Ordinary Time

Under The Maple Tree

/ Korin Thomas / Leave a comment

IMG_20160406_134230117

Fountain pool’s light and water
under maple branch and leaf
tulip yellow curling petals
near the pathway greens of spring.

I will fill the fountain basin
when the tulip fades away
wait for spring to come in splendor
underneath the spreading maple tree.

Another one will fill the fountain
watch the tulip raise its head
sit in stillness by the pathway
as the spring wind stirs the maple leaves.

Portland, Oregon – April 6, 2016
Photo is my own, taken this date.

Sadly, the falling branches of our ponderosa pine sheared off half of the maple during an ice storm, December 2016.  These rest did not then survive.

Shadows

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Do shadows have the power to heal?
Leaves of the Japanese maple
fluttering on porch steps?
Ancient fern fronds, long and pointed,
bending over in layered impressions?
Lace curtains brushing painted walls?
Half open shutters lining kitchen floors?

Spring
sun bending through all the arching flowers
autumn
lowering, heart-breaking
through the remains of the glorious season
spinning away sun
gold falling from the sky
seeding its formed and moving shadows
with ethereal and healing light.

Portland, Oregon – April 3, 2016

 

Change

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Thesis
Antithesis
Synthesis

It is time
when change,
a young person’s game,
is forced on us all.
The abyss opens
old men fall, whimpering,
begging for mercy who gave none.
Wise women, who birthed cultures,
step to the edge but cannot stay their feet.
Poets forget words and dreams
resort to formulaic constructions
as if rhyme or meter mattered a whit
in making a new world.

We are lost in a sea of change
who did not read the signs before us
telling of the surging wave
swelling from deep tremors
conspiring with the worlds winds above
to tell us that we had lost our way.

Our Noah awaits us
in a boat too small
a sea too big
without oars, rudder, or mast.

Portland, Oregon – March 30, 2016

The “Hegelian Dialectic” expressed above as “thesis, antithesis, synthesis,” is taken from Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel who introduced a system for understanding the history of philosophy and the world itself, often called a “dialectic”: a progression in which each successive movement emerges as a solution to the contradictions inherent in the preceding movement.

Source at:
http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/philosophy/history/hegel_philosophy_history.html

Sleep

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sleep without limit
reason fact conclusion
iambic pentameter rhyme
existence unexplained
abandoned by comma period
exclamation point ellipsis
lost in the chaos of dream

until we wake late in the night
open our eyes in a dark room
faint glow from the shaded window
partner turning breathing
is she sleeping

mad dream illusions
dissolve in the cool dark
under the covers shifting
uneven weight breathing slow
letting sleep return if it will

Portland, Oregon – March 23, 2016

Reading at Claustrophobia

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Your faces I do not know
your skins are new
like mine when I was young
when I saw the pale sun
leaning over my home town
felt the sharp tang of winter
that, without mercy,
stripped away my childhood
my school days
my boyhood friends
my first loves and lost loves.
I – left with only what was to come
times and places unknown,
without hearts, warm greetings
absent friendly faces and kind words;
spaces waiting for me
to step into their paths
write their words
let their futures become flesh in me.

When I turn from here
see your faces no more
I will visit again that formless void
of what will be –
that place that is never filled
always empty, hungry, waiting
for me to step into it
name it
tell its story.

Seattle, Washington – January 28, 2014

Claustrophobia readings present local writers in very small settings in Seattle, hence, “claustrophobia.”  I had never read my works before and a dear friend, Rachel, asked if I would read.  I did, was affirmed beautifully, and I remain grateful for the experience.

The Bug

/ Korin Thomas / 2 Comments

Bug 2

We listen to classical music
the bug and I
sharing this space, cold, light,
concerto sound.
Holding fast to a clamp’s screw
a Bodhi sacred ground
hours in serene stillness
undeterred by close breathing
resting quietly.

Waiting
Still
Awake

Alive as I

Portland, Oregon – Vernal Equinox, March 20, 2016

Face and Faith

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Her face moved above me as I lay me down
breathing over me, tucking me in,
speaking words without meaning
eyes and smile whose meaning I knew.
I heard sounds – the clatter of dishes,
the slam of the storm door, stomping boots,
snow blowing in a rush from behind.
Still, I was held fast by her face hovering above me
feeling her kiss on my cheek.

