Fire, Passion, and Stairways to Heaven

Ask a question any way you want.

The truth of the answer it won’t change.

Could the answers change the questions

into some other grammatical form or language?

Some day I will reach a place of Knowing nothing.

I’m wondering if invisible I will be. Or just older?

Better you’re transformed into the fullness of a symphony

with lots of brass, with a conductor with strong arms,

swamped by sound, swamped by the sound of love, 

by loving the harmonies, the chord progressions,

digressions, compressions, suggestions, avoiding the

false prophets and easy answers to abstract questions,

but what pain they will bring us, who knows, 

when our kisses fail to rise above simple disguises,

kisses of no fire, no passions, no stairways to heaven.

Answer from fullness, not from emptiness.

Answer in full voice, sing in full harmony.

From: Buckle Up! A Boomer’s Meandering Musings on

Innocence, Time, and Love, From Then to More Recently

Unpub. MS p. 7

At My Age

August 2022

73 years 6 months

In my pretentious sophistication,

at twenty-two, I watched A Clockwork Orange.

I unraveled in ways I didn’t know existed, 

but pretended otherwise.

Deeply shaken, I thought the world had shifted,

that something had died, 

that something malevolent was coming.

I vomited that night.

Innocence is gone.

Age does that, a little here, a little there.

So do books and broken toys,

and those special toys spirited away

by our mothers when we weren’t looking;

the news, frustrations, and betrayals by 

parents who should have loved their children

without question, without abuse.

Lest I become a resentful old man, 

I must forgive them every day.

There was innocence and wonder 

and imagination, then a need for comfort in an 

uncomfortable world, a longing for something 

of past good feelings seen through the lens 

of life’s experiences, craving meaning 

and connection, a Calling from the Wilderness.

At sixty-three, I entered one path

that opened into wonder, gazing 

at the Milky Way or standing in awe 

of nature’s primitive and beautiful places

and terrifying forces; and another 

into the journey seeking the Divine, 

the ultimate of the Sacred Mystery.

Walked simultaneously, 

in and out of shadow and light, 

with both love and suffering,

twisting, overlapping, merging together

until now, at this place, I arrived

better than I was yesterday.

From: A Preface to the Universe: Love, Nature,

& The Mysteries Within

Unpub. MS p. 19

Old Roads

to the love that should have been

Many old roads,

beaten and pot-holed, I have

traveled in silence unaware.

Year by year I have slowly learned 

to listen to my heartbeats.

Your wondrous touch 

and heartbeat caught me off guard.

You became a mysterious map

to some curious byways.

I was asked if I feared

disclosing my vulnerabilities.

Not any more, but a friend has told me,

If you get lost, don’t ask for directions.

The Master Poet said that love

emptied of things is the greatest love.

I admit to you my greatest fear:

the loss of the work of our hearts.

You have a marvelous way of seeing.

The curious byways persist just so.

If again our lips should come together,

if our tongues soften and our eyes shimmer,

the old roads would be made smooth again,

and they would be our new way home.

From: After All the Years of Gravity

Unpub. MS p. 13

Things Close By

A Reverie

Sunset glares through a slit in the clouds;

cool air descends with childhood memories

of horses and rain in Willcox. 

Horses knew things.

They knew more about wind, rain, and trouble

than any of the rest of us.

They helped me to many places 

that were kindred to my nature,

to escape the oppressing forces,

to wander in the dreams of silent places

where kindness flourished.

There were no maps for any of that,

but we may have known each other 

before time had its measure.

It’s windy this evening on the borderland,

and rain approaches from the southeast.

I opened a lovely Malbec to sip slowly

and relax while the storm treked across 

a darkly veiled sky. Its mesmerizing fragrance

mingled with the aroma of virga that fell 

from clouds of dreams and memories.

The horses knew about all that.

Sometimes we knew.

Look now. 

Rain is close by.

From: A Preface to the Universe: Love, Nature,

& The Mysteries Within

Unpub. MS p. 32

There Was This

2026

Fifty-nine years ago I was eighteen.

I remember that like it was just

fifty-nine years ago.

I was a high school graduate

washing dishes in a nursing home,

wondering, What about my life?

And today, for everything I can remember,

there are gaps before and after.

Memories stumble over empty spaces,

and dreams mingle with memories.

Which is which?

To my knowledge that’s nothing new.

I conjured plausibles to fill the gaps,

but that was never satisfying.

They are not lies, but not quite the truth.

It was merely a convenience

to avoid tripping through a story.

Since I’m past seventy, it’s easier to say 

that I don’t remember this or that

and I’m okay to let it go.

No one seems to mind.

From: Ponder: Dreams, Memories,

and the Imagination

Unpub. MS p. 26

Inside Out

In every person’s eyes,

where all geography is dismantled,

what rests is never a matter of simple silence.

Inescapable tragedies and betrayals, 

and desires for revenge

are never worth that kind of effort.

Our vision is softened

by the migration of gentle shadows,

lovers’ whispers, babies’ laughter,

and friendships that lift us effortlessly.

Things seen and unseen,

rainfall and lightning,

births and deaths,

the transit of Orion,

the passage of time,

and doors opening to the sacred

all have their own pulse,

their own resonance and coherence,

and their own music that sings

of starry-starry brilliance.

From: Memories of Things Left Behind

Unpub. MS p. 23

A Wilding Dream

Yellow seasons, red clouds,

drinkable dawns and wine— 

we certainly indulged.

Then an orchestra,

sprawling, treacherous, and lavish

with wilding percussion,

rainy brass, nervous strings,

and chatty woodwinds.

A growing dissonance of voices

on top of the deep roar of traffic

and sirens, a scream for help,

the crash of cymbals, bossy and jagged,

tumbling down concrete stairwells,

cutting through all things fearful,

then quiet but for the breezes sighing

through the barb’ wire fences

and over the range grasses.

In the discomfort of chaos,

another glass of Syrah, 

a Brahms symphony,

and a found book of Psalms.

From: Ponder: Dreams, Memories, 

and the Imagination

Unpub. MS p. 47