PART FIVE: INTO THE UNKNOWN

1/21/12

“Freedom.”

Freedom

Is a thing

Everybody’s

Born with—

(leastwise, the animals and plants let their young’uns

Spring up unharmed, and

Coming to birth undestroyed--)

Then There’s mankind, and I

Tell you this but mankind aint interested in nothin’

But taking freedom of others, of

Earth, Of God, of all

Known things, of mankind—

Taking each other’s lives for the sheer pleasure of it,

Most of the time!  The devil,

That devil, is Man Himself.

And He hates Freedom.

Trust me.//

“Can’t Capture It!” Written 1/21/12

Because,

To catch a snowflake is

Like writing a poem—

You never can hold it when

You have it; it no longer

Exists—its energy changes

Form to water in your hand.

Snow is infinite like the seas--- Can’t capture it!-

And they say—

Even the very hairs of of our heads are numbered!

--They tell me all the answers, by the way. And I just remember them—why,

In case I need them

To survive—

So how, then, are we supposed to catch a thunderstorm in a pail? (We can’t….it’s hopeless.  The mind can contain the world within it and have it

Be true.  Ah,

This is the reason I quit drinking

And wearing makeup

And painting—because

I am a snowflake trying

To catch the cold, a cold, trying to catch--!

Don’t catch me!  Maybe that is when it is hopeless.

I need hope. A lifespan, to endure.

So, I praym let me fall in a shady snowdrift

Till I am gone like

All the rest—this desire is precisely the reason why I quit drinking.  I think it is because it is so ironically sad.//

Something so lucent—

So lucent and green

Like tears on eyelashes

Or red roses in spring

Something so fragile

As trying not to cry---

Or sailing a sail,

Or the wide- ope sky,

Something forgotten

Or something unseen—

Something so lucent,

What, something?  A Dream!

Part V.

The rainbow is the prophecy of God,

All things

Take place in order to that comeliness.

Pearls are long in the making

The Bonsai weeps

Each day of its life.

My hair is soften than any thing

Come, rest with me

Under green boughs.

Mine eyes are gentle

Gentle is the rain

Weary are the footpaths of the Pilgrim

But he carries blessedness in his heart.

Pilgrim, will you come

We make dinner

Under the yew-trees.

Unabashed, we worship

God, hear

The dew is on the oak leaves

Yet it is not autumn but first spring.

The rain falls

Good and Bad

All are at peace.//

//The Father is

The Holy One.

  Oh, Earth, Praise Him!

He has given us children and light—and –

Oh, father, forgive my trespasses!

Oh earth mother

Sky mother

You are Holy.

Come sing to us

For you are fragile as a dove—

We are sad, poor and alone…

Mother, bring us hope.//  Last Leaves

Of a twinkling star,

Will you pray for me?//

Theodore is afraid

And he doesn’t want to admit it

Can’t admit it—Cause

If he did he’d probably break

Down and cry, and be broken.

I, I am also broken by the pain of family loss, hopelessness, fear, disease or even death!

Like sands of the Sahara

The world breaks me heart

Most of the time.  So Come,

My husband,

We are old, have been old,

Since first we met—

--old, true, and wise—

Let earth mother sing to her child forever.

I have, after all, always asked God to make me a hero—

I just pray that I don’t have to

Die.//

Lost to man

Are the songs

God sang

When he made

The world.

Only the WORD

Remains now.,,

So much is lost

In the past//

When all hope is lost,

It’s okay, don’t cry- or cry--//

Don’t let me die here

Cause I’vev got a message,

See, I’ve got a message

Let me through to the

Briar-rose-wall

And I’ll bring cookies

And rum

And coke

And I’ll marry you

And I’ll make love to you

A die for you

Sunset in this little sunset of a town-----

I was lost,

I was lost—

You found me, pick me up

And now I am a child

In your arms

And I loved you wild

Cant you understand—//

Boom!  Catacombs

In the western sky,

--you married me in

A black gown, with blood

Red rosess,

Cause black is the only color

I understand

White is so meaningless—

Child, wild child,

Catching a cold on the bus—

To London in the music

Of the agony of the sheaves

---sackcloths full of potatoes

Where is Jesus tonight?

Cause I’m out here in the cold, cold, cold,

Sitting on a road,

Calling out your name….

I, I, I was dying, and you brought

Me coffee

And the ambulances faded died away and that’s

The part I’m so

Hung up on….

Tolerate me.

And I’ll bring roses.

Kiss me

I’ll bring wine

Far-out song,

Where are you tonight?

