Time slips in sips of passing vibrant life
as age bends to tend this quiet immortal wife,
yet waits escape in poignant water’s cool relief
drawn to shallows hallowed shore, counting out the brief
spent lives, resting on the oars.
photo courtesy of public domain
Filed under Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul
Strewn across the empty lea,
in ribbon frayed and broken,
a tiny path runs from the woods,
in steps of time, in whispers spoken.
The summer grass recedes in bows,
homage to the years gone by,
demarking every thought there,
every mark a cobbled sigh.
My eyes peer from October woods,
my heart in longing feels the tone,
ochre, amber, velvet brown,
the season’s scent, the ancient loan
that burns the colors through the dale,
retreats in aging silver grey,
steely eyed and captured cold,
stark against the rill in play.
I find my melancholy heart,
aching, longing setting in,
as crisp the autumn winds reveal
the sweetest scent, the saddest sin.
For as this aging lingers,
as quickly as it stops me cold,
this lea is all that matters,
this path and all its stories told…
In summer’s fold they tarried,
in waist high grass they danced and sang,
laughing, loving, holding hands,
silent woods in echo rang.
Here upon the forest floor,
they fell together leaving all,
igniting life’s elixir sweet,
heeding love as lover’s call.
Yet prattling winds betray their time,
suspended in October’s hush,
returns a shy and sacred kiss
upon a hue of lover’s blush.
The sun denied to shine,
yet balanced grey across the scene,
in hint of coming winter snow,
a lonesome breeze rolls through, serene.
The shadowed woods deny my stead,
a sheltered voice stems high,
leaves and rustling brush rejoice,
as with his mare, a boy strides by.
A ghostly apparition,
opaque and fine as cobweb’s spin,
his words unto the aging nag
are soft and kind, sweetly thin.
Upon the rugged path they step,
into the lea, into the stream,
as errant rays of sunbeam fall,
releasing sparks of silver dreams.
Across the drying autumn grass,
a scent of barn, of oats and hay,
wafts my tensile senses through,
begging me to stay.
Alas, my moments falter,
my stage as witness through this time,
measured in the living,
counted meters of this rhyme.
This life reflects in pausing,
where truths run thick in histories’ hold,
begging none go quietly,
urging strength in growing old.
And so it is I tarry,
softly strolling o’er the lea,
whispering quiet simple truths
here in the heart of me.
Filed under Autumn, Nature, Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul
Silent now, this moment’s pause, bathed in ochre’s tinge of red,
revealing histories’ flaxen stitch, stretched through pin pricks long since bled.
Day lies still around me, ‘cross rustic echoes this past enfolds,
suspends my eye along the line where every memory’s story is told.
I strain to squint the long line down, a temporal horizon revealed,
yet danced in distorted ecstatic shapes, reducing truth so sought, concealed…
Exposing the gaps of life amongst lives…
Of image, of thought, of stories told…
Sketching loose, unveiling shadows,
Stretched between these temporal poles.
The past is vaguely visible…
So turn I from the yesterdays, grasping light in shadows long,
steel my courage, step and stride, so move along the path I’m on.
Histories’ echoes flit by, sparrows on the vented dusk,
call to me on whispered wings, “tomorrow waits within your trust”.
Summer’s acrid dusty road gives rise to verdant scent of pine,
drifts upon the chirping rill, across the lea ebbed from my mind…
Graced upon a hope and faith, sustained from whence I’ve come,
the future beckon’s naught from past, but draws from me all that I sum…
In image, thought, stories dreamed,
Loosely sketched between the seams,
Of birth and death, what can be known,
Between the temporal poles here shown…
The future dream quite visible…
Filed under Dreams, Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul
Solitude in standing,
bathed in harvest’s milky moon,
hallowed by the moment caught,
suspended midst the stars, in tune.
What sparkles call him to this ledge?
What questions form within his head?
How long will starlight hold his heart until he purrs to bed?
No matter what the fatter waxing of a perfect night,
the moon, within the edge of room, spills thick its milky white.
Beyond the distant clatter of alley’s trash cans hunting din,
above the howling love songs, sick, repeated, moaned, again, again,
no greater pleasure drifts his way than this, one perfect poignant perch,
where past the moon, ‘twixt stardust seams, his simple pleasured dreams do search.
photo artwork by Kasia Derwinska
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kasia_derwinska/
Filed under Nature, Perspective, Poetry
Ragged edge of road, framed in fray and grasses gold. Held in drunken course by bits of broken stays from fences split. Gathered there, around each post, lays lagging wind and moonlight’s ghost.
She wanders o’er the silent lea disturbed to find her way, where once she knew an arrowed path between the barn and forest’s lath, now stumbles towards the wood, in sway.
A silvered grey and fallen barn counts her steps in jest, laughs in hollow whispered grins then slowly slips back off to rest. Ravens perch upon a plow whose earth has frozen still its lust, captured in an eon’s tuft of grasses tall and tawny rust. They bob in exultation, guffaw in crow-ish song, as crossing o’er the rock filled stream she lifts her skirts and tip-toes on. She stumbles through the slope of hill where years before she scarred her spine, exposing what was laid beneath, now blushing from another time.
Before her stands the vacant wood where once she loved to play, wherein she loved the lack of sound, echoed in old memory found, and subtle longing just to stay.
She trips across the ashen timber, fallen fast asleep, brushes back her silver hair and enters to the cold wood’s keep. She scarcely knows her destination among the ruins thick and grey, but being more than child here, starts and stops and weaves her way toward what she knows is waiting, toward where the day so calmly ends, yet caught in hesitation, denies her fear and wanders thin. Upon the wooded knoll she finds the memory of much kinder times, where snow once graced her lengthened dress and teased her with its hushing rhymes.
