Forgive me, I ramble, telling you of life at sea level--
where a steady pour of hours stream, and minutes bead against the windowpanes as the seconds mist into fog-- decades of earth and rock liquify-- A mottled mix of flowing colors and viscosities defiant and devoid of any beauty to ease a slippery sharp-edged flow carving out an emptiness within this near ghost of a soul waiting in unacknowledged darkness, while asking for a way to the light—
before waking in the softness of morning at altitude.
Genesis 2:7 “Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”
Nonsense things of twisted rhetoric
hang around the neck of a nation.
Words braided into twisted doctrines
of red and black and white.
Hatred fought so long ago
blended into now
with a new pandemic
in the wake
of aberrant dreams.
Here where truth once
swayed and danced,
offering humanity
a grand romance
of belief in a thing
the world had never seen--
Golden rules made real.
We knew our daughters and sons
would serve as the sacrificial lambs
to keep our rules golden
for all generations to be free.
Though freedom be washed
in the blood of our lambs,
we still believed
in the grand romance--
And oh, how we did dance
For over two hundred years.
Then the roped nonsense came,
tarnished the shine of our romance,
interrupted the rhythm of our dance.
The twisted rhetoric strangled us
as a new sickness spread.
No ease given; no treatment sought.
Pockets lined with gold
more important than golden lives.
Hatred and apathy listened
to the new prophet,
who said they were right--
Everything wrong was
the fault of others:
The poor in spirit are just lazy.
Those who mourn make excuses.
The meek are just weak.
Those wanting righteousness want it all free.
The pure in heart want to give your gold away.
The peacemakers don’t want us to be strong.
Then the new prophet claimed he was the persecuted one,
promising vengeance for his own sake.
His apostles believed his sermons,
proclaiming him their chosen one.
Order is all,
He said.
Law is all,
He said.
He would teach them
by putting all people
in their rightful place.
Justice lay raped,
bloody, raw,
beaten and gassed,
in the streets
as his disciples cheered
while the petty false prophet smirked,
holding a Holy book.
Re-forge the chain of Liberty’s shackle,
he ordered.
Then Truth
stopped swaying,
stopped dancing,
offered us nothing,
flames of romance dying.
A gray morning starts the day.
A light dusting of wet snow
greets me and the dogs
before my coffee and breakfast
can have a say in the matter.
And you are no longer
in this world
to see the same sky
or to visit me here.
The last twelve years
we made up for
the lost years of the forty-eight
we’ve been friends--
Our marathon talks about our kids,
our hopes and worries for them,
the birth of your grandchildren,
the death of my wife,
the blasphemous betrayal of aging--
all our griefs and our celebrations.
Sharing, as adults, the things
We could not share as kids,
how we survived the fog bank
attack of our mother’s hearts
upon our own to live our lives
in the sunlight of the earth.
You were the one to word it best-
Like the little girl with the curl
in the middle of her forehead:
When they were good,
they were very good
and when they were bad,
they were horrid.
How often, always it seems to me,
you bested me in our repartees of humor and wit,
until I did cry, Uncle, I give!
The two of us laughing,
fighting hard to catch our breath.
In the end, your body betrayed your spirit.
I would rewrite your ending if I could.
I’d write you healthy for years to come,
running and playing with your granddaughters,
seeing graduations and weddings—
Of course, selfishly,
I’d write you many visits
to see me here in this mountain paradise
of a place where I am blessed to be.
Where we’d sit—
you sipping your Jameson Irish Whiskey
and I my glass of wine,
as we laughed and teased each other
in our merciless way.
Then you’d talk of your son
and I my daughter,
what motherhood meant,
and how we survived our own mothers.
I’d write you happiness,
finding love with an Andy Garcia
look alike who would worship you.
I’d write your ending
with a pain free body,
sitting in the sun
while you watched
your great-grandchildren at play.
Finally, selfishly,
I’d rewrite feeling your absence
from this world.
The mountains draw their shawls of clouds
‘bout their shoulders to ward off the damp chill,
humming as if about to settle down
into rocking chairs before a fire
and knitting away this afternoon of winter
as they chat about the doings
of their children, grandchildren,
and their neighbors to the west.
Perhaps, this is why--
the birds flit and chirp
singing songs of spring
as they nibble at the suet cakes
you’ve left for them.
Edited image courtesy of claystorm.livejournal.com
Though the mountains shroud
themselves in snow filled clouds,
a warmth spreads
as if the air contained
no freezing chill.
There is a light here
I’ve not found before
in this early morning
of snow cloud
shrouded mountains,
filling me
as if a sun lighted spring
prodded the mountains
to shrug away their shrouds.
Leaves tumble like years,
never what they once were,
drained, lost in their way,
trembling in the cold
chill of damp night air
after a day of rain
until the warmth of sunrise
touches them.
Delighting, the leaves find
the strength to sigh.
Were it in the realm
of possibility,
I’d collect each leaf,
restore it to its spring beauty,
bundle them into decades,
and gift them to you.
But it is a silly
before coffee morning thought
as we both know leaves like years
cannot be reclaimed and restored
and smile at the thought.
Let me go
into the mountain’s depths
away from the light.
The sky holds nothing.
Neither does the sea.
Only the rock, the granite,
the depths of mountain
provides for me.
The mountain carries
me down and away,
away from this light,
protecting all it covers
as I cover myself
with my grandfather’s coal dust.
I will carry this canary
with me, if you think I must,
as I travel deeper,
ever deeper,
into the mountain.
I have always had rose bushes.
My mother’s rosebushes
so overgrown, hedges really,
filled with beautiful red blooms
and thick inch long thorns,
waiting for a chance to shred
away skin.
Then my own
before I was twenty-two.
White ones.
Planted on either side
of the front door
of a house in Baltimore.
I let a piece of me die
in that house
yet the roses thrived.
Then, in Texas.
Yes, roses there too.
Puny things. No lush leaves.
No huge blooms.
Black spot, fungus, rot
always a battle.
Vine like branches,
filled with thousands
of razor slicing thorns,
thirsting for my blood
when I came near
to fertilize or water
or with pruning shears.
But today,
in the high mountain desert,
I took a chainsaw to the rose bushes.
Buzzed them down
to nothing but nubs.
Roses do not belong here
in this dry terrain.
Thorns and a waste of water,
the price to pay
for no real return.
I placed their thick,
disconnected thorn filled limbs
into doubled up lawn bags,
and their thorny weapons,
still thirsting for a taste of blood,
stabbed at me as I carried the bag
of bundled limbs to the trash bin.
Some, of the toxic smiling kind,
might say, “Look to the blossoms
Not the thorns.”
Easy to say
if you’ve never seen,
never felt the shredding thorns can do.
Thus, I remove the shredding beauty
here in the mountain desert,
choosing beauty of a better kind.
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Hearing The Mermaids Sing 