Month: September 2021

What Became of Summer?

/ Korin Thomas / 1 Comment 
All the years I waited through winter
for summer, it's warm and calm breezes,
sinking toes into beach sand, lying
in green grass under slow clouds
drifting as if going nowhere, nowhere.

Playing catch with my cousin, bikes
out all along the Monument Road
to where, in winter, ski slopes rose
above Silver Creek, and in summer
all green wood and forgotten meadows.

We did not know what would come
of summer when we also silver were, 
that it would not be what it always was
that healing season after the winter storms.

Now I wish for autumn leaves, the coming
of rain and cold - healing after burned leaves,
drowned fields, the empty air where once
swirled myriad butterflies, birds and bees.
Where the species once abundant
swarming in all the fields, forests, and farms? 

I will take a breath in autumn, a deep breath
as calm, as balm watching the rain fall
hearing it on the roof, pooling in the ruts.
Here is the cool wind from the west
that brings an end to summer
and to what summer has become.
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Portland, Oregon - September 29, 2021

I write from the Pacific Northwest of America.  While other places in America and the world experienced devastating rains and flooding, we experienced devastating heat and drought.  I support the fullest of the Green New Deal to begin to take seriously the effects of human caused climate change.

Mystic Chords of Memory

/ Korin Thomas / Leave a comment 
A song hums before the flooded womb, beyond the darkling grave
thrumming through our every dream's night and in each shining shadowed day.
Moments, when the cool breeze of autumn floats through the open window,
I think that I can make out a melody from far away leading me on
until my sad restlessness comes and I find there are things I could do
that needn't be done but I do and the sound I thought I heard dissolves into loss.

Then the moon, almost forgotten, rising on the face of evening's tender blush,
takes up the song and I hear it again, faint, from beyond the edge of night,
or, it sings within the soft lights of dawn or dusk, in shadows or the still of silence.
Perpetual and persistent though it is, I stop to listen only by chance and surprise.
What would my life be if I were to sit longer with that patient melody -
let it enter me as much as the air, as much as my own beating heart?
Might I know of eternity and heaven, of grace transfiguring all and all that is? 

Such thoughts in the night - follies of imagination! Except, 
others have intimated as much and more and who am I to say
that their engagement with the sublimity of surrendered souls
are only the ravings of lunatics gone mad from too frequent forays into darkness?
The night is getting on and I am ready to sleep
drowsing in the soft cool darkness that is this September eve.
The birds have retired to their nests, the squirrels to theirs
and the melodies of the night are reserved to a distant rumble
on roads and rails out beyond the silver streetlights.
Still, I will sit quiet for a while and listen that I might hear that faint murmur
telling of what was before I was born and what will be when I have passed away. 
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Portland, Oregon - September 26, 2021

The poetic phrase, "...mystic chords of memory" was used at the end of Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address.  He, indeed, was a poet, using words as artfully as any politician, or anyone for that matter.  Thus, I steal the phrase from him but at least here give him proper attribution.  My use of the phrase is not in any way intended to mimic the context or philosophy that prompted his original use.

Breath of Autumn

/ Korin Thomas / 2 Comments 
The first breath of autumn comes 
as gray and cool cloud cover 
breaks before a September sun
finds its way into morning.

The rest of the day all bright and clear!
Yet, the remains of morning -
exhaled dry leaves, fallen pine needles -
scent the day with memory and sadness.

This day for many years has come
when, though I knew it was near,
I did not know when I would feel
a season ending never to return.

____________________________________________________________________________________
Portland, Oregon - September 14, 2021