GREEN THE RIVER FLOWS
Green the river flows
ever-onward
as if it were taking
my life with it
to a nameless sea:
above--
in quiet of blue
cumulus drift
another script of another
autumnal testament:
god-fully
offering foliage
to the water
high trees
listen to their roots
the air
finely tuned
crisps with anxieties--
then when a bird
pitches a last song
to remnants of the day
I relinquish
the I that was
fearless
HIGH-FLIGHT OF A BIRD
High-flight of a bird
and below, a hart
darting like thought
through fields of yellow
and the sky
pure blue of compassion
dazzling
the breath of a poem
its becoming
salvation
before arid descent.
THIS NIGHT-AIR...
This night-air—stillness of it—smell of it—heat on breath of it
and a placid moon above chestnut trees
the fullness of them—and blossom queenlike against the sky:
this sultry now—now of longing—the music of it—intimate
a melody long held in the ear—nostalgia in a minor key
memory's tendrils clutching yesterday's I and you:
this gardening of the past—desire to seek the root of things
edit weeds—dwell in a place where the feeling-of-it
is homeland—that coming to self—that belonging.
Green the river flows
ever-onward
as if it were taking
my life with it
to a nameless sea:
above--
in quiet of blue
cumulus drift
another script of another
autumnal testament:
god-fully
offering foliage
to the water
high trees
listen to their roots
the air
finely tuned
crisps with anxieties--
then when a bird
pitches a last song
to remnants of the day
I relinquish
the I that was
fearless
HIGH-FLIGHT OF A BIRD
High-flight of a bird
and below, a hart
darting like thought
through fields of yellow
and the sky
pure blue of compassion
dazzling
the breath of a poem
its becoming
salvation
before arid descent.
THIS NIGHT-AIR...
This night-air—stillness of it—smell of it—heat on breath of it
and a placid moon above chestnut trees
the fullness of them—and blossom queenlike against the sky:
this sultry now—now of longing—the music of it—intimate
a melody long held in the ear—nostalgia in a minor key
memory's tendrils clutching yesterday's I and you:
this gardening of the past—desire to seek the root of things
edit weeds—dwell in a place where the feeling-of-it
is homeland—that coming to self—that belonging.