Over this troubled land winter is settling
with it’s mystical bright star wandering
the heavens in celestial movement
designed to guide sojourners on their way.
I feel it’s tug at my own true and exalted nature,
it’s sudden pushes and swift kicks, and try,
fitfully, to align my orbit with its stellar path –
and yet….
I’ve reasons for dark fear and cold resentment
thinking of my lost country and it’s fractured souls.
I struggle to hold on to what, when I was young,
I learned in school, in church and, through the years,
tried to practice when I wrote, worked, played, and loved.
It is not simple to uncover, buried
in teachings, rules, sermons, and books,
the lessons best to keep close and careful guard.
Countless are the numbers of those who,
in times and places, walked with me on the way.
Some have stayed by me through the years
and some stayed not long enough though from each
I learned a lesson or failed to learn and left and lost.
I have often wandered from the path
that follows that rogue and roving star.
Always it has sought to seek and save me
wherever I came from or where I was going –
from Lake Huron’s shore to my home here
where I can almost hear the Columbia river roll
in riffles and rapids to the Pacific realm.
Yes. I’ve reasons for dark fear and cold resentment
thinking of my lost country and it’s fractured souls.
Yet, over the land and the souls of the land
hangs the luminous star without name or creed.
It sings in the darkness of this winter season.
I listen for it through the dark nights.
I wait for it’s song sung by the winter rains.
Follow. Follow. Follow.
This it seems to say but says no more.
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Portland, Oregon – December 16, 2020
Poetry
The Forest Adventurous*
Advent.
Adventure.
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I stand in the realm of pale winter’s light
at the entrance to a deep forest darkness
without scrying sign, portending trail,
or vanishing point to guide my way.
The winter solstice is near. It promises, always,
short lit days, long dark hours, hints of snow.
Confused and worn memories tug at my coat;
expectations, desperate to steer my steps,
clutch at my ankles, grab my cuffs, pull on my belt.
The hidden path in front of me waits patient,
without fear, demand, or remorse.
I feel it’s invitation from out of the darkness –
whispers, voices, songs, blown by winds
near me, around me, in me.
Portland, Oregon – Season of Advent, December 6, 2020
Joseph Campbell relates a passage from La Queste del Saint Graal regarding the Arthurian myth and the beginning of the Knight’s quest for the Holy Grail: “They thought it would be a disgrace to go forth in a group. Each entered the Forest Adventurous at that point which he himself had chosen, where it was darkest and there was no way or path. You enter the forest at the darkest point, where there is no path. Where there’s a way or path, it is someone else’s path; each human being is a unique phenomenon.'” (Pathways to Bliss, p. xxvi.)
To Give Thanks
Here comes the cold drizzle of November
screeching ’round the corner into the yard
thrashing the spindly branches of leafless trees
in a madness of envy, desire, and loss.
The damp and chill days have set in now
seem willing to take hold, to camp here
until spring or take early summer hostage
before pulling up soggy roots, harrumphing away.
Yet there are the fallen leaves and broken branches
littering the ground, not to be raked or bothered.
A few yellow leaves hang desperately on
wishing to remember the season when they were new.
The loveliness of it all breaks the barriers against love
and the remembrance of all that is warmed by the sun –
the hearts of family and friends, the beating hearts
of all the trees, the furry animals, the very stones.
That lie under the darkness of the chill moon
where sleep and dream hide in thrall.
For all of these I will be thankful and let the rain
fall where it will and the wild November winds blow.
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Portland, Oregon – November 25, 2020
This dread year now begins to come to a close and we have reason to hope. Yet, we must remain vigilant. But, that is the subject for the Advent season that is just around the corner.
Angels of Things
Angels of things
drift lazily in crisp air
tasting autumn fruits
carrying them to the gods
quietly waiting.
In entwining roots
buried in plushy ground
they are; in rare earth
that could if it would
grow around and devour
spew me up as cedar
as pine – needled and tall.
Shadows of autumn
leave quivering trails
through golden leaves.
Fallen angels drift down
through and around
all that I can see
and more and more.
A thrilly deep tremor
as thrusting wings
push from a molten core -.
bursts as a bubble.
Time trails into ether
ceasing to be anything at all.
Space shakes and drifts away.
There, on the fountain’s rim,
perch the Angels of things
as birds drinking deeply
taking wing as thoughts
as sweet dreams in flight.
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Portland, Oregon – October 20, 2020
Autumn Eve
Autumn eve in smoke and ash.
Autumn leaves making their solemn way.
