Author: Korin Thomas

Concentric Circles of Life

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Round – the ageless and infinite womb
where from stars spun, worlds emerged,
when forms of light and dark came dripping
wet with blood and the waters of birth.

Birthed, blue-green cloud enshrouded
eons of grass growth and sea flow
millennia in pursuit of thought and love
beyond what creation requires.

Blessed land, sea to shining sea,
buffalo grounds, salmon rivers, first peoples –
stolen, ravaged without mercy
justice silent in the sacred fields.

Winter in Cascadia’s volcanic heart
beaten by Pacific ocean surge and tide;
lulled in the whisper winds of desert
lost but to those who hear its voice.

City in steel glass gridded paved and numbered
bleeding into rivers, Columbia and Willamette –
names without meaning for waters
emptying into the one ocean of life.

Sticks and stones on bare ground
space for holding human life rhythms
awestruck lives moving under a vast canopy –
stars in the night sky, luminous days of glory.

My wife – lovely in age and grace –
sharing sacred ground, soft wet skies
years flinging us about, dropping us here
from places we once knew – memories.

Grandchild coming to be a young woman
growing before adoring family eyes –
giving her this world, making it safe for her
before she sets out upon its seven seas.

My own orbit spinning about
in the garden, among the words
often lost, forgetting the names
walking about, looking around.

God.  Somewhere, in faith desired –
angel whose face we cannot see
spirit hovering close, unknown
immanent, like soft breathing, near.

Portland, Oregon – January 26, 2017

Tender Repose of Our Ancestors

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This piece is my reflection on the concluding line of my poem “Continuous Awareness” (January 23, 2017).  I published it but did not know precisely what the line meant.  It simply “felt” right.

Words entered my fingers without thought
in the evening cold, begotten
as if from the pregnant and shivering air.
“Tender repose of our ancestors…”
where forgotten times and stilled loves
become created life again, speaking.

Words work themselves out of our past
try to say who we are, what we mean,
speak of roads we might travel
remind us of those we must travel alone.
They stumble, fail, fall short of the mark,
tell of promontories seen only in dreams,
memory shards of orchards in spring sunlit bloom,
cold light of blue dusk in a wintry wood.

What did I mean when I wrote the words?
They.  They live in my presence
suggesting words for remembrance –
what they saw, wished for, passed on
so to live in the light of the glory world.

What might I do for them this night
but write as they tell me in words?
They fall to me, drifting into time –
nothing more but to catch them when they come.

Portland, Oregon – February 3, 2017

Continuous Awareness

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“It is not easy to live in that continuous awareness of things which alone is true living.” (Joseph Wood Krutch, The Desert Year.)

Not sunshine on ice snow brilliance
curve of bird flight
light shimmer on water.

This –

Darkness in winter’s night
lost stars in evergreen tangle.

Now –

Evidence of things seen
under incandescent light.

What was, is, will be –
glory of the given world
resplendent light of ages
tender repose of our ancestors.

Portland, Oregon – January 23, 2017

No Poem. Protest. Resist.

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The horror in America continues today
begun in fear, ending in suffering and death
while those in power gloat
without conscience, humility
integrity, courage, or love.

What have we left but to resist
to assuage the guilt we have
that we did not do enough
to stop this madness?
Now, we have no other choice.

Portland, Oregon – January 20, 2017

Today, our country inaugurated a child-fool for President – a malicious, self-serving lying narcissist who has no concern but for himself.  I believe we, our country, and the world will pay an enormous price for our folly.

Prayer for Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Cold wind this morning. Clear sky sun bloom
snowy pretty winter scene from a recoiling past.

Now, our nations night deep freeze
in dark days shrouding the lands head
frigid days of ice hardening crevice and creek
cold pressing sharp on every thought –
suffering in street’s shabby tents and shelters
wretched poverty in mining mountains
fear haunting heartland fields and pastures
vast parking lots of America covered in the ice of anger
swept by the cold wind of vindictive and violent fear
hooded in white – hateful, ignorant, afraid.

