The Plaintive and Unknown

last night I drifted through your fair,
the games and rides,
displays of arts and crafts,
farming and animal husbandry,
everywhere the food,
but I was heavy and slow
with contemplation.

In church, children poured to the front,
tumbled down aisles for a story,
coloured pebbles
rattled down a gravel chute.

We sang. We stepped stone to stone
through streams of tears.

The story for children
lit words like candles
reflecting on the water
set along our path
in a line receeding
into the darkness.

Not everyone there wanted to follow
those tiny lights where they might lead,
not everyone wanted to learn
the sparkling syllables
promised in a special name.

Finally, we stood amazed
at the cave’s mouth
blinking at all that is green and golden,
behind us in the dark, a plaintive memory
calling us to return,
before us, unknown glory
calling us forth.

SUNSET

A river flows by with the steady
sound of water worrying stone.

Clouds silently sail high above,
trees stand still at attention,
not a leaf out of place, unmoving,
bush children beneath them
straight and full,
fresh combed leaves,

Sun is setting,
a solemn moment;
birds are all silent.

Far away, traffic
rushes down the highway.

TRACKLESS

the wind always sings in the green hills
rising above sandstone cliffs
long ago raised as if to halt
assaulting armies of the sea.

gulls fly there, kites on a string,
over them tumultuous clouds
sail raggedly torn and tossed,
below them, relentlessly,
in the pounding of the sea,
fragments of broken chanty
sung in the base voices of multitudes
of lost mariners.

Wind sang wordlessly
as it bent the long grass,
an ancient wild tune, bending his soul
as he walked listening along the cliff edge.

To his right the rolling, climbing trackless hills,
to his left the cliff and trackless sea.

an exile, walking as if he had arrived,
after a long steep trek, reluctant to leave.

Long ago he had journeyed forth
from his birth city to another country,
when he had returned, the city was gone.
a confusion of glass and freeways
had taken it’s place,
there was nothing he remembered,
but a familiar scent at evening of jasmine
and honeysuckle,
the lay of the brown hills.
an adobe shack.
hidden in a canyon beneath an old oak.

He had been a stranger then,
and from school age had searched those hills
the oak and juniper gullies,
the rocky heights above the city
for a poem. prayed for revelation,
befriended the trackless of sky of fields of sea
found them filled with faith,
kept him company.

AMBUSH

An abundance of needed rain.
The mountains have conspired
with thirsty raspberries
and wilted flowers.

Clouds were ambushed in
the tops of mountain spruce trees
as they furtively swept among them.

In an hour they were milked
of all their precious water,
every raspberry and flower
kept a crystal pearl.

OLD FRIENDS

The telephone is still,
has not rung since seven bells
tolled away another day,
the wood stove companionably creaks,
heavy rain falls on the roof,
drips from every eve and cornice
of my life,

water that finds its way to the river,
hastening to the sea,
this afternoon shimmered
in blue and green opalescence
sent crystal waves with liquid voice
giggling upon the shore at my feet,
lapping, murmuring intimate tones
with old friends
gnarled roots, moss,
and stones.

KEN

How long has it been since I heard
the cry of a loon over this isolated
northern lake.

Sun plays with wind upon the water,
mountains sit like seniors
on a park bench, talking seldom and low,

wisps of clouds, touseled white hair,
cedars hide this mountain lake as best they can,
I am the only one here,
they murmer low in the dialect of the sea.

Now I remember that night
thirty years ago,
I thought it so ordinary
that I should find this lake.
After hearing it described, I loaded
camping gear into a boat , embarked alone
to camp with God on some far unknown shore
looking for a poem
something I have always done.

That night as I sat hunched alone over my fire
in front of my tent in the darkness,
suddenly another boat,
and Ken was there to join me for the night,
we talked companionably and long
like we were brothers.

He was a pilot and flew away too soon,
his small plane hit a powerline,
when suddenly caught in bad weather.

I am here again where cedars sigh in the wind
the loon laughs and cries,
in them I still hear your slow gentle voice,
here, finally, is my poem.

WHEN THE KING IS WICKED

What have I seen?
People in a burning building
who will not jump to save themselves
to a roof just below the window,

those who exchange wisdom
by gaining knowledge
for short term distractions
by entertainment,

so many walking backward down a road,
believing the future is the same
as the past,

those convinced that judgement
delayed is judgement cancelled,

That one can sow a life time of thistles
yet reap pomegranates and figs,

a nation believing what you borrow today
will not have to be repaid tomorrow,
that debts can be indefinitely deferred

I became weary of seeing, and sought the far north
with its fields and forests and wild animals
and with these I found refuge and was strengthened.

I saw that when the king is wicked,
the whole nation must suffer.

THE MIST

At the time of year mountain ash
with long pointed leaves
bear clusters of both red berries and green,
I climbed with springing step
to where water falls a hundred feet
over stones a thousand years in size
with a steady roar in clouds of mist,

clouds of tiny droplets in countless multitudes
set free to water fern and moss
since the beginning of the world,
the beginning of grace and mercy.

Mists of prayer and understanding
over noisy foam and froth,
drunken tumbling over stone
through tangles of snow broken trees
filling recent prints of foraging bears

flowing into quiet pools where
recent roar has gone all out of the water
reflects the mountain ash, the cedar, the sky,
something eternal, universal,
complete with a painted, peeling, upside down
picnic table vandals have thrown in the water.

FINALLY

There came a day when reading,
the soul mouth wide open drinking
in of every day,
had to pause for a thaw,
a change in the weather.

Mountain lakes turned from
white to blue and waterfalls
cascaded down stone faces.

Lakes and rivers filled and spilled,
finally I surrendered to the vanity
of my calling in the overflow.
I comforted myself with sunsets
that are beautiful.

Rebirth

Tonight’s sky is lit with scarlet flame,
boiling beneath a clouded cauldron
hanging in a forest over a fire.

sun sinks fast, the flame dies,
when amazement kisses sudden breath
and another seven years are conceived
and inspired.

Thus, tonight,
bare arms encircling,
climbing a sapling of green hope.

THE NAME

Pulling the curtains on the day,
gathering in all that is to be kept close, protected,
locking doors and windows,
checking the safety of things,
the fan running in the shop to dry
the newly lasted boots,

listening for a word as I walk the perimeter,
picking the first ripe raspberries,
admiring the sunset,
even the birds are quiet

I do hear something, an echo
from the day: “you are called
to find the name that breaks the power
of every other name,
before whom every knee shall bow”

Stand with your friends in the muddy pit
the night before the next auction,
dumbfounded with them
amid a rubbled pile of broken chains,
arms and legs floating with the missing weight,
ears straining for the missing cling and jangle,
staring upward into the darkness for the sudden light
whose terror sheds all pride.

They have seen it once before, the last moment they knew
of the war whose purpose was only to gather gold;
a whole city of them, my friends,
enriching rice paddys with their blood,
now set free by the pronouncing of the name,
as if ready to rise, dirt crumbling from their hair,
falling from their faces,
the extrapolation of the one name,
one man’s resurrection.