---If I go, see,

If I go on,

And you aint there
Then I’ll die an

Aint nobody on earth

Want to die that way.

I was alone

You come

With coffee

And I said marmalade

We sang

I tell you

I told you a joke or two

As the sun set in on us

And it closed all around us.//

What’s-it

Was wrong,

Half the stars

Looked blue-sort of tonight

I went away empty

But my heart was so full

I don’t know how it kept on

a-beating.

--Lost you

You died

Under the chicory leaves

And a chickadee hopped about

The leaves where you were

And it was so cruel—

That bird.

--Scare me,

I won’t run

I was thinking of hopscotch

Then you gave me a kiss

Scared me like

Grownups

Need

Other grownups

Like I was a child again

And maybe a little better---

Kidding me

I said, desert,

You said, Run,

Sp we run into

The desert

Pull me up

Pull me up

To where the

Streets of heaven

You walk---

--Oh!  I fell back down,

--saw,

For a moment,

The market stalls of china-town

And I was holding

Your hand,

So close.//

PART VI: ENCHANTMENTS

Have you ever seen a fairy wing?

Oh, tis the commonest thing

Common as ash, as maple seed,

Common as mother or butterfly,

Common as an autumn leaf

Have you ever seen a fairy glade?

Oh, tis the rarest thing

A burbling spring, wisteria tee-pee not formed by human hand—

A jug of old, strange, a little

Ways off a forest path…..

Take it home, if you can find

Your way home!

One would be lost, twere not for the birds and a forest

Dweller for a compass—

Oh, take me, please,

When we go pass way far into the trees and come

To the fairy rings under

The oaks and pines, sycamore and dogwood, maple, cypress, laurel!

Oh little Dazzlers!

Fireflies!

Little companies, always be

So wecome in our rooftop gardens,

Fairies—are everywhere.

Mine ear be

The singing singing thing

Far off in the distance---//

Thrush, Pine, Thrush.

Finches and wrens come and eat

Seed

From our little feeder

Not every day—yes, every day.

We have have had three tornado watches in the last week---

But Where is all the rain?//

Scare me

I never saw

But I didn’t think you

Ever would—

Nor did Im never, or ever---

Wonder

Or Wander—

Or linger

Or rest

Beneath this cool

Mimosa forest…//

Never did a blossom

Never did a bee

Never did the humblest

Of tiny sapling tree

Fall short of thou, this night, and thee!//

Humility must needs count the best

Among the burr and thorn

Where do the little maple seed

Upon an august noon?//

Jonquils….ever seen one

Roses, ever count to twenty

In a day?

Sparrows—ever seen

Two sold for a penny?

Has it always been this

 way?//

-Written on April 15^th, 2011.

Mystery.

A long time ago,

It was years ago,

Long before our birth

My birth, or yours,--

There was this Thing

I am not sure what it was

But a good metaphor of it would be

A cocoon.

Anyways-----//

Monday, May 2, 2011:

Jesus, where are you

In the times—

Those Times we can’t feel you

There?  Two sets of footprints

In the sand, then just one set of footprints.  “It was then

That I carried you.”//

Joy is hard

To write about.

Poetry is for dim, blue stars

So far off, they can touch you

From an eternity away

With a little ray of

Real starlight.

Stars say, “Twinkle, Twinkle.”

Maybe it is a  human universe, after all…

And I’m finding myself unable to express the loveliness

Of young earth, for Theodore is home.  But when

The sky grows dim to my eyes in two days, then, then I will write from my soul.  It is of Who I Am….//

I dreamed a dream,

That I was rare like

The only rose in all the world

And I dreamt that cant nobody

hurt me

if I never show them

my heart,

because

heroes

aren’t the writers usually—

and I don’t—

I don’t—

I don’t—

Jesus, I thought was my imaginary friend, and

God was the spirit of

The river---

Then one day I looked

Out at the world and saw

That I was just

A tiny grain

And I was happy

And it was beautiful.

Not what I want, God,

But what you want—as Jesus prayed the night before

The world came alive for the first time.

Where were you when the

Ocean met the sky?

When God opened the heavens to the meek,

For the lamb.//

Fell to the ground,

Fell to the ground,

Wind took me,

Ow----

Life was so free, Love was blind,

Catastrophic apocalypse

And all of a sudden we’re

All dancing in step like

Nazi soldiers---

And all singin the same notes

And that’s when, I think,

The World’s coming to an

End---

The question is, is my world

Coming to an end---

Or is Our world Coming

To an end?

Well I guess

It doesn’t make any difference to me.

