Becoming More Than The Sum Of Its Parts

Another image

becomes a question now,

to be summed up.

It drifts

in spite of itself –

the snail.

It moves with

a movement of

flaccid ambition.

There on the wall

it gathers in the

dwelling of self.

A single meditation point, poised without regard for time.

The moment, magical only

to the change it makes

to perception, as the eye

designs an emotion.

A single snail revering in solitude becomes another image

recalled in the external world of theatre.

Another image

of time's past.

Time passes…

becoming a question now

to be summed up.

Empty O' Clock

The clock ticks empty now, 

without a pulse – frozen to a standstill.

BUT YOU WAIT!

Soon it will talk or do whatever it takes

to advance itself in this world…

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once winter's weather wanes.

Its Joy – A Beginning, There In The Fire's Core

I've heard there was a secret chord

That David played, and it pleased the Lord

But you don't really care for music, do you?

It goes like this

The fourth, the fifth

The minor fall, the major lift

The baffled king composing Hallelujah…

~ from LCohen's Hallelujah

. . . . .

Music is my fleece,

its easeful sounds

emerge in this stillness,

enveloping my spirit 

as sorrows flee.

. . . . .

At times I feel as though I never fully grasp

the true meaning of music's eclectic measures,

like the text in half the books I own –

the narrative is extensive, but never fully read,

and therefore, never fully understood.

Music's expression is everywhere,

leaving hints of a larger truth, for some 

its pulse is buried deep, for others

its pulse is a freedom song that speaks

clear of life's raw reflection.

Every Changing Hour

“There is a flower, a little flower 

With silver crest and golden eye, 

That welcomes every changing hour, 

And weathers every sky.”

~ James Montgomery

. . . . .

As it draws closer

how radiant it comes,

how easily too, it evanesces

and with it an infinite number

of irresistible impressions.

The year two thousand and eleven

lapsing into a sluggish, sallow fatigue,

posessing its own private gravity

where pensive words inspire affection –

bearing an expression of my deepest regard.

. . . . .

“D  a  i  s  i  e  s   i  n  f  i  n  i  t  e 

Uplift in praise their little growing hands, 

O'er every hill that under heaven expands.” 

~ Ebenezer Elliot

Ever So Gently

Every moment and every event of every man's life

on earth plants something in his soul.

~ Thomas Merton

. . . . .

How these words found you I don't know, 

forgive me – I cannot capture the current moment

as it speaks to me of things I cannot translate.

. . . . .

The old year fainting away

here in the breath of winter

and with it a restless calm

that cannot be stayed.

Hour by hour this sense of space

exalted by time – the whole world

around it moves, but doesn't move.

Everything that was said is reread again

by another wonderful kind of mind.

Observable moments segue into black

on white, elucidation's adamantly tumbling

there in the turning mind, finding their method, 

stretched far beyond their original design.

With an optimistic eagerness here in this late afternoon

the eyes make no effort toward conversation as the mind

loafs ever so gently in the white of the snow – and is gone…

I Felt My Spirit Glisten

Last night I dreamed of peace,

which encouraged a smile

this morning as I gaze

through my open window.

The eyes kindly caress

winter's pale complexion,

becoming adequate enough

for an enthusiasm of spirit

to take bloom within while
the earth's lucid beauty

unveils its silent repose.

*
* *
* * *
* * * *
* * * * *
*
*


SATISFIED

One blessing had I, than the rest
So larger to my eyes
That I stopped gauging, satisfied,
For this enchanted size.

It was the limit of my dream,
The focus of my prayer, –
A perfect, paralyzing bliss
Contented as despair.

I knew no more of want or cold,
Phantasms both become,
For this new value in the soul,
Supremest earthly sum.

The heaven below the heaven above
Obscured with ruddier hue.
Life's latitude leant over-full;
The judgment perished, too.

Why joys so scantily disburse,
Why Paradise defer,
Why floods are served to us in bowls, –
I speculate no more.


~ Emily Dickinson

Nature Does Not Hurry

Everything is accomplished.

Suppressed Poetics

Infinitely Changeable

Eloquent Austerity

Go inside a stone

That would be my way.

Let somebody else become a dove

Or gnash with a tiger's tooth.

