‘Tis good and apt
to move and act
quite stiff and quick
on fair and proper warning,
but much more rich
to breathe fresh air,
in calm and patience full and thick,
where eyes and spirit
open up to wide awake,
as they anticipate
the gleaming crack
of new day’s copper dawning.
September snowfall
up in mounts tall. . .
What a tease. . .
Check your calendars
and clocks–
there or here,
and you’ll see
we’re not quite yet to
the equinox,
nor to the start
of mad breeze whooshing,
nor the greatest rush
of blushing, browning,
and then, downing
of most autumn leaves.
Day by day,
we’ll take our slant-lit
fire-hued walks,
and smell dry fields
with gold dry grass
and stacks of hay,
and slowly we will come to see
what in the future’s writ
and how it’s spelt,
but not till
long past
the sad sweet fated second
when the last of these
first icy flakes does melt.
Eventually, we’ll come to see
if winter will
to us and to these parts
be unpitying vicious
or merciful and kind. . .
But,
for the present here and now,
wonder though we will
with curiosity,
those secrets are beyond
the reaches
of our human hearts and mind.
But we can still find
dreams and magic
in the shine
in this first dusting
of sparkling white snowfall
crystalline.
Hands together. . .
Yours to mine,
Mine to mine,
Yours to yours. . .
We touch our hands
in twos, in threes,
in little groups,
in crowds,
in scores. . .
we breathe
we drink the water
accept
caress of life-breath air,
we feel the resting place
and time
of shade
and dark. . .
We rise with day,
we soak, absorb
with skin,
with eyes,
the wholesome light
of any kind,
from the modest lights
we’ve made
with copper wires,
with oil,
with wicks,
or wood-twirled,
blister making
tinder spark taking,
as well as lights
born of
a greater Mind,
as are the stars and moon and sun,
which,
even in
times of eclipse,
still so brightly shine
their awesome power
can well render
the nosy and uncareful eyes
of anyone
quite sadly blind,
a fate quite stark.
We learn respect
of how such great power
and our life
amid each other
by necessity
do intersect.
We feel together,
and thus, we know
we’ll sail
far more far,
once we can see,
even in times
free of flood
and all sort of
calamities,
and we relax
in true profundity
into what once had been
our very wary meeting eyes
and handshake touch,
and the act
of doing such
does steer us
toward rock solid
amity and sanity,
which renders us
as clearly free
in as much as
we are bound
to travel all
in this one ark.
Send out some love
for there’s enough
to go around,
Things may seem rough.
But, give this
light and weighty substance,
and it transmits
and multiplies
to such grand size,
it can warm, illuminate,
and into something else translate
all that dark and insubstantial
other stuff.
Send some bit of love
although it often
will be rough,
and roads will smooth
as loving snowballs,
and you and others
can and will send more
blessing absolutely all
that’s to be found
on earth and heaven,
be it inert, or quite alive
in our worldly ground below
and the great and wide expanse
of air and stars
and countless other things above.
The devil cannot buy
your soul.
It’s only you can sell it.
And if you do,
don’t then dare lie–
at least,
don’t lie to you—
your story’s writ
it’s best you own it,
don’t condone it–
scrape any honor you have left
and suffer all shame that is your due,
and whatever other gouging costs,
should you chance
to live
to tell it.
But, better,
Should the devil
pay you a bidding call,
think well on
what you would be losing
(all),
with each shred
of your wherewithal. . .
And stall
to stretch
and take deep breaths. . .
for then,
his stench
will creep every tendril
in your nostrils,
where you can’t help
but fully smell it,
Which calls forth strength
you never knew you had,
so, rather than embrace his bad,
you take your very firmest stand,
and
rise up
to repel it.
Go there.
Go now.
You know where.
What stops you then?
The deep fear strikes you
well amazed. . .
You hem, you haw,
you want to walk,
to move,
to loose the muscles of your jaw–
You simply can’t. . .
although you know
all too well how.
The chance is here.
Your choice is clear–
That is,
to do or not to do,
and be or not to be
as was perhaps Bill Shakespeare’s view,
But it’s not only
to the point of death or life,
but to get each day you’re here
to feel more easy,
cheery, flowing, flowering,
growing freshly
and upright.
So, set your eyes
toward star or moon or bright sunlight,
and let feet follow
to what your deepest heart and mind and soul
can conjure in their golden sight.
Palm on palm
rests on bone
quite close to heart
breath slows calm
heat dawns and rises,
this day ahead filled up,
sure with routine,
wild with surprises,
but from its start
I am prepared
for the things that are to come
no matter what
their size
or guises.
Even in pain
or torrent rain,
as well as in delight,
things work their best
when you don’t strain,
and just let be
the throbs, the stabs,
the gem tones
and the dirt-hued drabs,
come they in ones,
or rushing threes,
and then tend each
as lets your own ability. . .
Then,
any roughness of the ride
is very apt soon to subside,
as ups and downs
both tend to wane,
and set you on
a better path
that feels
so much more easy
and more right.
Ah, you are worthy of
a zillion things. . .
but you must choose
the ones you want,
and use them well,
with heaven’s care,
with sweetest words
and tending deeds,
that they will know
no matter what the others see
or hear
that you may tell.
Your little body
had a
has a
great big voice. . .
it got,
it gets obscured,
you were well trained,
you were
from your own wants and needs
and preferences
quite inured,
till your true voice
had not the peep
of the most
tiny, lonely,
baby bird
but you can find it,
deep inside
and learn from now
gently and cheerfully
to mind it,
love it,
soften it,
for though
you to
some more complex
or duplicitous fix
you might be lured,
to do other
than to heed
your beat of heart
and let it
by your own ear
and outer world be heard
would be a sort of tragedy,
and of nature,
kin to a theater
of the absurd.
So close your eyes,
and see those dreams,
fill your heart,
your head,
your spirit soul
with your very personal
a zillion things,
and lay them open
so you can smile and see
and share
the shining, brilliant,
rich, whole lot
of everything that you have got,
that joys no end
both you and them
to the degree
you each
hear every single timbred pitch
when all of your
glad heart strings sing.
Hey, you! (Me!)
Please send me a kiss
to every last cell
of this, my one body.
Free
unshackle these ankles,
these wrists,
from the stall
of the structure and spirit
that, it seems,
have gone limp and flat
with a hiss,
or been doused,
so as to melt
like a witch met with Dorothy.
Let loose
all the bindings that bind
and the freezings that freeze;
move what must move
to cool
the much too kindled fire
reached a scorched heat unkind.
Open my very eyes
to full sight,
and let on my face grow
a mile-wide smile
that gleams in the light,
and let my nose
draw fresh whiffs
of pristine, new air,
And, for me,
let me feel
all the love
I’ve sent out
on that kiss,
in my heart, my whole mind,
my top, toes and foot soles,
in each artery, vein,
sinew, each synapse,
sweat gland and taste bud,
down to each finger- and toenail,
and last whispy hair.
Once I have felt it,
I’ll soak deep in its balm. . .
And then,
come wily storm or come calm,
I know I’ll still have it,
enough to release it,
to let more
flow out and flow in,
each end and begin
through my every life hour,
as the power of wind
bends a green frond topped tall palm,
out to and in from
every sundry which where.
The Danforth Anchor 