From an Upper Floor

HOME OF ONE’S SOUL. . . .

The Teachers Speak. . . Every so often, out of one’s domain, there is an isolation that swamps one. It is difficult to shake, and yet there it is, evidence that this is not home. There is a portion or many portions appealing to one, yet basically, the at home feeling begins to leave.   This is when one digs in and brings to light all those things that brighten the soul. Dig into your handiwork, give yourself some leeway but stay with the program, stay with the route. You will find that the isolation will fade somewhat and again you will regain your sense of belonging. But do not distress yourself about it.   It is a pure longing for the home of one’s soul. It will come about in its own good time and the journey will have been worth the while. And what is gained along the way will add simply more weight to the gems in your pockets. (scribed November of ’94)

Across the Mind’s Eye. . .

Laying like whipped icing
on the wedding cake,
the drifts of snow across the mind’s eye
left a clear path to the heart’s memory
of the other winters when love
closed the doors of the world
and cherished me.

What were the winters like
when the snow stood high
and like lover’s swords sliced a path

and found where I was?

Deep within are memories brought forth for a reason indecipherable.  Simply as the poem says, across the mind’s eye.  Yet sweeping the body, finds the knees weak and my heart laboring.  One wonders then from where comes the love, the cherishing.  It is deep within but the source cannot be brought to mind. Still the feeling is unmistakable. And the knowledge stays that somewhere that world is intact.  And a matter of time only, time as it is known where I am, folds unto itself and puts me back into the ‘old country.’

One then does not argue with this because it is not belief, but knowledge. And it was yesterday though a lifetime has been lived since. Puzzle? No, because we learn that linear time belongs to Earth but confirming that all time is simultaneous. (April, 2018)

We Will Talk Again . . .

We will talk of philosophy and
we will talk of poetry again like
. . . .once upon a yesterday. . . . .

We will talk of people and beings
whose lives are woven tapestries
of great wonder. . . .

And we will again grace the lovely work
of the Great God and say. . .

We walk beneath the wings of him
who holds us all together. . . . . .

Don’t Stare At The Moon

Any farmer knows
you don’t stare at the moon too long.
You get a little soft in the head, they say.

What they really mean
is that magic overtakes you
and carries you to the place of green fields,
of orchards heavy with fruit
and cucumbers cultivated straight
as a shot of rye whiskey.

What they really mean is that the magic
will make you see fields to be seeded
and calves to be born
and worlds to be peopled.

What they really mean
is that you will fall in love
with your earth
and in awe watch the wheat weave its gold mat
right over your eyes.

It is a softness of the heart man fears,
for the myth must enforce
the hard head to blunt

the pain of life everlasting.

universal watch

universal  watch

On The Universal Watch. . .

Glancing into the icy calm
of the darkened sky,
leaving little to the night’s magic,
is a knowledge from minds in action.

Saying little in languages understood,
it moves itself with intelligence,
looking for evidence bespeaking intent.

Always wary, ever beseeching,
reaching conclusions seeking
a desired peace with an enduring future.

Not only one world in motion with
an anxious search, but many
whose futures are determined by the
results of a whirling planet
whose emotions are in turmoil.

A learning place, a starting place,
whose tentative decisions determine
the futures of roles dependent on
the unbridled, unharnessed emotions
of childhood still groping.

Worlds looming as non entities,
not proven by the laboratories
of the science gods,
is life in other forms;
as intelligent, viable, thoughtful,
as intent on living within the realm
of their possibilities as we on Earth. . .

Searching as we do as gods for an enduring Peace.

The Best Of All Worlds

When a teenage grandson arrived into our family, my talks with him were cerebral and pithy.   We were in my basement study and on the wall was a quote which I had paraphrased from something I was reading and his mother, an artist, had illustrated.   (We have since used the drawing on the cover of Kiss The Moon) I have searched out what I was reading but I cannot find what had spurred me on to paraphrase. And my grandson looked at it and pondered and I read it aloud. Wisdom begins when passion is exhausted. And being the good student that he was he said, but grandma, you would be dead then!   I wish I had had the wisdom to add that only when passion is exhausted can you then begin to live.   It is then that we more clearly see issues in nascent form and arrive at more thoughtful conclusions. In too many situations we reach conclusions colored by emotion when we need clarified thought. This is only one of many lessons this Earth classroom must teach us.

The Best Of All Worlds

It was said before
in this best of all possible worlds. . .
that we will surely miss this.

It has to do
with the sweet ways of greeting
to demonstrate love and
of mostly handling the common place.

There are those worlds
of which we speak
where frame of mind cannot compare
with our range of emotions.

How like us that is. . . .
We  boast of our capacity to love
and honor each other through all life
and then raise arms in combat.

Why I ask does it pain me so
to leave it all behind
when emotion has blinded me
and handicapped you
from peacefully coexisting?

Too much,  I think.
My heart needs a quiet time.
One to stand (beside) aside,
to heal my heart and simply Be. . . .

in the next of all possible worlds.