The jealous anger of Zeus Had no bounds yet There was wisdom too shown When Prometheus was bound To endless disembowelment For revealing the power Of fire to humankind, Perhaps prophesy as well, The outcome foreknown. As the gods, in their day Rose against the Titans, In turn mankind rose Against the gods. With the gods and godless Fallen into war and ruin The earthbound Titans Again hold sway.
Category Archives: Poetry
The Palette Shifts
In the morning cast Of sun light After an early hard freeze The palette shifts Dramatically, The Fall glamor gone, Giving way To warmer tones And shades, Tans and browns, Dried flowers, dried grass, Red kinnikinnick, And ebony-branched, Silver green sage, The natural world A visual gift opening Continually Wondrous this river Of light and time.
Surviving January
Am I more than My dog’s doorman? As the Earth warms Will Armageddon be Low fat, vegan, bug-eating, Lactose and gluten free? Probably. No longer myth The walking dead rain down death. War, and mayhem everywhere, And vampire capitalists thrive On the blood, body, and brains Of living souls. And yet eastward, Ultra-thin, a crescent moon, The foothills westward red, A cottonwood tree, charcoal sketched, Sturdy trunks ebony and bronze Against an amethyst sky, Its last dry leaves sparkled golden By the morning sun.
Starry Night
There is a steep aloneness
Here in the silence and depth
Of the starry night sky.
This is not a world
For fragile souls, yet
Still we are of the Earth,
Its strength and resilience,
Its mountains, oceans,
And flowing streams
Urgent with teeming life,
And too of this Universe
Of burning suns whirling
Across time and space,
Life ever in movement,
Stillness and death surely
Only the makings of myth.
The measure of humanity
Begins and ends thus here
On this whirling path
Of fellow living travelers.
Only time is truly ours.
It is a lost belonging,
The connection to place,
The Earth and one another,
That fuels the emptiness,
The pain and cruelty
That scar both the Earth
And the human heart.
Time Capsule
Time Capsule
An errant baseball lying
Among the fallen apples
Of an overhanging tree
In hand has become a tactile
Time capsule bursting
With innocence and memory.
Baseball was summer
And sandlots, favorite bats
And big league teams,
Whiffle balls, heroic stars.
The town had Old Timer baseball,
Ages eight to fourteen,
And the Delta Blues,
A semi-pro, B League team
With games held at night,
“Under the lights”.
Foul balls into the neighboring
Small zoo would startle
The peacocks into alarm
And calls of “Help! Help!”
I knew a girl then already
Arriving at a philosophy of life,
While I wondered only
At the best care
Of a leather glove.
Of a Moment, Outdoors
The startled bark
And raised neck hair
Of my dog upon
Meeting a mushroom
Un-before seen
In the middle of
His accustomed path.
A broad-tailed hawk
Spiraling sunward,
Riding a thermal updraft—
Days later a raven
Rising in the same.
A tiny intrepid spider
Parasailing across my yard
On a thin silken thread.
Multiple popcorn
Gray and yellow bursts
Of whirling burrowing bees
Emerging from underground.
The summer yellow petal fall
Of a golden raintree,
Falling and fallen silent,
Like the onset of snow.
Tierra Nueva
Tierra Nueva
In this random pick-up-sticks, double helix
Melting pot amalgam and gene pool diaspora
Of multiracial physiognomy, skin color,
And multilingual saga, rhythm, and song
Of European, African, Asian, Semitic,
And Native Peoples world and voice
That is La Tierra Nueva, Las Americas,
What is it, here today, to be a person,
To be, certifiably, a human being,
And can we, that being, intervene
Upon our predisposed tribal fears,
Prejudice, and self judgement of value
And humanity based on heritage,
Wealth, gender, and skin tone?
Can or can’t we? Are we, the People,
This mixed breed, capable or culpable?
The Apple Blossom Pool
On the placid, limpid
apple blossom pool
water striders in hunt
skate and skip
among white petals
fallen, floating gently adrift.
A gust of wind,
quickening, fills the air
and dimpled pool again
with speckling sails of light.
Startled waterside
a band, a bursting multiplicity
of small blue butterflies
scatter, swirling,
“winking and blinking”,
in periwinkle petaled flight.
The Sudden Robin
The Sudden Robin
The sudden robin
And following, falling,
Meadowlark lilt sound,
Resound, echoing and cascading
With and in my meandering heart,
With the selfsame pastel startlement
Of lupine and yarrow and wild rock rose
Bursting unbidden, source unseen,
Through the evening light watercolor
Wash of grays and blues settling
Suffused in soft concert cast across
The many mottled greens
Of this wondered
And wandering world.
Taking Time
taking time
taking time to see,
to clearly see, the tan
curling, swirling
stance and dance
of sunlit, windblown
winter grass
taking time to hear,
to note the chorus,
the lilt and line
of winds passing overhead
through a long-needled,
red-barked, ponderosa pine
taking time to read,
to carefully read the tangled
fractal calligraphy
of countless, leafless,
living branch and tree
taking time to let seep
deep within
the sweet fragrance,
the shadow and light,
this lasting breath
of earth and life
and taking time to never
let pass by unseen
the silvered gleam
of lingering ice
in a trickling, dancing,
softly singing stream
Notes from the Provinces 