Inoculation from the Insidiousness

The world belongs not to the old or young,

But belongs to itself in cobalt glory.

The young are not masters because of vigor,

The matured in confident submission are not the masters,

The elders are not masters of self made wisdom.

The world, benign and destructive -

The flesh sickened and healing -

Was planted in a garden to welcome

The timeless Lord of Sabaoth into his joy;

To give life to the new,

To give salt to the seasoned,

To give Truth to the tired.

The world is blank and we are the adornment.

Squirrel

The mostly shuttered hospital has become a hulk of bricks 

Where children once were born and grandparents passed.

The nurses and doctors have taken the healing arts

Out of this once consecrated space.

 

Agonal breaths of a lung that enlivened this city

Become gasps for a stale air that has receded,

Calling all to a different pile of bricks for the next half generation,

Distributing ineffable mysteries of catharsis.

 

And spying upon the old grounds a new creation springs forth -

A squirrel has taken careful carefree time to bless this tiny maple.

In the crook, in the elbow of a diminutive leafless arbor,

He scratches his ears and watches the rushed and chilly scattering.

 

Barely noticed, he notices each ailing clothed creature.

Does the squirrel judge, does the squirrel spurn, does the squirrel dismiss?

Such destruction of the bonds of creation are impossible

To this perfect beast, enjoying the thistled garden.

 

Caring for his fur, he wipes away the dirt gathered from his journey.

At times on all fours, or else princely only twos, he rests.

He rests knowing that his wooden mast is safety.

And he cleans his ears so that he shall hear God on the breeze.

 

Down from the maple and once more processing upon the earth below,

He again regards us who are commemorating and willing

This manmade hospital to be as glorious as the squirrel in the tree.

And with first created peace, the squirrel heals those who hear and see.

Three Wisps

Three wisps of clouds travel the hazy heavens.  

The dome of the sky containing the cool of the day 

for a bit longer this morning. 

The sparrow has left the nest for his rounds. 

The mouse is off on some errand. 

This voyeurism is made under shade, 

on a porch, 

in a sorta comfy chair.

The suburban wildlife is wandering,

as the derelict house stands here.  

Slowly sinking; slowly yellow to greening. 

The cedar leans to threaten with inevitability 

Of a cleansing crash from a supersubstantial sabine. 

 

There is a night shade to this moment. 

Crickets keep their evening routine within shadows. 

The coolness of the day dismissive of the intruding sun.

 

Three wisps.  

The dome of creation containing all that can be. 

The cedar portending all that will be. 

And I, in an alley, flaccidly placidly watching.

 

Endurance Retold

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 percolations. 

Their dark bloated billows eviscerated themselves

And pummeled the earth with sheets of damaging and deifying water. 

I stood motionless, planted as the trees,

A reader of their lessons and revelations. 

Washed by the deluge and ignorant of the thunder crash,

I planted myself in obedience to the bucolic cathedrals’ example. 

The width and breadth of the storm hurtled west to east

Though I stayed in my place to see what would be. 

Remaining steadfast until the shower ceased, I spied a new world out there. 

The world had the two oaks as their regnant lords. 

Under their protective span remains (even now) a bistro table. 

One chair remains as it was before the winds. 

The other toppled on its back with no agency of its own. 

And my time of contemplation was completed. 

Returning to the menial tasks of occupation

The second chair remains defeated for another contemplative surviving another storm.  

Endurance

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. 

Essential Business

A choice between two will always be false,

Rather the soul of the cosmos is hierarchy.

To only essentials Caesar calls,

While nonessential is shuttered and under palls.

Proper words for proper things is important to me.

The grocer, the restaurant and car repair

Are no more than base subsistence.

For they do not rise us through the air.

The ripening of new sprout fruit they cannot bear,

No freeing repentance, but arresting abundance

The animal bows his head to the ground,

Sniffing and searching for nourishment there.

Persons too search with necks bent down

Though to not bellies but to spirit wholly bound.

The essence of man is to leave ground for air.

The idolatry of these late essential things

Deprives the marrow from the human soul.

To sit beside the fount of teachings,

To sacrifice hours tutored by readings,

Eviscerates man with a pneumatic hole.

The song of the essentials rises in our chest,

Though basic greed to gather be now multiplied.

We are reared by schools from our immaturest,

The community library gathers all the rest.

In the sanctuary of the Essence is how the soul abides.