Crag the Crow

I gave you a song about those two trees over there. Surviving just beyond their precarious adolescence, Soaring to see beyond our crumbling buildings.  And I told you a limb had splintered on one tree While the other grew strong and proud. I told you that I stood there and watched it happen.  Though I did not tell you the rest.  Restrained by the form, I was short of time To tell you about the moments I spent watching. Moments, and perhaps even hours - Time spent on important matters of soul.  Hands on my hips and I surveyed nature.  (Nature is often my poetic subject, and by that I am most surprised).  Looking to juice meaning from the mundane.  I stepped out of my shelter and breathed the succulent air.  Those two oaks opening the leaves of their pages  And unraveling timeless theology.  I read the icons to the ceiling of their vaunted vault. The vengeful sky roiled with porphyric pe...

My slogan is better than your slogan because your slogan isn’t my slogan. Nothing else rhymes So this poem is broken. I’ve got nothings else to say because my point is here to stay. Now I’ll put this away.

Two oaks rooted deeply in a green field In a countryside a mere mile from you.  I approach their ancient stand, my needs sealed.  And the blanketed sky yields its blue hue. Motionless by the oaks waiting for change.  Dry air cedes the world to the droplets massed. And I the witness planting pedals upon the range The storm washes me, I stay, 'til ire past. For the great length of the divine drenching,  I remain still in that place while the rage raged. Tranquility in my heart enduring Each storm fails to uproot while life goes aged.  And one oak limb splintered and fell to earth.  The other nourished, adding to its girth. 

Derelict house Dancing mouse Crook of tree Through you I see Sparrow quest Building nest

Loving is essence and essential. Yet who can maintain it for their mortal dash? To love is to give  And to give is to sacrifice. Love and life will require it all. Your essence dashed upon the rocks. Your life scrubbed raw.  All that is built, All that is gained, All that serves, Shall be required of you at the dread tribunal Stripping you of pride and glory. O man, it is not yours to take to your cave. To give and to love for the dash is the command. And life’s failure is assured - As much as the yearly cracking of crooked manacles Maniacally parades through the shortened days. To love is to die. To die is to be stripped. To be stripped is to be freed so Janus may return. O man, O people, can you love? Can you love for your narrowly chiseled moment? The granite void upon which we hang It is failure. To fail in gain is to sacrifice to love.

I could give in to the anarchy And have it all A fetid it Diminishing returns Nothing Gone But now Aged and wise Calling for peace Freedom and love. My Queen, my compass I am awash in joy. Save for God Save by God 

Walking, joyously contemplating proactive habits. I’ve been an evangelist for so many things - Vocationally held beliefs, Occupationally instilled processes, Coerced beliefs acquiesced to for expediency. The death of death is the beginning of life and Fear of punishment a limp cudgel. And I place myself under its obedience. For ill. For ease that repeats its smarting blows. And when on the road the mind grows Boundless out of the six walls of society. To the distant past, the fogged future, The soul may ascend into the Pillar of kiln-smoke wrapping the quaking flame. On the blacktop runway, a foe arises. Newly arrived, this minivan affronts my mindful reverie Some parent urged by social tyranny of choice Pilots this convention of chattel life. And now it is directed at me. And my course never errs, Though it may be a foolish decision. My focus is on the headlight – I only ever look in one eye. I approach, the beacon grows.  ...