Storm front

 

Nor did I chase

the storms, even as 

they came for me, that way

Did not run

for shelter stops

Nothing

we wed in between

such pouring days

as if a window

Opened

to a raw and fresh world

Where death and birth

dwell in unison

A reddened dawn 

bled deep

into horizon lines, gashes,

words of warning defined

Old

wives tales,

words of prophecy

fairies and fantasies,

Or metaphor

like We could be

Happy, sirens.

Thoughts as thick as 

Mammatus

dissipate for clearer 

skies shall 

Pass

Blinding truths

anyway...

For now 

I stay shuddered

while wet and wiser

atmospherically.

 

Painting by Hart, James McDougal, 1828-1901  (artist); 'The Storm is Coming' L. Prang & Co. (publisher), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

What Floats

 

Above all

else in the daylight

my favorite sight

or Phenomenon

occurs in the Sky;

Fallstreak holes, lenticular halos atop

tall peaks

and the mighty Mammatus.

I seldom seek

the Why's

As cycles spin

I think I may see them again,

when the Sun's slanted spears

Disrupt

It all-appears 

Darker, more real,

an occurrence

of grounding

without sounding too

Heavy.

Image credited by Alpsdake, in Public Domain (CC0),'Mount Fuji from Mount Ogochi' taken 10/22, 2000 via Wikimedia Commons.

The beaten path

The road is much traveled
and many speculations remain
about the roads not taken.

We have all come upon ourselves
confused, at the apex of options-
(a) or (to) be decisive upon catching the
flicker of a tall Indian paintbrush leaning
like an arrow as a sign to be read,
This Way-a choice is made for us.

We were exploring the Sierra ranges
and wound our way wordlessly
worshiping the execution of a task as
simple as footfalls when sinking into
shade, the unmistakable turbine of water
argued with the rocks somewhere nearby.

And as if made of honey,
we were drawn to the source.
Two humans length
off the path and we became
the main course. Each of us
quickly encased in a thick cloud
of blood-sucking bugs.

We persisted
and swatted and swung
at each other. For why we knew not.
We had seen running water before,
as rivers lead to other rivers before
spilling onto
the same old sandy shores.

Well, we nearly made it.
When the bough broke
the snap of our attention,
like a fishing line, hooked our cheek
on a fallen boulder of brown, a mound
facing its reflection as though right
at home.

The brown bear beat us there.




Painting by Albert Bierstadt, 'Passing storm over the Sierra's' c. 1870 in [Public domain].

He-line

Like a cat

tame or otherwise-

A man

will attack if touched

where he is most tender.

Artwork by Gwen John [Public domain].

reflection

The difference between man and his
                                              Nature;
Primarily,
the words will fade away
                                        meaning
                      altogether

whereas colors come
                                bright and new
blending in
after each and every rain.





Painting by Henry Ward Ranger, 'Bradburys Mill Pond No. 2' c. 1903 in  [Public domain].

Euclid’s Expertise

I’m no expert in subjects like geometry, people or what we call space,
but I am open to learning
about any thing
And I have discovered that even when nobody is looking
the sun will shine somewhere
and no body around will notice
the disarray.
No(round)body wants to believe that rounding up or down
is the same,
or that this terra Nuevo is solid and
stretches flat out
beyond sight.
It is easier to focus on what you know.

It is most difficult to sift dirt for gold nuggets
while wearing white gloves.
I wish I had known we needed phosphorus.

Look at the moon! Soak in the sun. between the two,
the eclipse begins.
From this angle the tone is clear.

Between an apple and an orange,
orchard and grove,
notch and needle, I cannot sew,
so I make more pi.

Good shoes, firmly planted, back then
we did not notice we were stuck.
We bury the dead, cover up our dreams, hide our private parts,
and keep our hands to ourselves without a second thought.
We skim across surfaces,
as if buoyancy was our gift,
it could be.

I am no biologist, but I insist on using my senses
to read lines
left in the sand
that glisten like gold and contain
everything we need to know about measuring up
to the given space
for a square peg on a plane.

We needed to make an
impression
that would resonate further than a single dimension.

Naturally, perfect shapes are quite rare
in nature.
Fractals occur nearly everywhere,
proving patterns are purely
people problems.




Painting by Jusepe de Ribero (1591-1692) in Getty Center [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Traffic

Strangely, and somehow ever still
we all agreed, we all believed
despite the odds for and against
a higher power
the harder the fall
be it for truth or justice, karma, saintliness, etc.

I guess something else made itself known
privately, intimately, miraculously, coincidentally
called Acts of God, meaning no explanation,
meaning no known cause or capacity or possibility
of escape from these well-kept secrets
about proof and feeling, outcomes and solutions,
and there was us
stuck in the unknown. Needing nurture.
Navigating through Despair,
getting lost in Hope.
We keep trying to solve for seasons or reasons
for the unpredictable Nature
mirroring our mirage-

And just perchance,
the devotion toward loving God(s),
holy spirits and the angelic, is an obsession,
with Death-the passion-ate rose, heart, compass,
pulled by this magnetic feeling.

Better to stop and smell the air about you,
make some sacrificial vows, He Loves Me (Not)
He loves me Now, in lieu of later.
We (will) Be Good, and ask ourselves
What Would (a) god do?
or a man
in our case?
We (will) wait.




