Holy Seasons

‘Twas the Night

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Before it came to be, in a twinkling
long away, there was but lorn darkness
without light, form, or play.
Nothing spinning, nothing bright
just a hum, a still murmur
on a cold, empty night.

Who can imagine, who wonders aloud
what caused it to be, our heavenly shroud?
So long ago, so far away
came a great light, with a bang so they say
but nay, rather with a shudder then a click,
the lighting, bright flaring, of a wick
in a vast, silent, and dark night
with none, so we think, to see its light;
propelling stars, engendering moons,
birthing water and stone, morning and noon.

The cold lowering winter sun
breathes with frosted breath,
gleams on snowy fields and frozen streams.
Far away we are from where we once began
standing on creation’s slender lip
where was night, nothing, all, and then…

Portland, Oregon – December 20, 2018, eve of the winter solstice.

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Deciduous Lives

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Autumn Leaves

When in spring green leaves grow
under the sweet canopy of a swelling sky
so grow our spirits within us, larger and lovelier,
expanding into the radiant fissures of life
bursting their seams revealing a broad firmament
to touch with fingers of life the hand of infinity.

Summer comes, its lush garment wraps about our lives
and we play with an ancient and unmerited inheritance –
gifts of intellect and desire, urgent love and sorrowful loss.
Our branches and leaves broaden, tangle, and cross
knitted through with warm air flowing through senses unfolding –
flower sweet, bird note, blue sky, rough bark, bitter cherry –
the sensuous warp and weft of the seamless garment of life.

It does not last, the canopy of spring, the garment of summer.
It falls down around us in russet patches torn and worn.
We look then to see our bare arms waving leafless
naked against the cold reach of approaching death
yet it is not death after all but sleep and dream
under the blanket of winter, its wind and rain and snow.

Portland, Oregon – December 11, 2018

Photo is my own of our front yard maple.

The Slow Fall of Advent

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Advent – a slow fall into winter.

Bright crystalline stars
crisp brittle plate moon.
In an instant it could shatter,
break back into a dark and dreamless sleep.

It holds, a thin fluttering veil
all that we know
hung upon the perfect tree
an ornament on the Christ tree
architecture of night divine.

It holds, flung into the cold –
a play of fluttering bright lights
strung into dark and holy nights.

I cannot recall where I was when I wrote this, only that I wrote it in 2009.

Coming Spring

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For each one now spring
is not what once spring was
when its season meant not a thing
during the bloom and bud of youth
but the coming of a time for leaving
what we knew but did not well love.

Here now, many years now,
I think back to late winter days
before spring sprung through the gloom
and made me swoon with smells
delicious of wet cedar and beach
wafting through the mists of March
clinging still to memories of my home town.

The innocence of then –
when I spent my days ignorant,
too often alone, scared, angry
waiting for life to begin –
becomes the incense of age
curling slow and sweet into the rafters.

The coming spring will not be
what spring was when I was young.
It will be spring, just spring
curling up again from the ground
in shades of green and flowers
softening in layered strands
of long daylight hours perfumed
in scents of lavender, lilac, and lily
longing but for the sweet scent of sun
and the warm breath of the earth.

Portland, Oregon – March 15, 2018

Year End at Neahkahnie

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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

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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

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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.

All Souls

/ Korin Thomas / 2 Comments

He was the oldest of us four.
Not long ago he died.  He is no more.
He wanders now in the company of the dead
who have made their way to the shadow lands
where they know the reach of our love, our loss, our dread.

This night they walk through my thoughts,
those who have died, who found their way
on such paths as they chose –
to laugh and live, to love and forgive;
or, over roads they felt obliged to choose,
whose bidding they could not refuse
through need or greed, fame or shame.

However it was for them, they took one more step
and, thinking of their last breath,
took their last breath
while holding the hand of a loved one
or, alone, felt loneliness rise up as in waves
of despair or longing unfulfilled.
Either way, in their last moments they let go
of their precious and only life
for nothing else remained for them to do.

Goodbye and fare-thee-well, you souls.

Goodbye and fare-thee-well, my brother.

Portland, Oregon – November 1, 2017, Eve of the feast of All Souls.

 

Finisterre

/ Korin Thomas / 4 Comments

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Land’s end Pacific rim sun’s dip
over curling wave thrash.
Onshore cold evening breeze
with birds aflutter, chasing
through bent shore pines.

Thrash, curl, chase, bend –
as dreams I have had
waking on a washed horizon
scratched by wave plumes
thrown up as sheets on a line
falling into the golden surf,

Yachats, Oregon – Pentecost, June 4, 2017

Photo is my own, north of Yachats, Oregon, June 2, 2017.