diamonds
That mean anything to me
Are conjured up by wind and sunlight
Sparkling on the sea
Bruce Cockburn
Tag Archives: The Balance
All the Diamonds…
That mean anything to me
Are conjured up by wind and sunlight
Sparkling on the sea
Filed under Nature, Photography
Brick and Mortar
Brick and mortar, matched to fit
the very shape of timeline drawn,
laid in purposed course to sit,
and there life’s perfect line be shown.
The course we lay, this wall in truth,
is built through season’s changing ways.
That it should stay or falter proof
of what our honest souls do play
is incongruous
to a path in life –
thus imperfection therein is rife
with sum based in the “who” of us.
Thoughts of who we are become
the placement for the next block laid.
Yet as each course in mortar is run,
symmetry drifts through moments played,
through love and life and challenge granted –
the keys to days of what’s enchanted
or what might seem for naught.
It’s this mosaic, by grace incanted
that holds our spirit, caught.
Gestalt in temporal waves reflect
pain or pride in each defect –
discolorations highlight tides
where deep, or upon, we took our ride –
Cracks and fissures, the challenge points
by which we broke or fixed a joint
and tried to carry on –
… for years a life was built upon…
Now looking back, it seems near gone.
Yet beauty in what our souls have made
stands in history’s humble glade.
Life in triumph and losses tragic,
each mosaic, each course laid, magic!
that we will reckon lessons
within our final breath,
know the truth of love and loss
and secrets that were kept,
heal our hearts and passions
in knowing that we should
touch this wall of brick and mortar
and see that it is good.
Filed under History, Memory, Photography, Poetry
Along This Path and Forest Floor
Cirque above Emmaline Lake – Colorado Autumn
this path I walk, my own.
Scattered light through autumn’s trees
reflecting gold in daylight’s warm.
Here, midst introspection’s calling,
my dreams take shape, my truths come home.
Twixt wooded slumber’s deepened musk,
the path in sun, dry and driving thus,
this autumn’s wind unites
the surreal of silence with living light,
brings a soul to wish for woods,
in season’s darkening fold.
Yet as the cooling shadows surround,
silent necessity grasps a hold,
therein listens closely…
Through the aspen’s rustling leaves,
whitened noise in hushed tones heaves,
brings a stirring soul to sigh…
There, surprise in unsought treasure,
a mountain spring in rushes,
sings of perches high in glory,
where leaps and bounds in daylight’s brilliance,
repeats its passing journey’s story…
In subtle stirs midst pine and brush,
a fearless doe in speckled blush
picks and paws at forest floor,
waits, to kindly hear my story,
passing by, yet gently more
she gives in trust and welcome,
let my heart and spirit fly.
Her trust is kindness giving
all my soul has come here for…
moments dwelt, my reason why,
along this path and forest floor…
Filed under Mountains, Nature, Photography, Poetry
Dells of Green
sorrow in the ripened vine
wherein a moment’s mystery’s kept,
at peak of summer’s sweetest rain,
as clouds of tear drops wept.
Tears, that is, for summer’s wane
and musk of fall’s encroaching.
Wherein our energy’s spent in holding
every moment’s fateful poaching
of the lazy days, where waking thoughts
bring autumn breeze, to stir
in conscious summer’s hold
on this green moment’s sunlit allure.
Yet there’s sorrow in the ripened vine
that knows its numbered days,
that soon with breaking shorter morns
will show a frost-full play.
Here the summer’s autumn days
draw doors to close and so prepare
this nature’s way for wintering,
beyond the fervent harvest’s care.
Thus invest itself in moment’s solitude
and that which harbors memories’ choice,
for summer’s green in autumn’s march
declares a ready restful voice,
long after all the work is done,
beyond the work day’s chatter.
Yields such in moment’s mystery,
a pleasure kept in honest batter,
to fatten autumn’s crisping
and ripening left to gold,
therein rejoice in what has been,
leaves hope, again to hold.
This moment’s mystery, my contented heart
does ride and draw a soft repose,
where pleasure’s drawn for life’s sweet blood
again drives work in hope that knows
recurring pleasures in this life,
between the peaks of seasons, thus,
and so recount the memories,
in hope return, in time, I trust.
Filed under Nature, Photography, Poetry
November Lines
Winter’s Geese
broken, mixed and folded back
on blue and grey in open space.
November’s chilling subtle grace
mimics lines upon my cheek,
where once the lines of tear drops peeked
out across a youngster’s blush,
today left wrinkled, stubble and such…
Seasons, age, the twain here met,
yet distant geese in lines so set
an expectation for the end,
journey exhausted, and so, my friend,
lays down to rest and so in finds,
winter’s role, aging time…
‘neath lines across November sky,
open, broken, holding sigh,
… time and why…
Filed under Nature, Photography, Poetry
The Fade
Slowly into autumn goes the ash of life –
fading grey the colors in the shade of season’s strife.
Crack the flesh to wrinkles in these hands next to callous worn.
