There is a storehouse of delight,
billion-globed in the night,
a treasure there but for the finding
and knowing how to reach the site.
(after viewing Monet’s painting)
The houses at the edge
of the field
are not inhabited
They stand abreast
in silent challenge
Doors are dark
windows stare
roofs are pointed and bleak
Dark clouds pursue
retreating blue of sky
and shadows fall
griming the old gray walls
A meadow of golden flowers
–marching waves of color—
halts at a vague dead-end
The houses at the end of the field
and the flowered meadow
frozen forever
in silent confrontation
It is not an uneven war
(After reading The Inferno)
I am haunted by the sound of Satan
Laughing in his dark, buried towers
Where demons dance to discordant song
And black flowers in doom-embowered rooms
Rise like grotesque gnomes,
Hideous in raucous riot.
My prayer is:
Please, God, let it not be so.
There is a region
In the forest of the heart
Where walks no stranger,
There, secluded and lone,
Wild, exotic tanglewood grows
Which needs no light to give it life
But thrives in somber solitude.
Forty passed me by
I barely felt the cold wind.
My son was born just that year.
But last night I fell into a dream tunnel
and standing there confused,
looking first this way and then that,
I perceived at one end of the tunnel
a circle of light which grew
larger…larger…like the sun.
At the other end of the tunnel
another circle of light grew
smaller…smaller…until it fled
like a fading star.
Though I stood rooted to the spot
my spirit tore from me and raced
toward that diminishing circle
crying “Come back, come back”
for I could not bear to part
with the little star.
But then I woke to morning
and knew that I was in no tunnel,
that the diminishing star
and the growing sun
were one and the same
and the light was all about me
and I was part of it.
One, two,
Buckle my shoe
My shoe, world, my shoe.
Three, four,
Close the door
That’s what doors are for,
(But surely not forevermore)
Five, six,
Pick up sticks
And stones? And that bit
About names and broken bones?
Seven, eight,
Lay them straight
And narrow. Oh, wasn’t there something?
Shooting an arrow?
Nine, ten,
Begin again
Again? Again.
And then? Again.
Memories: flowers
blooming with the sunlight glow
of romance and song.
Violins and valentines
keep safe the autumn of life.
Twilight steals
..bluely down
….on hill
……and valley
……..with not
……….a hint
…………of sound
Melting
..snowgold sky
….treeleaf shadows
……floating on sea grass:
……..full moon.
Your veil falls as soft as blue shadow
About flawless countenance
And perpetual smile.
Your lovely heart is hidden.
Where the hot dry winds blow
No rain-tears ever flow.
Time like a cloud sails on,
History drifts into mellowed memory.
Aztec legends and memories echo into song:
a singing
of the peoples of burnished bronze,
of Montezuma’s golden scepter lost,
the death of Quetzalcoatl
the fading away
of the feathered serpent
A singing
of templed hours
and the days of jade and jaguar
gone into stone
The pyramided steps slowly crumble into dust
And time like a cloud sails on
Diminishing thunder down dawns of gold.