Three Poems: February, At the Gate, and Addressing the Masses

February

(February 17, 2015)

What was
a prodigious bower
of tendril, leaf, and pod,
snaps under my fracturing fingers
as I tidy the guide wires
to which they cleaved
in summer.

Dreams of immortality
are only for humans
who separate soul
from the stuff of which
we are all made.
And I am to practice
presence to this –
the only moment,
I’m told, I have.

Yet in my fingers
is evidence of the time
when seeds rose
to the warmth of a faithful
sun, and then stiffened
to its measured retreat.

In my body too,
this impulse
to rise and hope,
this memory
to fall
without despair.
AT THE GATE

(January 4, 2015)

In the photo

I perch above the creek

at the edge

of wild woods.

 

Small hands –

these hands –

tucked in the bank,

intuiting obstacles,

making space.

 

Reflecting beauty,

being beauty

by engendering more.

 

Smiling because I know,

(no ophidiophobics yet whispering

in my ear.)

that in this gesture,

(Open the earth.

Entrust a seed.

Wonder. Wait.

See.)

 

I was fashioning the key

no human

would ever plunder from me

and I would use

again and again

to go back to Eden.

 

ADDRESSING THE MASSES

(March 9, 2014)

The way in is the question.

Except when we cannot have

the answer which is our response.

What do you want.

What do you really want.

What can we do.

What should we do.

All questions eventuate

in a descent into deflection

as our options seep away.

And in our shrillness,

the unuttered answer

reverberates in our ears.