These are not the days when I was young
piling leaves and setting them afire
watching the drifting smoke and smelling
the sweet smells of summer going away,
walking to school, chattering, laughing.
What do children know these days
of the days we knew?
What do they know of what
we never knew, imagined
or nightmare dreamed
when we were young?
I feel for their fall into autumn –
what more they will know
will suffer and grieve
long after I am gone.
Portland, Oregon – Eve of the autumnal equinox, September 21, 2020
Written during the season of wildfires on the entire west coast of America, blanketing large areas with smoke and ash, destroying homes, killing some. These things are deathly harbingers of a climate change we humans have brought about. No doubt.
Things Eternal
I wish always to think of eternal things
that were, are, and always will be
that pass too often as ephemeral, transient life.
They are vernal buds of emerging green being
burgeoning in sublime and sensuous thought,
renewing my hope, invigorating my spirit.
We think these wither in autumn and die.
No. They sleep. They dream of coming again.
I would spool out exalted incandescent images –
visions of celestial beings, beneficent gods
angelic creatures inspiring, as for Fra Angelico,
The Annunciation, evoking the touch of divine love.
Alas, my thoughts are not these.
They do not match the glory of creation,
the transcendent sparkling brilliance of being.
My thoughts are fleecy clouds that drift away
leaving no trace but the blue firmament of day
the ethereal dark and imageless canopy of night.
I think of nothing at all most of the time.
Over and over I spin out old grievances
or create new ones that never were.
I hum tunes, forget the words of their verses,
make lists of things to do, of things not done;
consider why birds and squirrels do what they do.
I’ll leave it to angels and blessed saints
to everlastingly ponder the divine mysteries
and wonder what, in that awe-filled moment,
were the thoughts of Mary, sitting calmly there,
letting it be, and what were the musings
of that winged creature, rapt and bowing,
breathless and benign before her? ____________________________________________________________________________
Portland, Oregon – August 29, 2020
This is Fra Angelico’s Annunciation. It hangs at the top of the stairwell at the Monastery of San Marco in Florence, Italy. This does no justice to seeing the painting in life. It is a stunning work whose colors and depths are only scarcely depicted in this two-dimensional format. (credit: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/great-works/great-works-annunciation-1438-45-fra-angelico-2027376.html).
Spider Season
It’s not the soft spoken spider
but her bewildering woven web.
I am about my business
going from here to there
when, of a sudden, lashed
am I by invisible threads
strung by ancient craft –
purposeful construction
floating in the summer air
bouncing in a stilly breeze.
In a moment, my human being is
flummoxed by invisibility.
There she is, I see at last,
having broken her fine spun spells,
tracing home an airy route
while I, wrapped and rapt, disentangle
myself from her creation wrought
with care and magic it seems.
So does the merry world weave
around me entangling cords.
Before I espy impending doom,
before I turn on my heels to run,
I am trapped in her sticky web
thrashing through thin threads
flummoxed by her invisibility.
Portland, Oregon – August 6, 2020
Maya
I open my eyes. The world spreads as a field
flowered in swirling green light and shadow.
I close my eyes. The sunlit world
darkens in the cool of moonless night.
I open my eyes. On still water
a lotus flower slowly opens.
I close my eyes. Lotus petals
curl, fold and drift down and down.
I open my eyes. A small bird
wanders from branch to branch.
I close my eyes. All the birds
fly away to forests hidden and deep.
I open my eyes. Storm clouds and thunder
flash with lightning and rain.
I close my eyes. A sound like a bee
drifts slowly away, flower to flower.
Portland, Oregon – July 25, 2020
“Maya is the world of that rippling pond…the fractured, sparkling image of reality that is no reality but only its broken surface.” (Myths of Light – Eastern Metaphors of the Eternal. Joseph Campbell. New World Library, p. 48)
–
Solstice
The solstice nears,
days long, night short,
dreams wild and insistent.
Spring bleeds into summer.
Riotous colors of flowers
announce natures bounty –
the sun dominates.
Moonglow lost in late evenings –
Children shout joyous release.
The longest day takes hold –
the solstice nears.
Seattle, Washington – June 19, 2002. This was written by my lovely wife, Carol. Lovely in every way!
Cessation
Cessation.
A road into deep wood
becomes a faltering trail
ending in beds of thick moss
under forgotten clouds
floating soft.
We are pulled
beyond memory and knowledge
into indigo blue
ferocious blackening night.
We will wake.
To what shall we wake?
Portland, Oregon – June 22, 2020
I am at a loss to describe what is happening in the world and especially in America right now. This is the best I could do, for now.
In Cascadia 