As I try to remember how or why I am here
her quiet presence rises to my surface
as it always has
with a question
that I cannot answer.

She carried me then let me go into this wonderland of life –
the green sunlit vistas
dark streets and forsaken hallways
dubious beginnings, sad farewells.
My own life, unremarkable, but with words,
lading me, with their own meanings
through unfinished stories, half-hearted sentences,
tangled phrases, broken constructions
to this place.

The words still come and I put them here
but they bring me no closer to understanding.
They carry me to the deep down dark womb
that bore all from beyond time
called holy, mystery, sacred –
worthy of contemplation, actions of praise
expressions of catastrophic woe, loneliness unspoken,
evocations of the curve of space or of a human face.

She was my beginning but could not be my end
leaving me with the face of life,
a glorious beauty, searing tragedy,
still point in the world’s revolutions.

Faith remains from times when she looked down at me,
a heavenly being filled with grace,
and said a word in her own voice of her mother and father
of all who came before, who lived their lives and died
wondering themselves, without answers,
even as the sun shone over the fertile fields
and the rain fell into the dark and dense forests.

Alleluia.

Portland, Oregon – March 16, 2016

Cold Spring Wind

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Listening to Finlandia in the cold early spring
as an indecisive wind wonders where to go
whether to slash at the high tops of cedars
or to ruffle the feathers of birds hopping through the yard.
It has forgotten, apparently, its place –
to bring winter snow or spring rain?
It wanders about, as if seeking help
assistance from unseen galactic and geologic forces.
It threatens reluctantly,
unlike boastful November winds, full of storm and fury
Knowing full well they can bring what they portend.
these poor spring winds – cold, skittish –
threaten the buds on branches baring themselves,
unafraid to be touched by that breath.
It stings at insolent daffodils, smiling, waving gaily
at the toothless assault waged on them.

Ah, but here comes the rain again, slanting.

Not so toothless yet, I see.

Portland, Oregon – March 12, 2016

Inspiration from The Kalevala,  or “Poems of the Kaleva District”, Compiled by Elias Lonnrot.  The Kalevala is the national folk epic of Finland.

Morning Bowl of Surreal

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White, round, deep
with spoon.
Poured milk
flakes from fields
cane sugar
blueberries.
One mouthful at a time
breathe in – out.
Once more.
The day has begun
with rain.

The bowl never empties.
The day pours in
filling it to the rim
over again and over
until it spills
with light and dark
splashes on the countertop.
The abundance
cannot be stopped
or spent.
I need another bowl.

Portland, Oregon – March 6, 2016

What They Could Not Say

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A deep and numinous grief awakens, disquieting,
thinking about my father
who worked with tools, built a house,
found a job at last that gave him peace.
On his hospice bed he saw visions of friends long dead
as if calling him into the past, welcoming him
to the place where they hunted deer and told stories.
What they spoke of he did not say.

Or, my sweet mother, hiding her smile,
who did not tell her story and we never knew.
She slipped one day on the ice at Silver Valley
and, at seven years old, I knew she was mortal
but the word I did not know.
Perhaps she told her stories to friends
as they drank bitter coffee at the drug store soda fountain.
If she saw visions of her friends in the nursing home, before her last sickness,
she did not say.

What desires, felt deep, of longing and remembrance,
could they not say;
stories of loneliness and fear
of someone they loved
but could not say
could not hold that hand anymore?
What dreams in secret float like clouds over the world
of those who have seen visions and passed on
taking their stories with them?
They could not say.
The clouds endless pass in sweeps, billows, and storm
round and round and round they go.

Portland, Oregon – March 5, 2016

Inspired by Gilgamesh, a Herbert Mason verse narrative translation of the ancient and noble Babylonian epic.  I highly recommend anyone to read this great work and especially this most poetic translation.  Here is the particular verse (p. 54):

“For being human holds a special grief
Of privacy within the universe
That yearns and waits to be retouched
By someone who can take away
The memory of death.”