It’s likely the winter of my discontent—now, very now, even now—still yet, now---!//

//And I wanted to be humble

And I wanted to be brave—

And the mountain’s foot

Knocked a few rocks down

And then it became my island.//

I kneeled at the mountain’s

Foot, and now

Lock-step

Lock-step

Easy Now

We’re gonna

Make it

Round the

Bend

Anyway—

I’m the only rose on my island,

And God and Jesus are my family--
and resurrection

And—as long as I don’t want to know what’s out

There, I’m

Safe and happy and free.//

La, La, La,

I can’t hear you,

‘dancin with my baby.

I been a lot of places—

---you know—

Anyways

I love you.//

What could ever go mad in the Island of the Eastern Moon garden,

The moon-temple?

This is my moon temple,

And I can Believe

 what I

 want

to

believe—

yet that—

that’s all that matters.

Moon-temple Island,

We’re sailing

Through space

And time

And pain

 Ecstasy, and

Love.//

Forgive me, Oh Lord! 

In heaven someday I shall have

To answer for that.

Never again, if I can help it!//

Song.

I dream of a song that

Has not ended;

I dream of one which has not yet begun.

But in all

That you do—

Every texture that you touch,

Every land on which you trespass with your feet;

Every time something (anything)

Beautiful or ugly or beloved or feared—Greive—

In all that you see.

In all your heart’s pain

Till night of life—

”Silver Trees.”

I once went down to the waters

And there, by a silver stream,

An old bouquet of roses

And remnants of a dream

A milkmaiden’s little stool;

And elder’s crooked staff;

A lover’s forlorn roses;

And a trickster’s villainous map.

I went down to the waters

And, like a Christian, bore,

The dreams I dreamed and

Sometimes, as dearer than

Before,

I went down to the waters

And by a silver brook

Twas winter green, all liver wort

Ginger, moss and fern.  I took

To me a pencil

And sat me down to write

Of the days when a child I wandered pale

Through the forest’s deep

Ancient night.//

 I sat at the mountain’s old

Foot,

And I wished I had a story

To tell him,

But He poured blessings upon me,

And I gave him my Name.

Forgive me, Father…//

“On a Trip To Nebraska.”

Getting the hell outta dodge

Aint always no way for an

Answer

But, you never know,

--might strengthen the shards

To whick you are tied

Until you

Break free of them

An’ run into the

Sun, where you have

Entrusted

Your heart.

An a heart’s all

Anybody’s

Got—

Don’t leave me, baby,

It’s a long long drive

There an back

-and you know

I’ll never see the light of day

Till you are at my door

And in my arms

Once more

In our difficult

Devoted-to-the other

Lifetimes…

Baby, don’t you get lost,

Hear?

Ah poems, in case

I never make it back—

In case I ever write a

“last” poem, and

Daren’t write again,

Remember that a cloud

Is a dragon in the sky.

That’s all//

You think I’m—I may be dying

That I’m dying

Or

That

I’m letting myself

Go—dying

You say that it is a shame

When you look down

But I tell you

I am not

Dying

I am

Growing, because love,

I have

A Dream

That is so much bigger

Than anything I could dream of myself—

No—This is

A miracle—

That only God could attain—

A child,

Poetry pales, art cries,

For wanting of

A child.

(To Theodore C Land

From your wife CES Dec 25^th 2011, Christmas Day)

Though thee were a child being,

And I a lonesome wearisome,

Though children are the only things

That seem to make any real

Sense—

Why do they grow up!

If I could give thee enough goldenrod

To last forever

That must be how much I loved

You

Little one—

In this moment alone!

And as all the other moments

Thine, like wet soggy boots

All full of unhappy oceans,

And a burden to tread in,

And that, little one,

Is why I find writing poetry

So difficult these days!

In short, life is too hard.

There are nothing but soggy boot moments so much now—

Too deep to write about, impossible to fathom!

Depressing—inconjurable beauty

Like a first kiss

Drenching you

Moment after soggy wet moment!

How difficult, then, is life!

Thus, I can’t write!//

Chris if I ever

Clap my hand over you mouth

Nudge you under the table,

Caddycorner your eyes from the corner of my eyes—

Don’t say another word for once=--

If I yell “Don’t unlock the door!”—

DON’T.

If I shout, “do this!”

And you don’t,

Beause you never

Ever

Do—

Well I do hope that that wont be our undoing. 

Because it takes a lot of doing

To get it undone again.//

“A Rational Love Song.”

