the Now.

===

Awakening

I feel as if I have been asleep

For many years and now

Unexpectedly, I feel the spring sap

Stir in the trees and hear the

Wood Thrush fluting in the dark forest.

Where have I been for so long

And why do I now waken

Like old Van Winkle with

Bird nests in his tangled beard and

Chipmunk stores in his rotting pockets,

Peering through crusted eyes at a

World grown strange.

What awakens me to these

Strange sights and half-remembered dreams?

Reminding me that

Once I burned like a brand and

Flamed like a star against a dawn filled sky,

Before falling hissing into the Western Seas.

What kindles these quenched embers

And fans that flame that once more

Quickens within?

===

Arriving home from work late at night,

I pause on the porch

Listening to the light Spring rain.

The lilac blossoms fill the air

With their sweet fragrance,

Water runs gurgling off the eaves,

A solitary frog croaks his

Song of love.