Along this cobbled path I find a peace of mind beneath an arc of wooded shade that calms the day, grants a cool and welcomed dark.
The city, all but gone here, echoes histories’ whispered tones of carriages culled in laughter midst heavy hooves upon the stones.
No rush of time betrays this scene, as slowly drifts this path, eternal.
Horizon calls a timeless point where all resolves, green and vernal.
Memories sung herein, seduce, threaded through each moment’s play, entreating peace and longing ‘tween every step along the way.
Just few I find, my passersby, acknowledge silent solace too, with gentle nods and hidden smiles upon the cobblestone and view.
I pray my heart be caught within as whispered soul enrapt in peace.
I pray this wooded shade of summer holds me fast in sweet release.
Tag Archives: self portrait
The Cobblestone Path
Filed under History, Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul
Winter’s Last Night
Here I sit detached, adrift,
through dying embers seek and sift,
in hoping for a welling flame
to heat the hearth and so in claim
a victory toward the spring.
The cords of fuel have spent their best
to heat this home, to garner rest
through lengthened nights of bitter cold,
through winter’s best and deepest hold,
through crackling fires, sing.
The wood pile is depleted now,
the fourteen cords I stacked somehow
have been reduced to eight sticks here,
piled at hearth in hope and fear
of how this winter ends.
Hopes of spring in March relent
to winter’s snow and frozen scent
that whirls around this alpine cot,
trading warmth and embers hot
for hope this season’s time transcends.
Eight sticks, one night, if not to freeze.
Like bread and fish and wine conceive
a hope for Christ to gather here
upon this mount with sermon dear
to hold the storm at bay.
But as the embers gently hush
I find the calm, ignore the rush,
sacrifice on piece of eight
pray that winter’s cold will wait
with me until the day,
and morn will bring the sun.
At warming hearth in blankets deep,
tucked into a rocking sleep,
I hear the whisper of the wind
calling me as gentle fiend
as if to say just one’s okay,
and promising the sun.
So into peace I run…
Filed under Dreams, Mountains, Nature, Perspective, Poetry
Back Against This Wall
Back against this wall…
This alley in remission from evening’s shallow light that casts the neon’s echo ‘cross the puddled rain here left in flight. The creeping of the city’s poise, stagnant, yet repelling the every moment stood before, captured melancholy, telling of the brick so stacked behind my back, its story never told, of tears in lonely crying dealt amidst the thieves, amidst the throes of life, of death, of every moment painted black… I lean against this wall succumbed by all the world, by all the lack.
Into my very soul it pours, every bottle, every poor soul that claimed a moment’s home between the puddles, against the loam of what the city so disgusts, but bends to truth and hides in trust that such is never seen. I lean against this wall, now mean. I feel the bullet holes here left, where souls caught glimpses of their death. I smell the acrid bloom of fear and echoed running footsteps hear… to justice? to ends? to whatever’s left of soul’s lost friends…?
Behind the madness of my mind I feel the thrum and so go blind to all the hopes here swimming round, adrift within this dying ground… this dying ground, is it? I write it lest I should forget. My shadow crosses fast before the falling neon lights in roar glanced across the puddles’ rent where only living’s death is spent, and so I to my own.
Back against this wall, alone.
Filed under Dreams, Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul
Lost Words
Ink on ink, stacks of words, lines bent from my mind in haste,
well in wretched motion’s scent within the pile of blotter’s waste.
Denied the spark of light to find a useful purpose where they lay,
lepers of my orphans, renounced to shelves of dim decay.
The dust of ages crack their binds, fermented time lends ochre’s brand
infusing dim their history upon neglected pages, tanned.
Why do they still remain there?
What purpose can they ever fill?
Whose eyes will ever read them?
What holds them in my ebbing will?
My orphans calmly line the shelf, at peace in holding nodding thoughts
that stem form frozen moments summed when grand solutions aptly caught
the hope to bend an errant mind, the rush to solve the world’s woes,
the drive to change, create such love that ecstasy would roll in throes…
Science, math, and cultures gripped. Politics of hatred delved.
Invention, story, fiction, truth all gathered through the ink, there shelved.
In some I rarely venture a visit through their ashen sparks.
Others, I’ve not the courage yet to reach or touch their pages, dark.
But yet they are my orphans, my hopeful babes, my lepers scarred.
For by my hand became here, and by my hand stay safely barred.
I pity those who find them beyond the last of breath in me.
I pray they’ll not destroy them, yet maybe let just some fly free.
Filed under Perspective, Photography, Poetry, Universal Soul
This Aging Garden Gate
Hung in hesitation’s poise,
this iron gate denies no friend,
creaks and clangs in phrase of welcome
whenever one walks in.
Here amidst the cold stone wall,
now overgrown in moss and vine,
hangs this aging garden gate,
held to dress this walk, quite fine.
Beneath the years of layers black
in sacred paint applied in trust,
cracks the skin of age and wear
exposing blisters filled with rust.