Chris said that my poetry was good

Be still, love, still my beating heart

I am counting the light years from

you to me

and that I could never break

your heart, even

you Theodore—

the thought of you so far away

remote

Love me—

Our fingers unentwine slowly and hover together, freefalling into nothingness

Until I hear you at the door

 I Know

I know

I know

I know, you’ll always be true to me, if only in your heart!

See, our fingers are entwined across

The interstate’s light-shift veins

Through dark and cold,

And I am safe here with my

Coffee waiting for your footfall

At the door of our little home.

We have something that belongs to

Only you and me, we have built

Ourselves a world, and there are stars in our eyes—

Look away, look away,

Love, don’t look anywhere but in your own little heart.//

Ocean Song. 07-10-2011

I.

Hear the lark ascending!

Already--

I can see the veils

In the ocean

Far-off now

Are the cries

Of songbirds

Says the mariner—

I can see it

I can see it soon

The ivory is ringed with

Shells

And the pounding of

Waves

On the open sea

And coral bones

The veils are

Jellyfish tentacles

The mermaiden is a

Shark! The moon teases the ocean by night—

The sun scorches by day.

II.

Myriads of fishes

Tossed on waves

Ascending

Alto to decrescendo

To cantabile

Far away

Someone calls out one’s

Name and nobody

Not one

Sees as the moon’s

Linens fall on the

Sea

And the silk fan of the

Moon

Lingers there

Ruthlessly

Like a ghost--//

Freezeframes.

Tomorrow the ghost will be there,

And again the moon is a sliver

Or a crescent in the east—

Already now I take up the pen

And again

And again

Once more

Then

Drawing the drapes of the balcony

And cascading

Nude

Into a pool of flowers

They are

Violets

Now, very now, if this life—all to say

If the past were a

Reality

Or is a photograph a loophole

Through time

And is life made up of

A series

Of freezeframes

Each freezeframe a single

Universe

Hinged in chain-link or—

And is it like a movie,

And who is watching,

And could we somehow live

In alternate realities?

Or Transcend Time.  How long will it take?

Does that matter?

“The Dancer”

Moving motionless

On a stage of whispers

The dancer teeters

Forth, back-forth—

To the drumming

Of a drum

Mesmerizing

But confusing

And slow

So slow

Like murmuring

To your love on

A night pale with stars

And the window open on the

Black jarred night—

What then, oh

Shadow dancers?

Let the shy remain shy

Let the sun shine on in the sky;

Let crescents be gossamer and gossamer be gold

Marry me Theodore----

“Time”(The Soul Trumps Time with God’s spark Love/knowledge of eternity/good and evil)

I told my love, be still,--

He cried out, why?

When we are moving to the beat

Of a tepid drum

So still

Like a surgeon’s fingers

Or needles—

Or time—

--Pain here—

Picture me on a yacht

The wind blowing through

My caramel-once hair

Sheathed in a scarf

And Golden Shores

And freezeframes of the

 Soul—

--time is cold—

--time freezes—so to hell with time—

The soul cringes,  But

The soul is Eternal

By Love;

Love Trumps Time—Proving eternity

We meet in some eternity

Kinder than time

For time is cold and dead

And unforgiving—

Our souls are of a purer form

Of truth

We belong to an eternity

Beyond time—

This eternity

Is not, then, that

Eternity of a God

Or any divine law I believe—

Transcending all known laws, its

Power is

Love—

I thank God, of the

Inevitable

Unvanquishable

Translucent

Forever brave

And lonely

Soul—

With—or through—

Thee, God! 

Time is just one of God’s rules,

But He created us, and we—

--on earth—

Are His joy---

For he created us after his own image and so—

He gave us the divine spark of His that we

Call

Love. 

Love binds us in brevity with eternity and transcends the cosmic creator-work-desk and old time.

Time—

God vanquisheth

Or the soul is God—

Peace!

There are no coincidences

I Know This.

--

For I have seen many miracles – and have come from the end

Of the earth to hear the Wisdom of Solomon—

But Behold!  Lo,

a greater than Solomon is here—Love Crucified

(I believe)

And thank thee blessed lord,

That I may hie me on yon

Starry bank

And rest me here

In a little house with

A husband, a family and garden,

Oh Father!  Would that thou wouldst make me little!---

Thou turnst thy face from me,

Yet I am true—

And I say, I cry, it is nothing—

For how many of us have journeyed to the ends of the

Earth for—Wisdom…--

And –Found God?

All, all do.

For it is a part of life…

The whys and whos and hows

Of it all—

So far gone

Mustnt  the answer be

God,

Love,

Creator----!//