Time
I, Firefly
The rain and cruel night wind have stilled
And sleep on dreary darkling clouds.
Weeping leaves shed heavy tears,
That strike the pond’s still black water
Like clock ticks of drunken Time,
And floating withered autumn leaves
Scurry from the watery craters.
There beyond in wet woodlands
Sodden birds tremble in the night
And unseen voles flee starving shrews
‘Til frighted darkness flees the light.
The chorus of the night sounds clear
Yet each voice sings a solo song
in a different tongue but all proclaim
That to listen is not to hear;
And what’s unseen is not unreal;
In a bright flashlight beam,
As thick drops strike black still water
They fire off a flash to declare
With prideful human vanity
“My reflected light’s eternal.”
Stone’s Child
]
Dust from the graves of time-dead stars
waits in the magma of a planetary core,
is delivered of earth’s molten womb
against the will of a jealous gravity,
unaware it’s only inert stone,
as blind and dumb as dirt,
but wonders why things sing and weep,
on a rock whirling between infinities.
A sculptor imagines stone’s child
can be chiseled free to take part
in a conversation about eternity
among mortal children of mortal stars.
First Rain
Rooftop rain wakes me from a dream.
A thirsty land is suckled by the storm.
An open window inhales sweet breath
of Winter snow and silver Summer stream.
I rush to save sun-faded cushions
that fear the stain of dank black mold;
and return again to indoor light,
chilled by October’s sudden cold.
Our little dog peers from her lair,
moves only eyes in pet disdain
for forays into night wet air
long before dawn’s duties call.
I feel I must explain:
“We come; we go; like everything we know.
We dreaming dreamers dream
among the galaxies that blow
through time and place and space.
“We’re twins, you and I.
Born hungry, blind, and dumb,
We learn and grow and become,
but never see the years run by.
“What are we now, old girl?
Each instant was forever at our birth;
Then years shrink and fade like proven truth,
and now we dream at the edge of eternity.”
“Nonsense!” she snorts. “Enough!
Sleep, old liar; be still!”
Again my little dog barks outraged
that I talk while no one speaks to me.
Silly looking, but complex and wise,
She turns away with poodle sigh,
head down, with tight closed eyes,
shuts out the noise of rain,
and time, and humankind.
Stone’s Child
Dust from the graves of time-dead stars
congeals within the magma of a planetary core,
Is delivered of a molten womb
against the will of jealous gravity,
devolved from star-dust to stone.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
The child of stone is born blind, dumb,
and helpless as star-dust, yet asks why
we sing and weep, find and lose one another
on a rock whirling between the poles of infinity.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The sculptor seeks whatever hides within the stone,
aware that only what’s unseen is real.
Stone’s child knows that nothing real
can be confined within our universe and time.
Under the Tree of Knowledge
Extruded from a socialist womb,
One becomes separately alive,
Sweats at the fount of mother-milk
in the endless struggle
to survive;
One invades the mortal’s world
To find what truth we can
Of fragile human goodness
And love for other than
the Self,
One fears food, shelter, and justice,
are private and political property,
Sought and bought with things
or subtle lovely lies and bartered
Liberty.
Yet with pluck and luck perhaps,
One finds transient pleasures
Among the shards of gathered,
Baubles, troubles and other
Treasures.
Suffering threats from a million gods,
painful errors, regrets, and strife
in the silence of the universe
One may question and fear life
Everlasting.
One may at last discover,
within each being, object, truth,
we only live within each Other
And Each is is just another
Self.
Each inanimate or living thing
Waits and wonders here on earth
What life or time may bring
To those who hear siren song
of the Multiverse.
Northwest Almanac 