Month: December 2017

Year End at Neahkahnie

/ Korin Thomas / 2 Comments

IMG_20171230_091238488.jpg

Under the low arch of the winter sun
we sit on the edge of the year
on the continent’s shoreline fringe
watching wave surges on the headlands
scrying, to read the signs of the times,
to foretell what is to come.

We cast our vision over a gray Pacific
into its depths, out to its tumbling reaches
as a fisherman heaves a line,
to catch what may come from the sea.

Storms hide in the blurred horizon
monsters rise out of the blue.
Sirens cry from billowing mists
as surging swells roll through our dreams
perilous breakers crash onto our lighted shores.

The year brims over its rim urged on
by profound deep vaults of time.
It pours as from a font down and down
bearing faultless light in trailing veils
with streaming banners and twirling ribbons.
The speckled year slips over its blue edge
into sunsets’ serene and golden bowl.

Manzanita, Oregon – December 31, 2017.  Photo taken 12/30/2017 northwest to Neahkahnie mountain.  In the Tillamook tribal language, Neahkahnie means “place of the Creator.”  (https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/neahkahnie_mountain/#.WkfwAZVy7X4

Star

/ Korin Thomas / Leave a comment

In an early morning I saw a star hung from a tree.
She seemed to be held there, dropped
out of a galaxy fleeing fast away
suspended as if from a gossamer line
from the tip of a nodding needled branch.

I sat in stillness watching darkness
pass before me or, closing my eyes,
wandering in my thoughts.
What is, what was, what will be?
A clinging sense of loss
the quickening passage of time
slow motions of aging and remembrance.
Oft I came back to that star
to watch her slow descent –
a soft fall onto a branch below.

A clear and cold December morning
without cloud or fog, rain or snow
revealed the star on her way.
She was finding her way through the heavens
in a long arc – ascent and descent –
carrying fire along the way.

Portland, Oregon – December 23, 2017

Wordsick World

/ Korin Thomas / 1 Comment

If my words do not convey what I mean
fail to say what they seem
when I write of mystery, joy, or death
then what of me or you or we?

When I write of beauty, faith, or the green hills
I wish my words to bestow these –
their vision, hope, their fecundity
to another. They hold, as a pitcher,
my essential gift to the world.

Alas, the contract of words is failing
falling down around us, flung into despair.
When words of government or commerce
are without care or the desire for truth –
then the land is overcome by an evil design.

If their essence is not held by poets –
each word having something to say –
words will lose their sense altogether
and we will forage for understanding
in a rotting linguistic land
where those who lie are held in esteem
they who manipulate, defame, excoriate
are deemed the conscience of the king.

I will write by the lights I see
forgo dim and shadowy flickers
try to say what my heart, in its silence,
knows. Or, I’ll wander onto a sinister path
to join the long and damned procession
of souls wandering mad in a word sick land.

Portland, Oregon – December 19, 2017

Advent in a Troubling Year

/ Korin Thomas / Leave a comment

Something is tapping, pounding
on the door, the windows and the roof.
It wants in, is insistent!
It is the rain.

Something jostles the bare tree limbs
siren slow moans in the vents
demanding entrance in the night!
It is the wind.

Something hurries down the streets
brushing aside the lowering winter sun
scuffling its way into forgotten places – it comes!
It is darkness and winter’s cold.

We clothe ourselves against the rain and strong winds
put up cheerful lights to dispel an entreating darkness
but hope alone will bear our salvation –
it is coat and hat; it is lamp to light the way.

Portland, Oregon – December 2, 2017

The Advent season, in the Christian tradition, is a season of waiting in anticipation of the coming of the messiah.  It is a remembering of the events leading up to the birth of Jesus.  But, the underlying impetus of the season is the virtue of hope – hope that something good is coming, something to save, to redeem, to heal, to forgive.  Hope is a virtue not confined to any spiritual tradition but is essential to all and, in these troubling times, is a paramount virtue to have and hold.  It is the antithesis to cynicism, fear and anger.