Wisdom's Tree

Wisdom's tree

I meant to set aside the self
and follow that clear beam of knowing
on its journey to the earth. It shone
on Aristotle, Plato, Kant, and William James
and pulls the rest of us along,
a breathless following, half-mired
in transient, vain contempt.

And now we have the future
reigning down on us
to shatter that bright column
into further dissolution. Universities
parade their colors in processionals
of PhD's, regaling us with red and gold
and dissertating academic truth
amid the shards of light.

It's time to seek the self again,
to probe beneath the skin,
for there is just one brightness there
to shine upon posterity.
It is the gleam of Everyman
as his own prism,
gathering Old Greeks and infant toy
philosphers, and with a smile
to filter them between transparencies
of insight, probing every flash of light
emerging from within.

It's time to put down roots
from wisdom's tree. It's time
to introspect, to tap the mind
and set aside the noisy boxes
with their strange hypnotic ghosts
who only play to win.

It's time to dine with Thoreau
by the pond,
to revel in its quiet depth
and in our own,
where wisdom saturates the ground
and nourishes the soul.
~

A

A

that I may be
attuned
to the requiting
at the edge
of my existence
where I meet
another soul
attuned
to mine
~

It's Always Morning

It's Always Morning

There is a sliver of the dawn
upon the earth and sky,
as escort to the sun that speeds the day
and will not let it die....that rushes forth
aggressively upon the penitence of night.

So is the love that travels on that constancy,
in haste to flood the nether earth
with light arriving as a grace,
that perquisite inborn in all humanity,
and dusty with neglect.

It falls upon us, sweepers of
this cosmic bridal path, to celebrate
a permanent retreat of shadow,
consecrate the razored liberation
of surrender to the dark.

It falls to morning as the benison of day.
Its racing touch upon the sluggish earth
is the pursuer, not the fugitive.
It is the fabled hound of heaven,
its brilliance a progenitor,
an aid to understand
the raging nebulosity of man.
~

What time is it?

What time is it?

The time is always now;
then come invent with me
a treasure we shall never lose,
for if there is no future time at all
then it may never force itself
upon us...how?
How may it ever cease to be
if it may not become?
And if there is no ending
fear itself is hollow, empty,
airless in its hovering,
so let it waft away,
less than a dream,
less than a now in memory's retreat.

We are amazing, are we not,
creating our eternity?
Here is your now, and here is mine,
and I shall have a God today
while you, preoccupied with yours
may not come out to play
although you may within our fancied
planetary course, yet share with me
a common-birthed bewilderment
at such a wondrous cutting edge
on which we ride.
~

Closing In

Closing In

The distillation of a thought,
how like the science of a touch—
to brush aside the pretense,
scope within the lake of memory
and know that still intact
is all the passion there submerged,
genuine, for all the years unknown.

How rare! That light may penetrate
the depths of false despair, that history
may reappear and flash its insight
once again upon the yellowed obfuscation
of a consciousness worn clear of hope,
a blindness self-imposed and born
of ennui and pride.

Then from the waves, Excalibur,
and from concentric heritage
a triumph—to the lady evermore,
a mystery surrounding her,
past the eternity of men
who then must yield it back again,
drawn underneath the surface
of the mind of God.
~

Of Red

Of Red

Red flames its connotations at me
in machine gun style as I stand apart,
gazing down upon a viscous blood
that gathers on the ground.

It darkens, as to pour on
an offending brown of quasi innocence,
defiance of its claim to urgency,
though crimson petticoated ladies
scream, and stream away.

A color holds for me too much of sway
to siphon off mere brightness
from a twilight evil
just to make a point; it screams and rages,
throws romance upon a dalliance,
excites a passion far too colorless alone
to sweep a lady of the night
into the morning.

It takes its purplish and golden hues along
reluctantly. It is a prima donna
unassuaged upon its fearsome quest
to rule the sky at sunset when
those mocking soft pastels would rather
whisper their reflection of the day.
~

A Thing to Prize

A Thing to Prize

The sense of loss
transcends accounting,
hovering instead as that one gift
itself uncountable, to rank
with heaven's stars as candles
for a cosmosphere that blesses
with its questions, wrenches anguish
from its cursed calm, and dies perpetually
before the face of sins undreamed.

No savior in his mortal frame
might fair eclipse of that, indeed
personify a paradox so terrible
that for the curvature of time
all other entity may fall away
before the might of such pure frailty.

Presumption fails, and it remains
that loss alone is genuine
among the treasures of the mine.
Its power is infinite to wring the heart,
swing back the gate of pride
and open wider still another door
once spurned, a fool's magnificence
called love.
~

Veni Creator

Veni Creator

In traverse of the cave of my desire,
the next is fashioned from an ember
keeping faith within, silent, simply there
as called upon to glow between my palms—
to sing with borrowed voice
a song not heard before.

The next is that which calls
when there is life in unknown packages,
a little hill beyond plateau, and suddenly
for us to know, to leap upon,
proclaiming, "It is good."

Stay fast upon the embers warming
that vast interchange of spirit enterprise
upon us—manifesting where it will,
testing a reality that only sings within.

It is a mystery to covet, that rare fire
that flashes only on consent,
on love's conjunction with desire,
on restlessness preceding
holy intercourse when soul
may enter universal mind
and next is born.

A birth alone, no answer
from the churning black outside.
The question burning,
"Muss es sein?"
"Es muss sein."
~

The Educated Man

The Educated Man

"He can sit in a room, and not perish" *
Or might he stand upon the deck,
release the dove, and weep for years,
not for its loss,
nor for the triumph of its flight
above the waters; they are not of God,
they are the backwash of our fears.

There in his room alone,
imprisoned by his conscience
he may let his mind fly free
while fears beneath his wings
may no more flood the ground.
But we are not alone;
we have the educated man fulfilled...
and weeping. He has not such irony
for comfort.

It is a flood to cling to.
Fears, we understand;
they are our bulwark
when an educated man could speak—
could sweep us all away with wonder,
separate us from such grand pretensions.


We are not free to weep with him.
We may not seek the refuge of the mind,
eyes not for insight, not for closing,
senses bound upon another time
away, another circus of distraction,
yes, another box of little men
to dance upon the screen.

It is a dance to take away our fears,
a dance beguiling death,
suspending it awhile with candied tears
and frosted dreams protecting us from envy,
nodding to the educated man apart,

who sits there in his room alone
and weeping for us,
just as we who may not see
across the arch of his reality,
cannot.
~
*quotation from Jacques Barzun

A Capital Farewell

A Capital Farewell

"Will someone love me, please?
You see that I am naked now,
without a rag of pretense;
my province is an alpha lost,
a phoenix dessicated
in omega's ash."

We may look down at him;
in reaching out, he exercised
imperial domain
to choose his destiny.

Then pass him by
with but a modicum of pity.
See? ...an emperor indeed
of infinite resource,
who never touched
the soft infinity of power
to reach within.
~

Never alone

From his promontory,
space divides the emptiness beyond,
permits a blinded soul
to look upon the void within
and view eternity. It matters not; there is a mind to touch,
a spirit revelry within
that cannot be the same
for sighted ones who miss the feast.

Plato shakes his head
emerging from the cave,
fire stick in hand—
It is the dread of knowing,
not the chains,
that binds his prisoners.

Their eyes may slowly close
and yet the sight is ever closer
as a haze drifts down,
a cloud of soft enlightening
as on an afternoon Seurat knew well
when all is peace
and there is dread no more.

With isolation gone,
no rising from a tomb is good enough.
There is a higher resurrection to proclaim,
a cosmic sweep for us, into the rush of dawn—
Never alone.
~