Ordinary Time

The Light, the Wall, and the Spider

/ Korin Thomas / 3 Comments

Writing in the cold night-wrapped garage under a single light
clamped precarious to rough lumber hung on pegboard
over table meant for working wood, mind working instead.
Hard surfaces, bare and cracked concrete, cold cheap tools,
dust and blown in leaves, dead insects,
black widow spiders stealthy hidden in dark places.

The cold is close, biting at ungloved finger tips,
scratching to get further in, through thin walls
to reach some organic and pliant space, of flesh and doubt,
where it may infuse to a depth physical – imminent –
to grasp and pull back out through the wall
a flailing homebody, miserable excuse for an adventurer,
into spaces liminal and transcendent.
One light to hold back the claw and tooth of the dark
black against the window, empty even of stars.

Writing on an island in the sea of infinite mystery –
a light, a wall, and a spider –
protection from the encroaching sea-filled blackness
flimsy barriers against the chill waves of the cosmos and the divine
where exist no sharp edges, curved surfaces, or idyllic scenes.
No theology, religion, creed, or dogma tonight –
just what was, is, and forever shall be.

Portland, Oregon – February 29, 2016

Inspired by Karl Rahner in Foundations of Christian Faith (1978, p. 22):

“In the ultimate depths of his being man knows nothing more surely than that his knowledge, that is, what is called knowledge in everyday parlance, is only a small island in a vast sea that has not been traveled.  It is a floating island, and it might be more familiar to us than the sea, but ultimately it is borne by the sea and only because it is can we be borne by it….Hence the existential question for the knower is this: Which does he love more, the small island of his so-called knowledge or the sea of infinite mystery?”

Another Life

/ Korin Thomas / 4 Comments

I am alone with the quiet and the chilling sunshine
the ticking clock and wind-blown light
nothing to do that must be done.

I’ve left my work life behind me
paid days of anxious scribbling;
spreadsheets, meetings, report drafts, coffee
while I gazed out my cubicle window over the Salish Sea
plied by ferries moving white and green across the sea’s deep blue.
Or, I looked long into the dense fog of winter dark early mornings –
fog creeping silent up to my own window high above
so that neither ferry nor sea could I behold –
just a gray shimmer quavering shadow,
ghostly hovering there before my eyes,
suggestive of an unknown, future, less scripted life.
I watched, as the mindless gray gave way to a full and lustrous winter crisp moon
crackling white in the cold dark morning.
Its brilliance washed the water’s expanse with a rippling shimmer of moonlight,
illumining the churned and opalescent wakes of ferries,
shining as if on ships making their ways to heaven across a vast sea
to where the moon itself lives when it sets over the western horizon.

Oh, how I then complained of my tedious days of work,
the numbing aspect of time ground to a halt.
My companions allowed me to expound at length,
on the baffling politic of management concern!
These are such companions as one needs in life,
who see you through the hours of countless working days
and are content to have you return again the next
in spite of all manner of gruff, and you understand they are true –
the good fortune of work, forgiveness there, and a task, well done at the last.

Still, it is the moon over the sea
the sun’s shine on the mountains snow-capped peaks
the ferries slow movement over the water
and the curling, implacable fog I remember
from the days when I was paid for the work I did
unlike today, with its ticking clock, its windblown light
and with nothing to do that must be done.

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Portland, Oregon – February 23, 2016

The picture, above, is of a small portion of the Salish Sea, otherwise known as Puget Sound, on which sits the great city of Seattle.  The photo was taken through what was my cubicle window by a colleague who now claims that view. I thank her for this.

Ode to Cascadia

/ Korin Thomas / Leave a comment

188px-Flag_of_Cascadia.svg

If I say, as the title of my site indicates, that I write in Cascadia, I must be sure I understand what that means.  I must want to be defined by a place so beautiful, but for what reason?  Why not say, simply, “Tom Writes” and let it be done with?  Is my own beauty, such as it is, not sufficient for the task – the creative and necessary task of my days?  I suppose it is justification enough to say that, as a writer, I require a muse. Cascadia is a stirring muse; she is a breathtaking representative of all the muses of my life – person, place, or word.  Let me then be old-fashioned and offer an Ode to Cascadia.