I am happy to be a stone.

~ from Charles Simic: Stone

. . . . .

Will I become a poet 

when I become a stone…

. . . . .

Here is a strange thing.

The essential mystery of the stone.

Its medium of expression eludes my grasp.

There is something in its make-up and our way of seeing things.

It must be worked out with extreme concentration.

Its medium of expression eludes my grasp.

The essential mystery of the stone.

Here is a strange thing.

. . . . .

It was beautiful. It was silent.

It didn’t even have a mouth.

But it wanted something,

it had a purpose.

~ from Mary Oliver: Luna

Toward And Away From

This traveler on foot

wanders with the rain, 

inside the outside world,

as a train's whistle carries.

 She eyes the art that speaks

to her of how proud
 it is

to have become something

she wants to further pursue.

Lines, arcs and the colours too –

 the integration of all their parts

 play such a role as she wanders on

within these shortened days.

 . . . . .

 Creativity arises out of the tension between spontaneity and limitations, 

the latter (like the river banks) forcing the spontaneity into the various forms

which are essential to the work of art or poem.

~ Rollo May

. . . . .

“Look,” she insists,

stopping dead in her tracks.

“See how beautiful

the tree's shadow is cast?”

. . . . .

Standing alongside her, I too admire the texture, the colour and the height

of this somewhat ordinary day – taking umbrage at its impending end.

The outside world

becomes something

the eyes can trace, 

however brief,

as she and I walk

toward tomorrow

and away from today.

At The Tip Of The Fingers

In The Darkening Light

A New Piece

If there’s any excuse at all for making a record, 

it’s to do it differently, to approach the work

from a totally recreative point of view…

to perform this particular work 

as it has never been heard before. 

And if one can’t do that, 

I would say, 

a       b       a       n       d       o       n        

it, 

forget about it, 

move on to something else.

~ Glenn Gould

Not Mine To Tell

A place belongs forever to

whoever claims it hardest, 

remembers it most obsessively, 

wrenches it from itself, 

shapes it,       renders it,       loves it

so radically that he remakes it

in his own image.

~ Joan Didion

Always Miracles

Far away 

there in the sunshine 

are my highest aspirations.
I may not reach them, 

but I can look up 

and see their beauty,
believe in them, 

and try to follow 

where they lead.

- Louisa May Alcott

Traipsing Through Time

While passing by the lake today

a good friend of mine recites a few words

of a Mary Oliver poem titled "This World"…

. . . . .

I would like to write a poem about the world that has in it
nothing fancy.

But it seems impossible.

Whatever the subject, the morning sun

glimmers it.

. . . . .

Familiar with the lines, 

I continue on with Mary's words…

. . . . .

The tulip feels the heat and flaps its petals open and becomes a star.

The ants bore into the peony bud and there is a dark

pinprick well of sweetness.

As for the stones on the beach, forget it.

Each one could be set in gold.

So I tried with my eyes shut, but of course the birds

were singing.

. . . . .

In unison we voice…

. . . . .

And the aspen trees were shaking the sweetest music

out of their leaves.

And that was followed by, guess what, a momentous and

beautiful silence

as comes to all of us, in little earfuls, if we're not too

hurried to hear it.

As for spiders, how the dew hangs in their webs

even if they say nothing, or seem to say nothing.

So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe they sing.

. . . . .

Together we sing the rest of the poem…

. . . . .

So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe the stars sing too,

and the ants, and the peonies, and the warm stones,

so happy to be where they are, on the beach, instead of being

locked up in gold.

. . . . .

All fell beautifully silent as the poem closed.

Poetry In Person

You do not need

to leave your room. 

Remain sitting
at your table
and listen. 

Do not even listen, 

simply wait, be quiet

still and solitary. 

The world will

freely offer itself
to you to be

u  n  m  a  s  k  e  d, 

it has no choice, 

it will roll in ecstasy

at your feet.

~ Franz Kafka

The Current Moment, So Heavily Imbued

The golden reeds –

you think you see them 

gently bend to the music

of the autumn wind.

So soothing,

these chosen moments,

reminding me again

how calm the hours 
sometimes sit, like water
at ease in a lake.

An ordered gentleness

deserving of one's attention

quietly rumbles – innocent like.