The slapping latch is worn quite thin.
Her angles softly sagging.
The spring to bring her closed again
strains beneath her weight, just lagging.
Yet through this temporal portal streams
the futures past in longing dreams.
Through her kindest stance has come
the sweetest loves, the greatest sums
of all a man desires…
…angels swept in summer dress…
…devils danced in fire…
Through her constant threshold drifted
words of war, hopes of peace,
worries of life’s certain failings,
prayers for a sweet release.
Now as I, with aging hand,
caress her subtle arabesque,
I quietly gather dreams recalled,
some living, most at rest.
Oh dear friend, my fortunes flowed
across your gentle grace,
calmly calling to this path
that since has aged this place.
Once more I pull her toward me,
my life resounds her echoed call
that soon our futures beckon
toward the fade, toward the fall.
God bless you little gate,
my colored life’s been marked in time
by gracious clangs and creaking,
so set, by you, to living’s rhyme.
Filed under Memory, Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul
Follow Your Dream!
What stands against our perseverance unfolding from a hoped success?
What calls a man to hesitate in second glance and second guess?
What drives the winds of challenge to bend us back onto ourselves?
What hearkens to the failures stacking dreams on dusty shelves?
Is there such that keeps from us the dreams we strive to dream?
Are there really fateful blows rending fault within the scheme?
Can it be that such denies God’s purpose within us rent?
Must a life placated be to only walk the path that’s sent?
Hearken not to such blind passion that pulls the grave so ever near!
Follow not the empty echoes that call you home when most you fear!
Stand to face the triumph waiting beyond the hell that you must pay!
Step beyond the trepidation that pulls you, tugs you, scars your way!
For ne’er a lie, nor hope’s descent would be from God in purpose lent.
Ne’er denied a dream applied that from His will came our intent.
Steady long the weary hand that draws the dream from burden’s lading!
Gather strength in spirit steeped upon the path in trials’ trading.
Lash the beam onto the dream that pulls from deep within you.
Follow fast in courage clasped within the heart of soul that’s true.
Follow your dream!
Filed under Growth, Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul
Snow’s Sweet Mercy
Ripples frozen white on white,
cold beneath a winter’s night,
fabric cast in brilliant light
within a blue moon shadow.
Silhouetted black on blue,
shadowed edge in fire’s hue,
sparked on crystal’s single cue
reflecting through the meadow.
Low a single night owl mourns,
hushing wings from storm to storm,
solace seeking winter’s warm
between the branches fallow.
Here a quiet prayer claims
my thoughts and hopes of what remains,
leaves a blessing in the grains
of snow’s sweet mercy, hallowed.
Filed under Mountains, Nature, Perspective, Poetry
This Greying Fade
Time defies this truth of mind.
Days fall past, cascading.
Wine once sipped lifetimes ago
resounds in spirit’s fading.
What of this aging truth?
Aging hands grasp tight the pen,
far beyond their prime, it seems,
yet in strength, defend.
Every day demands a look.
Poignant lights in present time
reach beyond eternal,
call to form the lay, the rhyme.
The grave, in sparkled grace,
enrapt by hope of time beyond,
draws an evened aging eye,
draws a gaze forever long.
The end is never seen.
Days fall past, cascading.
Echoes of the ether pull us
to the tide of dreams there waiting.
Eternal soul, eternal love,
eternal pauses held in peace,
grant this greying fade return
when passed beyond release.
Filed under Dreams, Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul
There’s a Song
There’s a song in the heart of my lover
that stems the wake of crashing truth,
that holds my soul suspended
here upon a glimpse of youth.
There’s a truth in the laud of her sweetness,
that holds my child between the days,
that keeps my raging spirit calm
within her soft and kindest gaze.
There’s a love in the eye of my truest,
that speaks to me in volumes sung,
that dreams the moments’ dreams with me,
that holds this world in sum
of all we know in each other,
of all we ever hope to be,
of what we know when all else fails…
‘tis here our hearts desire to be.
December
Along the frozen lane I walk between bare fields just kissed by ice.
December’s first in dawning sparks this grey to life reflecting twice
the leaden sky, the frozen blades of summer, still.
The crack of amber low and long igniting gold across the hill.
Echoes of November’s snow sit heaped within each fence post’s lee,
hidden from the hushing wind but caught in dawn’s sweet reverie
that calls a haunt of diamond light to stand and glimmer true,
that pulls a hope from autumn’s mist now long beyond this season’s view.
The barn to which I make my way sets warmth upon my bones in knowing
that sheep and cows, horses, pigs will gladly greet my face in showing
gratitude toward morn’s sweet light, peace that day has come,
hope in that the grains I feed will bless this cold December some.
So December greets the year,
I and mine in turn, the same,
open doors to gaining light,
echoing the year’s last claim…
December…
Filed under Nature, Perspective, Poetry
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