The Ease of Evening

 

 

 

 

 

Beyond Words

I am, by this poem and all others,

Going somewhere else,

To deeply feel between the words and phrases,

Between and within. Words are sacred, we know that.

Yet there is something even more sacred, even more

 

And so an invitation, solemn and serene,

To breathe deeply (and slowly) between each stanza,

Pause completely (and for long, for long) at the end of each line,

Feel around the back and sides of each word

I send you

Into a fullness of silence,

A place of perfect presence,

A knowing stillness,

A deeper sense,

Beyond words.

 






 

Clear Passage

 

 

 

 

 



I Noticed

In the winter-time, in Montreal,

You stay huddled in the city

Safe amidst the salt and slush - the

Hamster’s wheel metro a mere two blocks

Away.

 

It is only when Spring

Breaks upon the land, like a golden egg,

And the threat of ice and snow recedes

That you venture forth with

Wild-heart yearning,

Seek the hawthorn and alder tangle,

The grace of maple-blessed hillsides.

 

Oh! Receive me, sweet Mother that is the land!

 

Or you head South,

Pretend you feel at home there.

Pretend it’s better.

 

Still, you’re waiting

Once again

For Winter’s well-known imperatives

To melt away,

Freeing you

 

To go

 

Back

 

Home.

 

 

 

Something to Emulate

Sonnet #3

When to this world some madness seems to cling,

Old words of war, old hatreds violence bring,

Or to the world itself seems damage made

Now dam-held flow, now fear where children played.

 

Then ours is not to weakly weep and sigh.

The answer known from birth until we die;

That all that seems without is yet within,

That all the world’s our body, sky our skin.

 

And ours a power larger than the sun,

To speak our will, for by our will be done

All works of earth, of rock and wall and gate;

The world expressed. Our saying is our fate.

 

Thus speak from deep within of glorious day;

We make the unending world by what we say.

 

Silvered Support System

 

 

 



Sonnet #2

 

Oh, song of night, create outspoken day

And it shall spring from nothingness the way

That all-that-is is only for its not.

For this we know, thought it was never taught,

 

That in sweet bloom, the fruit begins to rot,

The bubbling stew contained by metal pot,

 

And birds’ free flight informs our earthiness.

What’s more is more when something else is less,

 

See, in some hurrying figure, stillness lies.

The largely laughing man hides infant’s cries.

 

Clean mountains draw from clustered dusty plain,

As sanity builds walls with the insane.

 

So sing! Spontaneous dream in unfelt, unknown night

Begins the world again; from dark flows light.

 

 

Bridge to Tomorrow









Sonnet #1

 

Ideas grow like lilies in the Spring.

From somewhere deep within, the mind can bring

One vision, which then to all minds be brought.

This rising up, this reaching, is its lot.

 

Even the twisted, pale, unwanted thought

Begins in some small place and travels far

Until it reaches to the farthest star,

Unless deflected, pulled back to its source

Unfinished, not allowed to run its course.

 

All laughing, loving lanterns of sweet voice,

Though sounding softly, linger. This our choice -

To speak with careful tongue, of what we know.

 

For knowing makes the world, and makes it well.

Each loving thought adds to the tale we tell.

 

 

 

 

Slow Day in Heaven

 

 



Looking Back, Moving Forward

 

I

Difficult to contact people

Now that she had moved away.

She had no phone numbers.

Everyone she knew had moved from student slum to

Student slum;

Only fragments of remembered conversation to

Go by.

She had to make contact.

She had things to say to people,

Belongings to be gathered.

And she hadn’t moved so far away.

It was two hours by car.

It was five hours,

Maybe more,

Of hitching and walking down those empty back roads.

Got a ride with a musician;

Going up for an afternoon gig.

That seemed like enough time to

Find her friends,

Pick up a few things,

Maybe have a beer.

But, when she got there,

She felt a flash of heat and adrenalin.

She started to rush about.

 

II

Five o’clock;

Flushed, drunk and adamant;

She’d not leave. Not yet.

She’d go the following morning. Maybe then.

The musician friend packed up his car and left.

Tension threaded a sticky swirling coil

Through her body.

She should have gone, taken that ride.

She should have left as planned.

She searched out another beer, another party,

Then slept a drunken sleep,

Exhausted by the frenzied dancing, her

Longing not to leave these young, indolent bodies,

This heat and drunkenness,

This music, this happening.

She burnt to gray the cold, real fact of her

Leaving.

 

III

Light slammed into her eyes.

The air outside the blankets was cold.

She closed the door behind her, but it swung

Opened.

The day was clear and empty.

She stuck out her thumb,

Resigned to independence; walked

With long, sure strides between the

Passing of cars.

Quiet streets,

Slow going under a mid-morning hangover;

She was hard-pressed to feel anything

Positive about the journeying.

She stood for a long time on the

Highway’s shoulder on the

Edge of a highway town.

Reflecting on the distance,

She was afraid now of that two-hour drive.

She knew the road, but still couldn’t make it.

Not easily.

Rather blinded by vain longings and sudden tears.

Maybe it was better just to stay away.

And then she remembered other times

When she’d had to move, to

Leave things behind,

Remembered how the focus shifted;

Looking back,

Moving forward.

She remembered how she’d had to

Stay away.

 

 

 

 

Waiting











Creation Myth

 

Only the rise and fall of feeling,

Only the still center

Loving.

 

Movement has no meaning when you’re larger than the world.

 

Do not try. Be.

Do not hope. Know.

 

Power does not stir itself. The

Still center feels no need.

Only the graceful rise and fall.

 

Power makes no effort.

Love makes no request.

 

The stillness takes less room than a pinpoint.

The stillness holds the universe in its breath.

 

Do not try. Be.

Do not hope. Know.

 

And only the rise and fall of feeling

Holds the still center

With the trembling hands of humanity’s

Always and never.

 

Being born forever

Is the cradling rise and fall enveloped by the

Stillness.

 

Each makes the other.

 

 

 

 Celestial Garden