Creak the bones by years gone by from toil and the laden born.
Cut a life long’s deepest green in shades of rusting red.
Fold the summer’s grasses down, prepare a winter’s bed.
Hush the bird alone whose song in morning rings,
yet listen closely to the verse in what his evening heart does sing.
Touch the river’s stones exposed in autumn’s waning draw.
Feel the naked sense of woods standing still in quiet, raw.
Draw the shadows cast, as long, by sun in autumn sinking.
Embrace the fade and raise a glass to everything your soul is thinking.
Solemn is the musk of woods that color in decay.
Quiet is the rustling hush that whispers through the day.
Somber is the acrid sky that bends a sharper focus,
brings clarity to mind and eye to close this year before us.
Thus by aging hand, this pen upon this yellowed paper,
fits into this autumn’s glove to beg the fade one favor…
“Do drip the honey sweet, of autumn’s red and gold,
grant these calloused crackling hands another page to hold.
Fit your progress slowly that I may see each gold leaf fall.
Grant the sun a warming breath upon my face before the call
of winter so lets in –
Please let me toast this fade again!”
In honor of D. A-Bone
“Toast to the Fade”
Filed under Memory, Mountains, Nature, Photography, Poetry
Turn a Stone
Heaven on Earth
You were there.
Whispered wings of geese above
carried Your voice to where
I stand in deepest wild,
bathed in forest fragrance.
All around I feel You,
and see Your kindest dance,
in critter small or bird alike,
whose play and purpose blend,
thus display their balance in light of day
and to this heaven Your sparkle lend.
I’ve watched the forest growth in seasons
where changes made seemed magic,
and now in winter’s middle drift,
the seeds of such, on storms, float free, not tragic
in the wind here blown,
yet once again Your heaven shown,
in season’s cycles, such life is known.
I reach deep into the breathing such,
where winter’s day and season turn
the perception of this cold bleak scene,
into blessings where Your heart is learned
and woven in this fabric.
Here I find my peace
and in it smile,
that You have blessed
this witness, while
the day goes on around me.
Yet seek, I shall, tho’ here I’ve found
the blessing that is Thee.
This heaven on earth does comfort me.
In nature’s deepest secret folds,
I’ve found Your sacred knowledge,
and with each bud or blossom grows
my heart’s desire, my soul’s indulgence
of what I feel You’ve meant,
by splitting wood or turning stones
to find You always there.
For in nature’s grasp
and balance keen,
it’s You, throughout this daily scene,
who keeps my heart,
casts free its care…
I turned a stone,
You were there.
Filed under Mountains, Nature, Photography, Poetry
Recovery
In quiet morning dew
I’ve walked the depth of forests true,
where once the giant firs had stood,
now blackened ashes, simply wood.
I see there midst the sooted scorch
where earth is silent from the torch
that laid its heart out bare –
and in the quiet solitude
I see recovery there.
In places only trunks are scarred
while boughs hold green and turning brown,
in others there is nothing left
but holes where roots once clung to ground
and now a blackened hollow.
Across the elevations seen
are perfect poles in black, serene,
whose shadows cast of perfect tines
cut angles to their perfect lines
and so create a lathe of death.
In fields where grass and sage brush stood,
now boney fingers of sprawling wood
reach to heaven from the plain,
yet green the grass and earth remain.
So walk, did I, in places where
these feet and heart have walked before –
today to feel the pain –
to sense the death and injury
and look for what remains…
The scent of quiet solitude
replaced by charred and blackened wood –
the soft and rich depth of the floor,
frail and aching in its sore
and rich exposed state.
Midst the standing dead I find
great giant’s cores who’ve tumbled blind
from where they held a hard earned home,
to land disjointed and alone
in fragments of their former self.
Yet through this walk I’ve realized,
by witness of the smallest ties
that life continues on –
For near my feet are stands of grass,
stands of sage and other class
of flora that’s meant to be
the pioneering starts of youth
that give to forest floor its truth
and nourish what remains.
I see the soil stand in hold
to grow against a rain’s hard pull,
and there imbibe the love of God
to start again, to build a sod
to nurture what comes next.
And years will pass,
yet within a few,
pines and aspens and sweet young yews
will spawn a virgin forest –
That time will lot its kindest care
to bring all birds and sweetest fare
of chipmunk and of marmot –
And so the woods will grow again,
and one day will invite me in
to sit amongst is oldest green,
to sit and write amongst serene
and alpine settings.
Tho’ today its pain I am regretting,
tomorrow will bring us more,
birthed within this forest floor
of scorch and soot and honored elder –
I walked today among the dead
and injured wood to clear my head
and pay homage to all the good –
the good past love it’s granted me –
and through its heart I clearly see
its love and nothing more.
We are of this nature,
Thank God for that, I’m sure.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arterburn_blue/sets/72157631640247391/
Filed under Mountains, Nature, Photography, Poetry
Between the Twill
In between the sanctioned colors
of summer’s heat and winter’s chill,
does bound the cast of change embroidered
upon the fabric fall has twilled.