Cold clear morning, sunlit in gilt on iced snow
stands Martin, shadow covering the land
speaking a dream in warm currents of light
healing balm of sun to shake from tall trees snow showers of ice
green once again with spring hearts of life
lift in light blind seeds of sweet mercy
to feast, all at last, on the fruit of the living land.

Portland, Oregon – January 16, 2016 – Celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr., his words, vision, and dream.

Dutch Elm Disease and the Birch Grove

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birch-snag

I was surrounded by trees when I was a boy –
cedars mostly and three apple trees with sad fruit.
In front, branches hanging over State street, lived two Dutch elm trees.
They had a tree disease and someone cut them down.
I knew those two trees as a boy –
squirrels racing along their branches,
birds flying about in their branches.
My father said, “they have Dutch elm disease.”
It meant nothing to me.
I came home from school one day and they were gone.
I didn’t mourn.  I looked at the stumps then went on with boyhood.

Today, men came to my yard and cut down my birch trees.
They have a disease, they said, the bronze birch borer disease.
They are dying so they must be cut down –
nothing left but to make them into wildlife snags.
Bugs will live in them and birds will come to feed on the bugs.

It is painful being an adult, saying, “cut down those trees.”
“Those trees have the birch borer disease, so they must go.”
Now they are gone – the leaves gone –
the small spring green leaves, yellow autumn leaves,
the tangle of thin whippy branches.

Come on bugs and birds!
What’s left of my birch trees is all yours now –
I wait for you to come with spring after this long winter.

Portland, Oregon – January 10, 2017

Photo is my own, taken this date after the largest snowfall in Portland in a long time! The trees were cut the day before.

Epiphany

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pail-of-water

Bending arc of the sun in southerly decline
beyond the frozen garden
over the slender curve of the earth
while I hold my winter breath –
still upon still in the morning sunlight.

Birds and squirrels come to the fountain
looking for water in deep ice.
I’ll put out a pail of warm water,
change it before it freezes hard –
soon the sun will spring bring again.

Portland, Oregon – January 6, 2017 – Feast of the Epiphany

Two Trees

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img_20161226_161109765_hdr

Along the banks of the McKenzie
two trees stand over a cold Christmas flow
of rippled waters in thrilling rush.
One day the McKenzie will take them with her
but for now they remain, leafless in afternoon light,
stripped of but branch and bud by winter.

I came to see the river
yet what do I miss when I see
what I come to look upon?
This – beauty bare branches in a wind flown sky
flailing long arms in the breeze and water surges –
like young girls racing along a summer beach.

Portland, Oregon – January 4, 2017

Photo is my own, taken on December 27, 2016 above the McKenzie river, Oregon.

Here is the river:

mckenzie-river-afternoon-12-28-16

Waking a Sleeping Dragon

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Serene in a stilled lair
folded in many layered scales
of sleep, revelry, stupor
hiding flames within.

Will the dragon wake…
struck with a large stick,
dropped onto its drowsy head boulders
heaved from high places and gold palaces?

Forgotten power hidden, long lying
silent, unruffled, unheard, forgetting
the power of fire to forge a world.

Portland, Oregon – December 20, 2016

I try not to get too political in my postings.  Read such politics as you will into this little piece.

Fading Coal

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Waiting…

Waiting…

Wind flutter on fading coal
in this longing season –
shrouded sun hanging low
over the gauzed and furry horizon –
the reaches of self and the world.

Wind, tree rustling cold bare branches,
thrilling spaces between dark limbs
quavering deep reaches
of space beyond our pale light,
trilling starlight gleams while stellar grains
float broadcast in cosmic fields.

Poetic dream to be wind brushed
hushed into warmth of words
from within, hidden in heart shadows,
the heat of breath on cold winter nights.

Portland, Oregon – December 14, 2016

“Poetry is not like reasoning, a power to be exerted according to the determination of the will. A man cannot say, “I will compose poetry.” The greatest poet even cannot say it; for the mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; this power arises from within…”

Percy Bysshe Shelley, In Defense of Poetry (paragraph 39)

http://www.bartleby.com/27/23.html