Author: Korin Thomas

Advent – Come!

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I do not wish for more to come than has come
piling up in thick layers, smothering
the society we have stitched from the cloth
of history, woven with strands of doubt
of error, patched with blood and care.

We wake in the morning with relief
having flailed through sleep fragments
dream chaos and thickening coughs
that push silence to the far corners,
peace into the dark and hidden closet.

“Do not come!” if what comes are more
battered days of human failure and betrayal.
“Go away!” Let us have the time we need
to repair what is breaking in us –
our beliefs, the symbols we thought
would sustain our already fragile faith.
Let racing time slow to accord
with this natural season – fallen leaves,
frozen ponds, sun’s light sliding
low and long across the wintry horizon –
the seasons’ lights, the veiled half moon.

We have time enough for this, to quiet and still.
It is enough to say, because we’ve learned
from our traditions and hold to them
as to a branch hanging over an abyss,
unknowing and feebly but from deep within: “Come!” 

Portland, Oregon – December 3, 2019.  The season of Advent is a Christian liturgical season which ends on December 24th, this year.  It is a traditional time of waiting, of stillness – in hopeful preparation for the coming of joy – silent night, holy night, night divine. May all traditions be welcome to join in this sacred time.

Stories of Our Lives

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We tell stories of our lives
as we remember they were
and believe they are:
clear and distinct memories,
what we learned in school,
works of our hands,
beauty we have seen and touched,
who we loved and lost;
all our senses ablaze for a time.

We do not know well our own stories
they, as wildflowers, growing
in fields abloom, bending in every breeze
sleeping at night among the stars –
winter comes and they are gone.
So we in our fields bloom,
bend, sleep, then go our way.

I watch as indistinct shadows move
behind a thin and trembling veil
telling me about my life –
things strange and unfinished,
without beginning or end.

I see flickering phantasms
playing on creation’s silvery screen
that seem to be about me
but, as in a dream, make no sense
as if I am in and out of my own life
becoming things I do not remember,
as if I were a tree or,
on its branches, a tiny bird.

If only we knew our whole story
told by one who knows,
can tell its whole arc
however long, its shape and texture,
and where it bends into the night.

I wonder if poetry can follow
the thin thread thrown from the heavens
down onto the green fields of life
and tell where it has come from
and where it goes?

Intimations of immortality
may follow that twisting line
to describe the contours of being
formed from cosmic nothing –
hidden, revealed, washed away again
as endless breakers on sunlit shores.

Portland, Oregon – November 16, 2019

Gratitude to William Wordsworth for his sublime, “Ode on Intimations of Immortality.” (https://www.bartleby.com/101/536.html) I highly recommend reading this masterpiece. In my own poem, I use “intimations of immortality” as a way of saying how poetry may be able to describe what other artistic forms may not. But, of course, all art forms, even to include the sciences, try to speak to the mysteries of life.

They’ve Gone Away

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Faces and names I’ve not forgotten
held in my bones and memory.
I touched the flesh of each one,
listened to their electric thoughts.
I still can hear their voices as once
we played catch, drove wildly, walked
sacred paths, gazed unknowing
down the corridor laid before us –
at its end a door closed
before I could get there.

My first best friend
playing from yard to yard
stole away one afternoon
and has not come back.

I knew a guy for a little while
who could make me laugh.
No word for forty years.
A few days ago he went away.

My high school friend died.
His white Mustang carried us
through our town, cruising
with all the others.

My brother went back home
and cared for our mother.
Both have gone through the door
but my questions remain.

He was working his work
high up in the wires.
His work carried him away
on a warm desert day.

Hers is a familiar story
of one who should not be gone.
She is gone and in death
I wrote a poem about her.

That’s enough for now.
There are many others.
I’ve lost track of most
and I’ll probably never know.

May all of my faithful departed
through the mercy of saints
and angels, heaven and earth
rest in peace.

Portland, Oregon – All Hallow’s Eve, October 30, 2019

Wings

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What might I do, yet become
in the time I have, walking
on the thin membrane of existence?
I am not content as birds seem to be
playing in wild veering arcs
through the thrill of October winds
from branch to dripping branch.