I looked down from a high tower
into your valleys, your mountain green meadows
wildflowers all abloom in abandon
and saw there my own self
wandering, infinitesimal, on a trail below.
A path wandered by the black bear,
by the ancestors who called the mountain home
named it, Ti’Sqaq – Who touches the sky.
The rivers and salmon were their friends –
the grandmothers and grandfathers
I cannot claim as my own.

I saw you walking there below the broken cloud layer
underneath the great trees
wide, so that you could not put your arms around them;
tall, so that you could scarce see their fringed tops –
they dwarfed your skinny frame.
You stopped beside a stream of fresh flowing water,
rock strewn freshets of clear and cold companionship-
splashed your face, dipped your hat,
sat to consume your meal.
You watched the stream rush past you,
knew it was on its way to the sea
but could not hear that distant roar –
crashing waves, billows curled, flung in windblown rain.
There the stream was lost
having found its way at last
to the place where you also were going.

Portland, Oregon – February 18, 2016

To see a picture of the tower I refer to, please see the photo, above.  To see a photo of the valley that forms the inspiration for this piece, please see my About page.  The trail is visible on that page.  You cannot, however, see me down there.

The flag in the upper right is the proposed emblem of Cascadia.
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Animal Shadows

/ Korin Thomas / 5 Comments

I saw my own shadow today, briefly
in the pale, drear, moss encrusted northwest green.
It did not seem to care about winter or spring
or even that I cast it lightly.
It seemed careful, I suppose,
only for the ground over which it passed.
I was concerned about many other things.

Portland, Oregon – Groundhog Day, February 2, 2016

Broken Has Morning

/ Korin Thomas / 2 Comments

Broken has morning
every morning past –
once whole days
shattered into billions of memories;
blasted into archives
of paper, pixel, sound wave
receding far into space
gone.

All the mornings
brilliant streams of light
held hands, prayer hands;
sunlight on the wall –
fluttering light
from the open window
and blown curtain.

Broken has morning
giving the new day
again fresh in January cold
dripping fir, birch, cedar
just like the first morning.

Portland, Oregon – January 31, 2016

Black Narcissus

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When the wind blows for seven days
and my eyes burn with sharp vision
so that I see beyond the far mountains
I know which paths I may take –
I can turn away
fly down the green slopes
or give myself to its holy breath wholly.

Probable, Carson City, Nevada – Circa 1981
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Black Narcissus is a terrific movie.  Its visual, psycho-dramatic, and spiritual imagery are never far from my awakened imagination.  This movie, as well as the winds that were ever present during the years I lived in Nevada, were the inspirations for this short piece.

Spirit Reconsidered

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Is there a Spirit –
a path through a dark and folded landscape
a wanderer in front, another behind
one to lead, one to be our rear guard?

I’ve failed in imagining Spirit
that damn dove –
ill-conceived white radiance and wing.
Where, the grim-reaper of a Spirit
who knows what has gone before
what is to come
without platitudes deceptive, tangential,
or words, shouts, running, or flying?
Spirit – girding presence of longing
of desire held, released, remembered;
guide through the veil of life
into a deep and dark river
that carries away all the stones, old bones –
take my hand and lead me where thou wilt
O holy, dark, sublime, careful Spirit.

Seattle, Washington – October 2014

The Ash Tree

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Ash tree, leaf full, is startled in cloud break sun splash
morning, dropping dew from the crisp spring damp
after a full dark, moonless, cold night.
Gray wren alights, sips from leaf tips, flys away.
Dripping ash,
recovering from this flurry of flight and bright,
returns to calm waiting for lifting air –
forgotten, the shrouding dark, cloud enfolded night.

Awaited air movement comes in soft rush
ruffling sun-soaked green ash leaflets,
blowing to the waiting ground
fresh dew droplets clear and cool.
The wren waits.
Silent worm emerges from nightly repose,
drinks of sun, breeze, cool dew –
becomes gift, gulped in a long stretch.
The wren, satiated momentarily,
takes up a perch once again within the mindless ash.

Portland, Oregon – March 2014

Insomnia

/ Korin Thomas / Leave a comment

Ghosts of night share my room.
Forms without shapes
wander through this liminal space
that not even my loved ones can enter –
veiled, shrouded, encumbered.
I carry this place with me in the dark,
a ghost room filled with silent shadows
fluttering image remnants
straying fragments of auroral light –
desire, memory, prayer and
sometimes,
wraithlike breaths of cold fear,
I can almost hear as I lay awake
in the dead calm of night.

Portland, Oregon – January 2016