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

Something Or Other

I am not a lunatic but madness might be a factor.

Do we wait for a savior, or bring one into existence?

Music resonates in consonance with the creator’s voice.

What isn’t transformed by fire is eaten by envy.

Many Boomers couldn’t get enough of the world;

everything opened, everything poured in, then too much.

One day, several years ago, I realized everything had changed.

Inner voices were unhinged by my confusion. Ageing does that.

Innocence has become more important as I have gotten older.

And I have wondered if idealism is another form of innocence.

Little by little, while on the road, a new voice

emerged that I came to recognize as my own;

the extraneous bits of life fell away.

There is no language for that,

only the surge of the soul 

and the swelling of the heart.

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

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

Unpub. MS p. 39

Blue Horses

Inspired by Mary Oliver

Now and then,

when a human event intercedes,

what seems necessary is not necessarily so.

Betrayed by a lover, poetics seem a ramblescat,

a mere caption, phony, like, who would want to know?

In a near wilderness where Blue horses, 

out from colorful dreams, 

are messengers from another world,

their watery movements and desert patience

have brought solace and taken me on quiet rides

while the grassland is softly sensuous

and I awaken.

from: Ponder: Dreams, Memories,

and the Imagination

Unpub. MS p. 31

On Knowing Nothing

I know that I know nothing.   

                        ~Socrates

It’s easy to walk into this,

a swirling mist,

and remember the stories

of no words, from the beginning,

the ones no one could tell us.

It’s the realm of the Great Unknowing,

of wordlessness and silence,

where mythic truths come to us

to reside in our hearts,

notoriously and sensuously,

intangibly and mystically.

We are nearly perfect here,

remembering a world

that was the impulse of wonder

and imagination, 

living from our hearts,

breathing the wilderness

where nothing is explained 

but somehow known,

where fragrances are seen,

flavors are heard,

but our tears will remain salty.

from: After All the Years of Gravity

Unpub. MS p. 4

What I Mean to Say

One afternoon in therapy

Eternally emerging,

from what I was 

into what, I don’t know.

There were times I thought I knew.

Then there were times I thought I knew nothing,

but actually did know something.

Some days it was ‘Yes.’

Other days ‘No.’

And other days, ‘Maybe.’

Contradiction.

Paradox.

Unsettled.

Nothing gone from ourselves

is gone forever.

Knowing too much?  Oh sure.

What do I lack?  Nothing but that ‘one thing’

(I thought I would find it in The Moody Blues).

Or do I have too much of one thing,

not enough of another?

I have a reservoir of love, sure,

everyone says so.

(Who cares what everyone says, right?)

Or are they full of crap?

Tomorrow I’ll see a world differently,

or a different world,

small as they both are.

As always, there is tomorrow.

from: After All the Years of Gravity

Unpub. MS p. 3

Notes to a Man

Do you remember the first time

you realized the world was new,

when words had their places?

They didn’t always 

work the way you wanted them to.

When others used the same words,

you were disappointed,

but you learned to use them to leap 

into clouds of the unknown.

And remember your first truly passionate kiss?

The one that made your body vibrate,

closed your eyes, sapped your strength,

weakened your knees.

Your body became a furnace,

your sanity became chaotic,

the crackling madness of love 

made a strange kind of sense.

When you saw the world

through the eager eyes of your children,

through their questions and wonder,

through their gestures of offering you water,

you realized everything has its purity,

old and new, coming and going,

a colorful world after all,

and that you were an ordinary man

blessed by an intangible mystery

that made you something more 

than you would have ever expected.

from: A Preface to the Universe:

Love, Nature, & The Mysteries Within

Unpub. MS p. 9