I yearn, scrying for signs.
The coming winter somber skies
fill my autumn senses; cold
adding layers to thought as confusion
or depth. The colors of dying leaves
enthrall…then they fall.
I watch as they brown and decay.
Where are my wings, my play?

Portland, Oregon – October 23, 2019

Third Vision – Dark Winter Wood

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In my mind’s eye I have three distinct and colored images or visions. They are primal and essential. I do not know how they emerged or formed. They are clear, unchanging, and have been with me for as long as I can remember. This is the third.

A road fades deep twilight into night
in a still and snowfallen winter wood
dark but for a hushed and pale glow
from nowhere, as light from a ghost.
Whether at the end of the road
or its beginning I do not know
only that I am neither afraid nor cold,
waiting – in silence and in thrall.

Portland, Oregon – September 11, 2019

Writing this, I cannot but think of Robert Frost’s, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”  Except for the horse and the forked road, my own mental image bears resemblance to the image in his incredibly beautiful poem.

Second Vision – The Promontory

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In my mind’s eye I have three distinct and colored images or visions. They are primal and essential. I do not know how they emerged or formed. They are clear, unchanging, and have been with me for as long as I can remember. This is the second.

The promontory, solemn and lonely, forbidding and cold
meets the tumbling waves of the sea on hidden beaches
forlorn reaches under a withering lost and leaden sky.

It is a place I cannot go, it would deny me entrance there
where, forbid as all else it forbids, it stands alone
over the waves watching as a sentinel without wonder or awe
waiting as one waits for dawn when still it is deepest night.

Portland, Oregon – September 10, 2019

First Vision – The Garden

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In my mind’s eye I have three distinct and colored images or visions. They are primal and essential. I do not know how they emerged or formed. They are clear, unchanging, and have been with me for as long as I can remember.  This is the first.

I am, in a sunshine spring
overflowing in golden green
garden growing in dripping rows
dew dropping blueberry branches
berries bright, fragrant glistening
reflections of star spun sun speckles.

Manzanita, Oregon – September 2, 2019

Fire and Rain

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A rain forest burns beyond me
under the fading golden blue shine
breezy late summer evening
sun’s set in the Pacific northwest.
The smoke comes, reeking, seeking
wherever we are in the world
come it will, soon and very soon.

Images of fire scroll up
across the pages of the world.
Fire, blazing under the nibs of pens
melting quills, frizzling keys
forming the matrices of creation
as we awaken, singed and scorched
by kindling we used to light the fire.

I feel the flames around me
smell the acrid smoke enfold
hear the cries of people running
birds screeching in panic,
anaconda, anteater, iguana
golden lion tamarin racing
for their lives, living beings
wanting just and only what I want.
None I know, will never see
but must know, see as they are now
fleeing fires razing the green reaches
to the height and breadth of the Amazon –
silent and vast reaches I only knew
from pages of my child’s geography book.

Portland, Oregon – August 2019

As I write, the rain forests of the Amazon are burning out of control with madmen watching unconcerned, complicit, and culpable.  What can poetry do to address this insanity?  Not nothing.

Jerusalem

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Jerusalem, Jerusalem….

I stood within her ancient walls
before the sacred foundation stones
with my fingers touched them
saw in their crevice’s green growth
birds alighting and in the silence below
heads nodding in murmured prayer.
Above, transfixing, a golden dome
rose into the eastern heights.

O, City of Peace –
do not, I pray, rest in the ages
lost in the pages of sacred script;
nor wait in silent surrender
as those who abuse you strut and shout.
Was it not so that chicks and lost lambs
once gathered within the wings of your embrace
and found balm and sustenance for life?

Holy land – I wish your blessing and desire
to be a place of sanctuary, a refuge
where all may come to dwell in love
welcome the stranger, orphan, widow
who seek the healing of your sacred pools.
Bless the holy men and women
who, all over the world, creeds rising,
abjure the violence and ignorance of the age
who seek the peace and hope of your name.

Portland, Oregon – August 21, 2019