Tag: life

What Emily Said….

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
 
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
 
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
		Emily Dickinson
Yep, that’s what Emily said.
I beg to differ.
If it perched in my soul,
The cat ate that damn canary
Before it finished its tune.
 
And let me tell you,
I never heard anything sweet
During a pissed off hurricane.
That dang bird knew!
Away it flew
While the winds whistled
 Away my roof.
 
I sure as heck didn’t hear
Some sweet little bird chirpin’
As I froze my ass off in the northeast.
And all I heard as I sweated buckets
Under a southern sun was some damn
Squawking big ass crow.
In fact, I think hope isn’t a bird at all.
 
It might be a well.  That might be more apt.
Yep, wells aren’t dug or drilled deep enough,
Sometimes.
And I would imagine
Much more can go wrong with a well,
Like a pump runnin’ dry.
Oh, hell!  A well can even be poisoned!
 
But this here well,
It’s so dang dry
There ain’t even any mud
At the bottom.
Looks like some cobwebs too.
Whatever it had,
It done dried right up.
 
So whatever hope is--
A bird, a well,
It isn’t always there.
It doesn’t stick around,
Unless you feed it
Before the feathers
Drift,
Before the water
Dries
Away.
 
 

Elemental Breath

 From the shaking dirge cries of birth
 To the desire for ease in the between, 
 Before the elemental breath rattles at death,
 We are lost in cacophonous sighs of daily life, 
 Choosing to turn away 
 From moments appearing as iridescent sun rays
 As if God's fingers reached 
 Between the clouds 
 To touch the earth.
 Yes, we turn away,
 Notice nothing,
 Pick up kids,
 Fix dinner,
 Do laundry,
 A trip to Wal-Mart,
 And to work,
 The mundane of every day,
 Yes, it must be done,
 To hurry toward the waiting,
 While living holding sand,
 Until expelling 
 the elemental breath before death. 
  

Trails

Set out years ago
Dropped breadcrumbs
Some no bigger than dust particles
Of the soul
Along the roads and paths
Thought I’d find my way back,
There’d be time
There’d be years
Be months
Weeks
Days
Seconds
Left before the sand
Absconded with the hourglass
To find the trail of dust and crumbs
Sweep and pour them
Back into the soul
Add a few ingredients
Create once more
From the beginning

 

But birds and squirrels
Feasted on the leavings
And I’ve no desire
To return to where I started.

 

 

History

history image

Spun out from the centrifuge
Twisted in helix meaning
Strands entwined, twisted back
Stretching toward history within heritage
Search through the montage of time
Sift through pounds of truth and lies
For a few ounces of purity
Measured out within the mess
The now was the past
Where to walk
We travel back
On twisted helix roads
To the selves we were
So very long ago
And learn
The future braided
In the past
With the now
And made us whole

Trash at the Curb

Trash by the curb
Cardboard boxes nested
One within the other
Standing upright, resting
Against the edge of the smallest,
An old collage Walmart picture frame,
Matting included,
Old photos still within the frame,
A wedding, a first baby then a second,
Graduations and first cars,
Pictures telling a story of a family,
Colors faded by the sun
Having spent years by a window

After Eruption

Rend the earth again
Tear, rip through miles of rock and soil
Till the swollen, rounded,
core lies exposed
Bubbling, glowing,
Sputtering out
Reaching tendrils of itself.
Note the flow,
Time the pulses of heat,
Beating with undulating life seen and unseen.
Then watch the viscous liquid cool,
Solidifying against the pain
Of each cold breath you expel
Stilling the beat of life.

The transformation to cold, hard stone
Within the earth’s crust
As thus,
A mother’s heart,
Torn open once too often,
Stops.

Cleaning

To clean a heart and soul,
the way we clean a house:
scrub away
the grime and grease,
bleach away
the mold and mildew,
polish away
the dusty dullness,
vacuum away
dirt and dust
and leaves and grass
tracked in on muddy
dog paws,
who then shake wet fur
all over the floor,
yes, even vacuum away
all the hair shed upon the floor
by dogs and you,
then mop away
dried dirt,
straightening and organizing
as you go.

Then rest,
enjoying the gleam and shine
before opening the door
to visitors once more.
Yes, if only a soul
Could be cleaned
So very easily.

Joy (for my daughter)

Joys in the morning
Coffee and a cigarette
Then a run
Under the blistering
Texas sun
Simple things
Coffee, cigarettes, a run

Yet another year looms
And older I become
A year stretched out
Like a blanket
Of meaningless days
Thoughts of what will be
When my blanket of days
Is folded and finally
Put away

To rest
Content
Having found
Some thread of meaning
Unraveling from all the threads
In this blanket of days
To pull the thread,
Letting the others fall away,
Hold it close,
And say,
“This was enough.
Yes, this was, indeed,
Enough.”