Thursday, January 1, 2015

Follow the Trail


The long
   and wind-
ing road where
  a river runs
    through this Place.
      My nest-my shelter…
        A bough heavy with its
         Burden throwing weight
           under -fractured –arms-bends
          splitting branches and hairs.
         Shedding, peeling, bleeding
        New growth smooth raw
      and glowing in vibrant appearance
     of new buried in the piles, behind the
    Brook, between the pulpy sheets in the
    Pillared fortress of my dark wood. Followed
   by History, taunted under timber, mossy muffled
  movements like the pumas pads, stalking, following
 His instinct upwind of fragile deer quaking in the breeze.
Led innocently but not blind by the familial scent which
Rushes past as white noise……………
The rivers running away in daily rush,
  the commute of clear water swelling
   and surging. Overflows with dripping
    anticipation, a communion-yet lingering
      all ways, touching baptismal branches,
       alone with the alchemy
        tossed in the leafy mix, where lights
         refraction concentrates and showers,
          beaming and bemoaning,
           the straightforward path
             Toward the new season,
              rooted in reason,
               salt over the shoulder,
                tears condense.
                 No turning back!
                  Abandon All Pride!
                    Mists obscure all distinction
                     of form-that is confidence-
                      The kiss of order, standing up 
                       to reason gushing with fortitude
                         in the flow of perspiring possibility.
                          Down long halls lined in
                           mirrored repetition,  rhetorical echoes
                            only bounce; bouncing rhetoric in repetition
                              mirroring echoes  the eagle’s fading scream,
                               A crier over town, sad jays bicker greedily 
                                gathering, stealing and mocking in their way 
                                    out of the thicket of things. Wandering wearily,
                                      coming to corners where speckled rocks
                                          from brooks and granites gain
                                            cowering recluse, a charging cavalier
                                               out of the mist. The berth anew, bewildered
                                                  by this liquid leariness.
                                                     Not a place to sea the source etched
                                                      in deep groves. Matters not of maps;
                                                        forecasted, charted,  re-routing, and
                                                          never doubting.
                                                            Blind faith, la selva obscura,
                                                             branches of beliefs stretching,
                                                               growing isms opening buds,
                                                                revealing tips of truth.
                                                                  From: The Past
                                                                    To: The Present
                                                                     A sacrificial lamb
                                                                      sheared of
                                                                        symbolic strength
                                                                          covering paths of tortuous trails         
                                                                           dead ends trap and pray
                                                                            begging of another way
                                                                              boughs for none bending astray
                                                                               beckoning behind knotty burl
                                                                                snarled in growing, tread softly on shed
                                                                                  skin exposing the elements
                                                                                   Aware of wind, heightened
                                                                                    yet heedless of escape, leave in fear
                                                                                     bursting bold and brazen
                                                                                       The eternal flame
                                                                                         Embers, never forgetting
                                                                                          pulsing vein, rhythmic, infinite
                                                                                            bleeding, gushing forth,
                                                                                              in the current forward motion
                                                                                                breathing the days away
                                                                                                  In the middle of the grove
                                                                                                    downstream and deeper
                                                                                                     drowning in the thick
                                                                                                        Redwood Forest

"There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more." -Lord Byron


Feature image (1st) by Ilya Repin (1844-1930) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Second image, Redwood Forest "Fall Creek"












No comments:

Post a Comment

Half-dozen Mud cakes

Back to wood decks, quarter-size spiders, webs, moss  and creatures stirring in the hollow nights Back to no side-walks and skirting into th...