Flashback

After an intense rain shower my cane and I were limping away from the Dupont Metro.  We looked like a  demented  crab  trying to avoid the newly sprouted  puddles.  At the Circle a delivery truck barreled through a deep puddle by the curbside heaving a tsunami of foul detritus which upended the cane and me.  Time stopped.  Dirty puddles.

I am six years old  happily waiting with my first grade class on the transport line.  It is three o'clock and the incipient scholars are more than ready to call it a day.  I am togged out in my new pale blue snowsuit which is much admired as is another kid's "I Like Ike" button.  A darkly clad nun on patroll issues admonitions in a high staccato voice.   My hooded ears miss the one about waiting for the bus to board before walking over to my waiting mother's car.  I wave to my friends  as I begin to run across the driveway, but trip and fall into an oozy mud puddle.  As I struggle to stand upright in my sodden snow suit, the dark robed martinet encourages a round of communal laughter.  Through tear blinded eyes it seems like an interminable interval before I reach the car.  My mother's eyes are welling up as she drives down the driveway past the statue of Jesus with the little children. (revised on 3/5/12).  

Summer Storm

Sailboats dozing under summer skies
beneath a canopy of cottony clouds
Seabirds basking in the balmy interlude,
forty winks on fluid futons

On the horizon blustery breezes
Confused clouds morphing into grotesque contours
Sleepy sea gulls ascending with strident cries
Careening craft lurching in their liquid chambers,
Lines slapping loudly on steely spars

Pelagic winds wafting landward
redolent of ripe seaweed and moist reeds
Sheets of spattering rain slapping
on straining sloops and slick docks
mirror my voyage through myriad permutations

Celebrating the Hours

Time is like a juggernaut hurtling through our lives.  It mows down our precious days into a compressed heap of dissatisfaction and regret.  Perhaps, we are the compressors.   Have we forgotten the timeless wisdom that each day is a mirror of life, with  its birth, coming of age, and eventual ending?  At aurora's first blush, greet the coming of the light with the crimson mantled Angel of Lauds.   Her name is praise.  Gratitude pours from her lips for a new beginning.

At the noon hour the Angel of Sext blows his golden trumpet.   With the midday hour a  diminishment of spirit often intrudes.   A day half spent with unaccomplished goals, frustrated in a sea of busyness,  now awaits the inevitable waning of the light.  The Angel's clarion call sings out look upward.  Stop for a moment and reflect.    The sky hasn't lost its blueness and the birds still sing their joyous  songs with abandon.   Awaken to the wonder  anew and with the Angel whisper a prayer for peace.

At the day's close, about an hour before retiring, the Angel of Compline, clad in a diaphanous robe of muted hues, descends with closed eyes.   This can be a time of tranquility or terror.   The Angel invites us to deal with ourselves gently.  The prayer of Compline embraces the whole day, its vertiginous  heights and labyrinthine depths, and enfolds  us in a merciful mantle of protective serenity.  

Veil

The ancient Celts called them the thin places, those geographic sanctuaries of spirit where the veil between time and the timeless is as sheer as a dragonfly's wing.  The isle of Iona in Scotland's Inner Hebrides is such a place. It's a deceptively small and rocky spot, just a dot on the map near the large isle of Mull. There are few motor vehicles, a few crofts for farming, long horned chestnut hued cattle and black faced sheep roaming at will down ancient pathways leading to the surrounding sea. The old Abby church still stands overlooking the water as it has for hundreds of years. One early summer's day after morning prayers, I was gazing at a tall weathered Celtic cross trying to decipher its runic like symbols. A young ewe and her wee bairn were grazing near the Cemetery, burial place of ancient Scottish kings and saints. She seemed to be beckoning to me. I followed them down a rocky route through deep green grass toward the sea. It was a breezy day and I could taste the salty sea winds, a delightful sensation. My animal guides stopped near a small stone chapel close by the sea. As I crossed the threshold, time stopped. I sat on a sturdy wooden bench near the unadorned altar and gazed out through the single window at the sea. My monkey mind slowed down to a whisper and I had the sensation of looking into a deep clear pool. I lost all sense of my physical body, absorbed in the serenity of the eternal now. A strong gust of sea wind struck the window and I came back. Two hours had passed. As I was walking away from the Abby, two young islanders, who were repairing the ancient stone fence in front of the Cemetery, greeted me. They were looking at a small stone as if it were a perfect emerald. After a lengthy search, they had found the stone that fit a small gap perfectly. In a way they were praying, you see, and so was I.

Mid-summer Madness

YeeeOwwwwww!  Eeeeeeeek!  Piercing screams and squawks penetrate the steamy air of a languid summer's afternoon.  Assorted moppets, playing in the sun drenched courtyard, run for cover.  Anxious parents emerge to investigate the source of the cacophony.  Then, a whining  siren-like sound  begins, quickly reaching an ear piercing crescendo.  "Where are the cops?" my neighbors enquire as they approach my house with trepidation.  Momentarily a squad car, with siren blaring and strobe lights flashing, roars into view.  A police officer with a buzz haircut sporting a pair of those bug-eyed reflective sunglasses, begins to pound on my door with a cudgel-like implement.  He screams "What the hell are y'all doing in there - havin a crack party?  Open the door before I kick it in." As I comply, he is accosted by an angry lime-green creature fanning a magnificent set of tail feathers.  My parrot, Spanky, responds with hysterical laughter and a "Hey, Big Boy." He dive bombs the interloper with clawed feet flailing leaving a pea green dollop of organic material on one of his meticulously polished jackboots.  The peace officer promptly exits the premises tossing a citation of some sort on my lawn as he jumps into the safety of his adamantine auto and streaks off.

