The color of winter

Fog on the mountain
and the snow is ankle-deep;
I ascend into whiteness.

If winter has a color,
it is silver, no doubt.

Silver.

Kings desire it,
demons fear it,
thieves wield it
in the dark of night.

Nature lays it down indiscriminate,
in snowflakes,
and the sharpness of icicles,
to confound the sense of beast
and runner.

I ascend, and breathe it in,
nature's silver;
cold and metallic
it sinks deep into my core.

Time is lost
in the mercuric pool
of silver in my veins.

It dissipates, between steps,
like snowbirds scattering
before a predator,
until my foot
inexorable
completes its journey to earth
landing in the snow
with a muffled thud
and a cloud of powder.

Time resumes
and I exhale,
crystalline,
my breath all gleam and frost,
leaving only the metal
folded into my soul.

The Other Parent

full tank
empty car
homeward bound.

Whetting Stone

Let the wheel spin

'til the wet stone whines

let the blade thin

'til the sharp edge shines

this world is the whetting stone

for my jagged soul.

Edge

I wake and sleep
on the honed edge of a paradox.
Young enough to feel invulnerable
old enough to know better.

Shrouded

My Past envelops me,
a gossamer shroud of metaphysical vapor
I can neither descry nor entirely perceive,
save for a chill at its whispering touch.

At rare moments in time
the shroud slips away,
and I draw a single glassy breath,
inhaling a tempest of clarity.

Like a nightmare scream
that drags me from deep slumber,
the tumult rages in my soul
long after the shroud descends,
a heavy curtain, to darken the world again.

My pace through this life does not slacken,
though the compass needle wavers,
each movement comes at higher cost,
and each step is more difficult than the last.

The shroud can not mask
the inevitability of defeat.

why worry?

baby,
I see this world has made you sad
some people can be bad
the things they do the things they say

but baby,
I'll wipe away those bitter tears
I'll chase away those restless fears
and turn your blue skies into gray.

why worry?
there should be laughter after pain
there should be sunshine after rain
these things have always been the same
so why worry now?
why worry now?

baby,
when I get down I turn to you
you make sense of what I do
and oh, it isn't hard to say.

but baby,
just when this world seems mean and cold
our love comes shining red and gold
and all the rest is by the way.

why worry?
there should be laughter after pain
there should be sunshine after rain
these things have always been the same
so why worry now?
why worry now?

this Dire Straits song always makes me think of Sammy. I especially like the line about shining red and gold.

morning

rise up!
the day is calling
lilacs blooming
sunbeams falling;
they light the way
from your heart to mine.

Happy Bealtaine!

Oh do not tell the priest our plight, for he would call it a sin,
But we've been out in the woods all night a-conjuring summer in;
And we bring good news by word of mouth, for women and cattle and corn,
For now is the sun come up from the South by Oak and Ash and Thorn.¹




Welcome to Bealtaine (May Day)!  An ancient Celtic festival of transition, purification, and renewal. Go drink mead and wine. Go dance around the bonfire. Go celebrate life.


¹Rudyard Kipling, Oak and Ash and Thorn.

haiku friday

apart
frenzied excitement
I watch with bemused envy
a stagnant center

earth days
vigorously clean
our own homes sparkle and gleam
while our planet spoils

april
season sepulcher
inexorable decay
spring from winter's corpse

motes
ideas shimmer
dance like dust in the sunshine
intangible yet

Filaments

thoughts spring out,
filaments of my soul
like an etch-a-sketch
in the hands of a child.

knobs turn in earnest
thoughts cross into
patterns, coalescing,
faster turning and turning and
almost
there almost
glimpsed!

as if I could just
step back
unfocus
and they would crystallize.
form
something.
tell me
something.

they don't.
a shake, two, and all is gone
but a faint gray web
to mar the surface.

over time that, too, is
subsumed.

A Mile in Four Laps

Gun
Blam! The starter's gun!
Twelve hungry men leap forward
Blaze through acrid smoke.


One
The Man leads them out
Elbows fly, jostling bodies
The Pack streams behind.


Two
A Rabbit jumps out
Another tight on his heel
The Pack compensates.


Three
Watch clicks and Coach grunts
Thundering down the back stretch
The Man plus two, rise.


Four
Ding-ding! The bell lap
Two surge, find another gear
The Pack gasps, splinters.


Tape
Desperate bodies lean
The finish tape snaps!
Floating gentle t'earth.

[kind of a haiku homage to Quentin Cassidy]

Titan

Wind's breath,
a moth flutters;
deep beneath
the earth shudders.

River's flow,
chaotic swirls;
out at sea
a tempest broils.

Far away
the Arch is shorn.
white clay falls.
a god is born.

[another rough idea, from late in a long run. some day I'll polish these up before posting and spare you all the sharp edges.]

nowaday

If the me of nowaday
through some temp'rl oddity,
could grant the me of yesterday
any pearl of wisdomry.

If the me of nowaday
by dumb luck or by majesty,
could sail the me of yesterday
to waters free of misery.

The older me of nowaday,
his life a crucible of years,
might smile, with naught a word to say
to dam the future flow of tears.

[another idea that bubbled up during a run. lots of time to think.]

frustration | satisfaction

frustration

>
blinked the cursor, mutely.
"do you know the answer?!"
I yelled, into the digital maelstrom.
> yes
streamed the whispered response.
"WHAT IS IT?!"
I howled.
>
blinked the cursor.
I stared mutely.

musing on science and poetry

I stand in awe of great science, as I do of great poetry.

good science is incremental. it surveys the landscape of the Known, identifies a missing piece, snaps that piece into place, and moves on to the next. good science is solid. it is necessary, and predictable. it is filling potholes in the road. it is the realm of the safe.

great science is transcendental. it surveys the landscape of the Known, then delves beneath it to reveal a tantalizing glimpse of the True. great science is impossible to foresee, yet in hindsight completely obvious. it uses the simplicity of facts to describe the complexity of life. great science can not be captured, or commanded, but merely enjoyed for a moment, as a fleeting whiff of clover on the air.

great science is poetry.



"The nearest dream recedes, unrealized.
The heaven we chase
Like the June bee
Before the school-boy
Invites the race;
Stoops to an easy clover—
Dips—evades—teases—deploys;
Then to the royal clouds
Lifts his light pinnace
Heedless of the boy
Staring, bewildered, at the mocking sky."

          - Emily Dickinson


[thoughts that ran through my head as I ran through the rain]

inauguration day

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"

He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

-Jabberwocky (Lewis Carroll; 1872)