Where greens and yellows, reds and browns’
soft rustling turns to chatter’s drown.
Grasses stand to sway no more,
but rustle stiff at bank and shore.
The sweet remiss of forest floor
draws mustiness to trail head’s door,
that simply pulls a beckoning,
to walk and feel the closing in
of shadows long and cooling wind,
there nature’s change and reckoning.
It’s these in-betweens I love the most,
twixt winter’s stir and summer’s ghost,
where every moment stretches long
to stand and bathe in sun, till gone…
It is these moments where questions cast,
do burden proof, or hope, at last
to find a holding sacred thought,
and there twixt hope and release wrought
the blood of each tomorrow.
It’s here that nothing stands eternal
throughout the sands of time,
yet hope is felt in golden dipping
leaves of trees, like teardrops dripping
a silent teardrop’s line,
or shower in yesterday’s sorrow…
If I could, but stand awhile,
I’d hold myself in forest fast,
to watch and reel the burgeoned future
and cling to tears there, of my past.
Like autumn, my heart, between does break,
for moments gone and memories stake
of hopes from yesterday…
Yet still within this autumn wind,
is kept the strength to rise again,
muster courage for winter’s chore,
and hope to stand on spring’s sweet shore…
and there within my lifetime play,
year in, year out, and day by day…
Filed under Nature, Photography, Poetry
The Pain of Trees
gentle souls of slient will
The following was written in honor of the Sycamore tree that saved St. Paul’s Chapel, during the attack on the World Trade Center Towers, Sept 11, 2001.
The chapel was bult in 1766 and is rich in American history from George Washington and the American Revolution and on…
The Pain of Trees –
Some have said that trees are souls
whose speech is long and laborious,
that if you listen long and still,
you’ll hear conversation glorious.
But too, a warning goes with such,
that if you listen, as is told,
that years around will move quite fast,
but you, as trees, will not grow old,
but remain in time disjointed,
until a greater tragedy,
of humankind’s perception,
draws you back to human time,
there loose your tree’s reception,
from time in parallel, thus as pointed.
Of these trees, such lifetimes spent
that see the world rush by.
Ours, for instance, scurries past, intent
on lifetimes blurring ride.
These trees, in slower gesture, gage
the ether through their day,
yet theirs, in months or years foretold,
draw slow the words they say.
StilI, I believe their hearts are instant
to worldly changes about them,
for a tree will burn or break or fall,
if instant purpose befits him.
As such, their gentler, greater reason
holds purpose to their vision,
yet time’s response chains fast their motion,
a temporally disjointed prison.
Yet their compassion runs so deep,
that for us, their honest hearts do weep.
For humankind’s transgression
is to live this life “at speed”,
focused on our appointed purpose,
and the attached immediate need.
Yet these trees, with love’s compassion,
reach slowly, thus, to show
their kindness, that shapes care for us
in simple strength of limb and bow.
For through their pain they long to reach
with love and service true,
there save our lives by presence,
there share such deeper clues…
…by river’s edge in raging flood
the willow’s arms outreached,
low and touching water’s surface,
these helping hands beseeched
by nature’s darkest moods
when waters rage and storms do brood.
How many different lives have reached
a safety shore from trees that strive
to help a drowning innocent,
keep man and beast alive,
when fortunes opportune?
Who of us in storm or strain
have ,’neath these gentle giants, remained
in warm and drying solitude,
through onslaught of a summer’s rain?
In trees I’ve heard of safety there,
where man and beast alike
were saved, by tree’s with gentle care,
in perches found throughout the night,
‘bove tumult of nature’s raging rivers,
‘beit opportune, or purpose found,
these trees’ compassion is life’s sweet giver,
but what about the souls who’ve drowned?
Souls once lost, whose last path drifted,
beyond the reach of the giant’s stance.
What cost is rendered of the pain of trees
when compassion’s lost the chance
to save a soul?
What of their pain, when all is done,
and their chance, reduced, to gather
the bodies of the lost and drowned,
when God’s called truth such. Rather
catch a soul and save a life,
than reaper’s helper,
blind with strife.
In trees at fall of sadness setting,
I’ve felt their pain, their sad regretting
that their time moves long beyond us.
Their eyes in tragedy can not change,
nor be diverted beyond the range
of where the reaper’s death lust
call’s to the will of God.
These gentle souls of silent will,
despair for us, through our ills
that disjoint us from their distance.
So many lives they share past ours,
when months and years comprise their hours,
upon histories’ repeated insistence.
Such weeping, sorrowful moans they make,
or whisper love’s ‘cantation
upon the breeze, that she might take
the pain from such libation.
And so it is, these gentle souls
hold pain for life’s sweet balance,
that begs them watch, or help, or sum,
where God’s call forms a keeper’s valance.
Such bittersweet task it seems,
for those whose fields and mountain streams
lend beauty to God’s purpose,
yet, more than love
beneath the surface…
Filed under History, Memory, Nature, Photography, Poetry
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