Painting by Hermann Ottomar Herzog [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A-part of some-thing

As though we needed to be told
-a-gain-
As if it were common
to occur
-again-
As it had been shown, all-
ready through
peopled holes-where keys go-
-inside-
These-black holes-out of space
and time constraint, locked
in-side-eternity
carrying more nothing
than you have seen
before.

Memory serves experience,
and kneels-
As though we've demanded
reverence, deliverance, pittance, per-
chance for-getting minute (s)paces
that take Us-
off tracks, on trips and
slips through slick perception
again, inside, before,
it occurs, as though suddenly
standing still under falling stars-
as if-then
you remember
Being-There.

You are merely a part of nature;
You are not altogether
apart from nature.
Everything was bound
to occur
any-way, naturally.
As though we needed to re-
member.




Image of painting by Theodore Clement Steele, c. 1887 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Lesson 1: Nature and the Soupman

Travel back to your first lesson
taught by Mother Nature.
When you learned
your parents were not the only
nor the best
teachers
about life.

We went camping,
my parents, their friends, Hercules-the dog.
We'd go to the Russian River
where there were no campsites-
you sight your spot and camp-
if you like.

They would drink and fish,
and drink like fish,
and more-it was the eighties.
Their friend, 

a man called Kevin Soupman
was fishing near me
when he caught a rainbow
trout.

He held it across both his hands,
it was shiny, slimy and squirmy-

the things kids like.
Moments later,
he said he had something for me.
He told me to hold out the palm
of my hand.
I did, eagerly.

In it,
he placed a crimson pebble.
It rolled a moment
as I tried to see it more closely
then it settled in the evening sun-
(un)still

throbbing and beating its inner drum.
Thus,

Nature and the Soupman
taught me
all I needed to know
about heartlessness.


Image By Ken Hammond / USDACornischong at lb.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons.

The dragonflies of August

And yet
how quickly we forget
that which are not ours
suspended outside of us
that snare our sound
held steady by a spell
we dutifully await
notice, complimenting
the color red.

Remembering something splendid
August by name, summer sprawlers
when warriorflies meet damselflies
nymphs and naiads
jolt in the sun propelling
in omnidirectional ambivalence
the hunted pauses in quiescence.

A blue clasher notes
royalty indigo with glints
of visual vibrations
that absorb you whole
by natural odonate order
of kindred carnivore.

In prismatic charisma
of holographic hovering
a resurrection of still
Sublime observers
primal movers of seasons
they have valid reasons
survival breeds
tellurian tenerals
that travel through time
unnoticed
by worm hole
defining translucence
to trapped terrestrials
helping us
recollect
our defected
their perfected
Augustine animus.



Image by By Jon Sullivan [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

The weight of the world

My pockets are empty, no rocks for my swim today
I am armed still with each of these quartered limbs

The rope swing resembles a gnoose, or a snake
the mongoose was always me, miss identified

Eucalyptus tendrils squeeze out mentholated breezes
calling the monarchs, two come to court, tagging up in streamers

Perched in the sappy pines a murderous row becomes a mob,
volume and black plagues grow from the chain mail gang

Humming while hovering over a well, the nectar inebriates
bird and bee still in recovery, stalling in their stupor mid-air

The drum roll of wind, corralling the dead, noting the tenor of leaves
swirling in symphonic disharmony, sloughing and buffing scales

Laser beams between tall pillars scorching the dirt, releasing the
essence, crushing the spice revives, in particulates burnt alive

The serenity of the lakeside: The tranquility of Tantalus
eternally reaching, mute preaching, still teaching all of us.



Image credit:By Extemporalist (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Audubons Avian Apology

Upon landing
on a jutting branch of discourse,
detailing drawn conclusions
about the man Audubon,
whose prayers for atonement
have been answered by History.
Poised on perches of frozen time,
not Alive
but trapped in the net of your aim, in-site-
full in vibrant colors, beyond the pale
page, he breathes Life back
as a meticulous Apology.
Focused in on the bird of your prey,
the hunters ring goes unanswered.
Only your breathe from breast
rises and falls,
occupying the empty space
where song climbed the trees
to view against the stoic creamy white
of fantasy, belief must be made,
making believe those shiny black beads
a birds eye view.
Can see you too, it doesn't fly away
choosing to pose and stay anyway-birdbrain;
choosing to fight or take flight-a man-of-kind.

It was proposed in some sacred text,
birds are the messengers of god(s),
while we're down here pushing,
bumping into each other, invading
our shrinking space, while up high
in the sky a letter forms
in the shape of peace.
V is for victory, not peace.
A thousand winged unit of velocity.
We are all going the same place-
says the pastoral preacher from his
High chair.
There-Those are our gifts to share,
in this righteous affair where
carrier pigeons take note-yet
the message was lost in translation.
We are just learning the sign of a circle,
showing us where water and meat reside,
hiding from hunters, take cover
the raptor hovers, screaming for you, Audubon,
to look up at the heavens,
blinded by the light, cocked-eyed
with a loaded gun.

Image of John James Audubon featured in The Popular Science Monthly, September 1887, [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Feature Image (top) By James Audubon [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

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"