Corvine Musings

Just before dawn on a frigid winter morning, a large stand of tall pine trees appears to come alive.  In the semi-darkness, beginning at the tree tops, there is sudden undulant movement like a huge swarm of gigantic black wasps.  This nightmarish scene evokes a vision of the Gorgon, Medusa, with her ebon hair of writhing snakes.  Suddenly, as drawn breaks, the creatures begin to vocalize in shrieks, squawks, and a variety of other piercing sounds.  Another crow morning has commenced as rowdy dowdy  flying formations of black  aviators sweep through the aurorean sky.  A solo flyer leaves the raucous press circling upward then downward with joyful abandon.  His bright onyx eyes take in everything as he moves his head from side to side at varying angles to adjust for his monocular vision.  He narrows his circle as he spots a fresh road kill and begins his graceful descent.  His landing isn't as smooth, but he is accustomed to that.  As he begins to feed, a passing truck driver mutters to himself "there's bad luck today." The native American people knew better.  To them every creature was a 'thou.'   They observed how  their two  legged winged brothers lived communally sharing in the rearing of their young, ministering to their oldsters and fashioning primitive tools.  Omens of ill fated destiny or harbingers of dormant fulfillment?  

A Centenarian's Lament

Since this past August, I have been an anxious and reluctant patient.  My slumber was suddenly disturbed one morning by rumbling tremors deep within the earth I was resting upon.  My body felt like it was about to split apart like a lost ship crashing on a surf-tossed reef.  My spine, which supports the long nave, had multiple fractures.  A number of large stones plummeted down on to the marbled floor.  My shoulders, which hold up the main towers, swayed several times because I didn't have the strength to hold fast against the lurching assault. The large exquisitely carved pinnacles atop the main tower shattered and fell hundreds of feet to the ground near one of my shattered ribs.  The  experts told me there was a great deal of other damage as they trussed me up with  great quantities of heavy wire and other paraphernalia.  How different it was at my christening day over a hundred years ago.  Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson spoke of the glorious edifice I would become while ten thousand people cheered.

Endnote:  This is my first attempt at writing a prose poem.  I just started a course on writing these at the Writers' Center in Bethesda, MD.  The idea is to push me out of my comfort zone, so forthcoming ones will be somewhat on the 'wild side' (or at least flamboyant).

June 1989

Sometimes drawers are portals
A yellow envelope trapped
in the back of an old desk drawer
Warns 'Save, June 1989'

A long forgotten photo with
a brittle news clipping
Stopped my breath
I travelled to China in June 1989

Our host, seated between us,
grins warmly into the future
As do we
The AP dispatch describes
a horrific scene

"In the spring of 1989, Tiananmen Square,
set in the center of Beijing, became the site of the
largest pro-democracy movement in China in the
twentieth century. ...... (during) giddy days in April and
May in 1989 throngs of more than a million filled the
streets of Beijing, criticizing the growing corruption.
..... And then, after several exhilarating weeks, it all came to a sudden end. In the early hours of June 4, as the world watched in horror, the tanks of the People's Liberation Army rolled
toward Tiananmen Square and troops fired on the crowd
killing hundreds and wounding thousands."

Memories gush forth like
an opened sluice gate
A kaleidoscope of jumbled
images
Slowly begin to coalesce
into days we relished in June 1989

A Peking Duck dinner with new friends
Open flow of opinions and ideas
Punctuated by hearty toasts
to the liberty to come in June 1989

Students in hotels greet Westerners
with eagerness and anticipation
To practice English and chat about
their dreams soon to come in June 1989

An old man on the street
invites us to tea at his simple home
We write in his guest book along with
other global visitors in June 1989

John, more than guide rather
kindred spirit
Filled with exuberance and faith
in the future
Will visit when his student visa
is approved in June 1989

So many friends lost
Phantoms now
They haunt my dreams
every day since June 1989

Connections

What is a collage constructed of words?

A kaleidoscope of many shapes and myriad colors

Which mirrors life’s nuances and commonality

A paw print clay medallion, link to my four legged soul mate now gone,

Evokes bitter-sweet memories of love, loss, and gratitude

A delicate blue jay’s skull, carefully preserved and handled with reverence,

Extends my connection from one noble spirit to all sentient life

A rustic musical instrument,

Crafted from native woods of the rainforest,

Draws me by its natural beauty

And expands my connection to the great circle of life

An exquisitely crafted bass guitar of highly polished grained woods

Connects me to the uniquely human art of polyphonic music, the universal language

A white cube with dark letters embossed on each of its sides

Opens a door to the creative use of language,

The first step to true communication,

More than talking, one soul connecting to another

A lovingly fashioned clay mug of innovative design

Suggests the solidity of earth

Wedded to a young boy’s pristine vision of how color and pattern speak,

A miraculous transmutation which induces an awed sense of connection

To the boy who fashioned it and the dormant artist in all of us

A miniature crystal turtle enchants by its quiet loveliness

And the knowledge that it was presented by a loving father

To his daughter

To assuage an old fear they both shared

A charming miniature teapot with painted floral design

Suggests the pleasures of another simpler time,

A joy filled childhood and the grandmother who was its’ loving

embodiment

A lovely tasseled shawl, an unexpected gift from a casual friend,

Her thoughtfulness touches a very deep place

Such an experience is a miracle of grace,

The fruit of true connection

A golden pendant with an Arabic symbol for the name of Allah

Represents, by its’ purity and quiet grace,

The essence of perfect love, the ultimate connection

Endnote: I wrote this poem as a an exercise in descriptive writing about disparate objects. In my poetry class we each brought in an object of special significance and explained it. The assignment was to write a poem about all the objects.