Crag the Crow

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.    ...

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.  ...

When I stand beside the Ocean - Perhaps a mate by my side - I am humbled by the vast wide open, Naked, collapsing, with nowhere to hide. And the expanse arrayed before me Formless and flat and wide, Is the great earth's analogy, For how a man is called to abide. The opposite side is too distant For a child to imagine its shore. A father must in this life be regnant; One for the child to adore. A man begets his loved children, And learns that he must rise in his soul To form the clay into strong men And satisfy the God-given role. A one of the same was there at my side The moment I birthed on the scene. Would he had thrown his arms so wide - A bosom like Abraham's for me to lean. His life would not be measured by success, Rather on the manliness he taught. Worldly trophies not to be his dress, But the struggles that he sore fought. Rising from rest to find rest in spirit, Wending his way to the daily hunt. His ret...