cypress aflame

lake mirrors

coots float in blue sky

Aquarius, We Hope

We dawned the age of Aquarius

back in 1969.

Some never heard the words

which blast away still today

and bounce back and forth,

ricocheting around the interior of

a New Beetle--from an iPod.

No one outside can

hear it but me. The others on

the freeway absorb their own messages

from their own programs.

How cacophonous we've become.

What did cacophony ever serve

except to warn us in a movie that

something bad was about to happen?

But we pound on down the highway
as if ZZ Top were dying tomorrow.
 

And yet I remember a herald of

cacophonous cathedral bells

which scattered doves to flight.

Aquarius, we hope.

Berries

 

The berries of a time ago

bleed into memory

as onto my tongue and

onto my hands then.

The yellow-jackets: 

They hovered then

a moment—then

whisked to the other side

of my head until

I wished them away--

like the thoughts of

my days today.

 

Where do thoughts go for

someone who does not

hold them still? They arise as a

taste or a hue again—

as an aroma

that elicits warmth or pain.

Remembered bright days of childhood accompany

visions that sear and splash

the rows of berries

in a refrigerated market and strings of beans

haphazardly bulked in piles,

not harvested by

children whose sun-heated

thoughts transcend to what might

be grown

on another day

far-flung from the circles of

their imaginations—

circles which do not close

as they are pricked

by years of circumventing

to regain the serenity

and yearning of a child.

 

Nov. 18, 2009

Thin Morning Air

 

Thin morning air,

lemon-colored light,

Helios’ delight:

Stellar gray of dawn

takes wing with geese

who trumpet the day.

Breezes shiver leaves,

aroused for diurnal play 

of shading mortals

from the fierceness

of his reign.

Yet Apollo’s light filters through

with dapples of truth.

We dare not know omniscience.

Blinded we continue,

passing from nocturnal songs

to the burnishing of dirges—

wondering which way the

wind will spin us into

webs thrown out merely,

yet with no little weight; we

knock on wood,

cross our fingers,

cross our hearts,

sing praises to the heights,

and wait for all surprises

lingering in the air—

set to stagger or amaze us,

to take the wind or

fill our sails.

We tremble and pause

to catch our breaths.

31 May 2011