Saturday, June 26, 2010

Remedy

Time advances far too slowly in anticipation. Minutes seem as hours, and hours seem as days, and by this count we shall be much in years before ten months are done and past.


Remedy

This absence wounds, and I, a wounded beast,
am barely left alive. A lonely cry
petitions for the sun to crest the east
and crown the crescent earth, to break and fly,

for stars no longer hold a lonely sway,
and early hours urge the glutted moon
to deviate in deference of day.
This eager heart is covetous of noon

and all the airy physic of the light,
remedial, mercurial, and fair,
till suffering, inspired by the night,
is settled in a beautiful repair.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Similarity

Some say that opposites attract. I say that unless there is a fundamental likeness there can be no attraction at all. Of course that which is different from yourself is interesting and intriguing, but such difference must rest on a foundation of similarity. To act otherwise would be akin to drowning yourself for the excitement of living underwater. You first must find your basis within the realms of the necessarily familiar before you seek the balance of the disparate. So, we search for the unknown above water, where we can live and breathe, and we look for happy relationships with those who bear a true likeness to ourselves in the essential ways, and only differ extraneously, for, in the end, little differences are fun; big differences are destructive.


Similarity

No happiness, unburdened and divine,
was ever found in difference. The seed
of love allows a modicum of wine
to supplement the promise of the reed

in genesis if only like assents
to like, for when did likening betray
the counterpart of comforting intents?
The sun could sooner disavow the day,

and so, the errant soul will never rest
until it finds a doppelgänging peer,
and quietude will never be possessed
until a much of muchness persevere

and opposition fail to enthrall,
the constancy of semblance over all.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Succession

For a long time, the focus of my life had been my evenings. Now all that has changed, and whereas I once measured days by quiet hours under the stars, I now find myself most alive in the sun and rain. This has little to do with the circumstances of day and night, and a great deal to do with the people that populate those circumstances.


Succession

The night was once a friend, but now the day
is better, for he holds my only heart
in consequence and ornaments the way
I ought to walk. A fitter compass chart

I could not hope to follow, for the stars,
though radiant in shadow, show a flaw
when likened to a sunny light, as ours.
Upon the glowing vision, they withdraw

and linger till the evening. The night
is only now a guidance in the gloom,
but this is not my portion, this, my light,
illuminates the corners of my room

and pledges joy ever it began.
Then I await, as only wonder can.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Star-Crossed

When we are children, we reach for things as children do, with grasping and seizing. A child's world is very physical, and can be had through exertion. There are no facades, and the surface is an expression of what lies underneath. When we grow up, we find that things are not as they seem, and the world is full of pretenses and charades. Nothing can be had by simple taking. We adults must first dig down and expose the truth, and then decide if that truth is worth possessing. All too often, it is not. But Christ told us to be like little children, and this is what he meant. Let our yeses mean yes and our noes mean no. Let the exterior life be no different from the interior life. Let the reality we see be the reality that is. Then, we will once again be like little children, and our simplicity will be our happiness.


Star-Crossed

I built a bridge to span the stars,
but found it fell too short
to reach the ruddy cliffs of Mars,
far less, a stellar port,

for in the sea-expanse of space
there was no tending-down,
no breccia to set a base
beneath my iron crown,

and all was left to drift away
upon the solar wind,
the residue of child's play
no longer underpinned.

Then from the earth I brooded on
that disappearing frame,
a sun, a moon, a star, and gone,
an arbitrary game.

Perhaps a bridge cannot assuage
my longing to depart,
but someday I will quit this stage
and make a mounting start

to gain the heavens overhead
where feet have never gone,
to rest upon a pilgrim bed,
my pearl and my dawn.