Pausing there in sad recall, she hears the river’s gentle hush, dreams an ancient dream of youth when eagerly she gladly rush toward the gallant sparkles cast upon the water’s play, come to meet the boats there, and wade in just a way.
She staggers o’er the broken stones, between reposing trees, lifts her skirts at water’s edge and steps in to her knees. All the diamonds in the world are cast upon the aged stream, conjured by the sun and wind, lay sparkling in a dream. She calmly lets her aging go, reaching toward the distant shore, wanders in, gently laughing, until she is no more.
Upon the ragged edge of road, kept to course by ancient posts, a gently whispered dirge is sung by lagging winds and moonlight’s ghosts.
Filed under Dreams, History, Memory, Nature, Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul
At edge of evening’s solitude I pause to seek the fade,
stretched through every molecule and every breath I trade.
It clings to shadows, soften edged. It claims the ether, still.
It thieves the color from the room and blinds the window sill.
My patience feels eternal, midst the smoke that laps my furrowed brow.
Yet here I’ll hold my vigil, calm, redressed in wine, birthed in now.
Not a single trace belies the beating of my heart,
just the gentle padding rain that balances my part.
My part, that is, that here I play in quiet room and pause;
one conscience wandering twixt the thoughts of night and evening’s cause.
Oh gracious time eternal, hold the calm from beating fast,
that by this time suspended draws the fade to drift at last.
At last between the rings of smoke lapped in tongue of fire’s sum,
o’er the luscious nectar’s poise that starts my dreaming heart to run.
Stem my patience fatter than distraction’s playful tugs do pull,
past this moment’s whispered laughter to greet the quiet, kiss the lull.
To the day my reverence, my thanks and gracious praise,
that now the fade has drawn me in, has wicked the ink to pages’ lays.
Quiet, oh, my heart repeats the love of life in patience known,
that grants elixir’s solitude amongst the fade and smoke rings grown.
Filed under Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul
Silence in the broken night
withdraws its guarded head within
the fallen shadows black and white,
praying to give in.
Give in again to seconds passed
that carried subtle ochre schemes
of dusk upon suspended dust
in ebbing’s sweetened dreams.
Sweetened dreams of days once held
upon a rich and tempest life,
so bound indulgence beckoning
to claim their fleeting moments, wife.
Fleeting fast in merriment,
echoes through the oaken halls,
centuries claim to ignorance,
desolation within the fall.
Within the fall such silence broken,
sweetened dreams remain as token
seconds in the tempest, scorned
in dusk’s reflection, time is slowly torn.
There the clockworks stop…
Filed under History, Perspective, Poetry
In shadowed grey a glimmer runs along the wall and cornice stone
which heralds softly to the night that mist and black remain alone.
Heavy on the cobbled path where ne’er a soul would dare retreat,
the telling steps of sadness peel, in timid echo’s soft defeat.
Burdened by the overcoat, a hat and head in slung denial
meld between the evening’s black and silver ghosts of light’s revival,
spun along the changing lines, bound to stones’ square corners,
captured in the aftermath of day’s regress through night’s reformers.
Postured slow and longing, whispers caught beneath the hush
that dream to hope beyond the pain suspended in slow motion’s rush,
as if the bleak and shadowed form could catch one simple stroke of light
to steal the blackness from the grey and dare to face the night.
Untold to all in absence there,
unsung, the cry of what despair
must so be bound upon each step imposed within the absent glare
that surely pulls this figure forward, that mends the fabric sorely torn,
that as the gentle echoes fade a hushing peace for hope is born.
In shadowed grey a glimmer runs along the wall and cornice stone
where night and mist unite in truce for those who need to walk alone.
Filed under Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul
Between the rows of simple life where grows the finest harvest known
are hands of soil and aging skin that tender what in spring was sewn.
A dew drop heralds morning light enraptured in suspended grace,
whose world reflects the azure blue with love of smiling eyes and face.
Each pepper kindly tendered,
each pod and bean so lightly held,
each ripened red tomato vine caressed and in the moment meld.
Her hands of soil, on knees of clay,
beckon to this garden’s lay
to hush those thoughts of early frost
and bow in love where seeds were tossed.
Her whitened hair and wrinkled eyes
define an age her heart denies,
yet from this soil and giving ground
her ageless spirit picks what’s found
between the rows of garden there,
as angel bowed on knee, in care.
Filed under Nature, Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul
Summer’s rain collects beneath the edge of neon light,
gathered in a rusting pool reflecting sharp the languid night
where only lonely echoes blend last call with none at all,
beckon peace and solace from the last few drops of alcohol.
Cool the stagnant midnight air denies its musk of vapored breath,
sultry in its sticky dew attracts the lonely to a death
of dreams in steaming thunder burst, adrift in late night’s pleasure,
where sordid wisps of booze and flesh tarnish what the hope does treasure.
Beyond it all the pavement sings a wet and whining tune,
stroked by wheels of yellow cabs and puddles thick with summer’s moon
that lay the time to distance across the square through the town,
folds the lonely summer night into its haunts and sleeping gown.
Quiet rends the neon’s buzz to silence with a blink and fade,
leaving only yellow moon reflecting in the puddles made,
where summer’s rain collects in rusting pools at flirting’s stage,
lifting now the errant mask of midnight’s’ lonely cage.
Filed under Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul
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