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A Christmas Poem

On Christmas Eve I decided to go for walk in the Montgomery Woods, near where I live. I planned it around what I figured would be the sun’s nadir, so I got there about 11:20pm, and my walk lasted about two and a half hours. I brought my most weather resistant bansuri flute, knowing it would hold up to the cold, and still be playable the next day. When I go on my night walks there, I walk the full three mile loop through the groves, and not just the half-mile out to the first grove of the woods and back.

It was worth it, and I discovered I can play Noel on the flute I brought with me.

A Christmas Poem

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

It is a dense forest full of towering redwoods, tan oaks, and underbrush—especially blankets of head-high fern. In the night it can be especially mysterious to walk through. When its a full moon, which it very nearly was, this mysteriousness is made all the more fantastic, almost eldritch. I use a small headlamp, not always strapped to my head, when I go on my night walks. More than adequate to see where I’m going and to keep visually aware of what’s around me. Sometimes I’ll take nearly the entire walk with it turned off, using it only to get by a few rough spots. But this time I had it on nearly the entire way. The cold somehow confuses my sense of surrounding, numbs it to a certain extent, making me feel more comfortable with it kept on.

When I first began taking these night walks a few years ago, I was very fretful, constantly snapping my head about at every slight sound or perceived motion, every unusual shadow, stopping to listen and be sure there wasn’t something near or following. And in these woods every shadow seems entirely alive. But these days I’m a lot more comfortable, and I’ve come to have a much better trust of my sense of what’s around me. Sometimes I do encounter animals out there, but they’re often a good deal less sure of me than I am of them. The last time I was out there I was serenaded by what sounded like a handful of wolves, baying from the woods nearby and nearby ridge-tops. They didn’t sound entirely like wolves, however, so I’m not sure what I heard. Yet I wasn’t very spooked by the experience, more just curious and interested.

This was my first walk in these woods during the winter. I’ve tended to not go on night walks during the winter because of the cold and wet. But I wanted to do something special for Christmas Eve, something that wasn’t exactly Christmassy, yet personally meaningful. So I took my flute and had my first Christmas night musical nature walk.

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Path Reflections

Just found myself pondering the nature of my path as a “poet”, whatever it is that old word refers to. I’m no Rabbie Burns, that’s for sure. But me and Mr. Burns have a common calling, nonetheless.

Path Reflections

I chose this path—I’m not sure why—
a path of never-ending change,
a path of study, growth, and time
invested in creative range.

I walk this path. I’m not sure where
it leads, or even if I hold
the strength to ever make it there.
It seems so far away—and cold.

And yet, since seven years ago,
when it occurred to me how soon
the spring of life will yield to snows
that fold its memory into ruin—

since I decided then to veer
away from living check to check,
planning for a distant year,
retired bent beneath the wreck

of countless countless wasted days,
the whole of life’s potential spent
on striving for a monthly gain
just tossed to mortgage, toys, or rent

until that truest treasure, time—
squandered to its very last—
is gone, and all that’s left behind
are memories of an empty past—

since then I’ve learned and written things
that may outlive my mortal life.
I’ve sacrificed security
and doomed myself to endless strife

for just the thought that someday some
may part the leaves and find my words
illuminating as the sun,
and wake within them sleeping birds

of hope, serenity, and joy,
poised to spread their feathers wide
and leap across the dawning void
to freedom, held aloft inside.

It’s not an easy calling, and to follow it can be every bit as fraught with hardship as to not. For me my potential as a poet has yet to be realized. It may be years, or a score of years, spent studying and cultivating my craft before I begin to achieve my potential. So to follow your path when your potential has not yet been realized means to follow a path of poverty and ridicule, for very few—if anyone—will see the potential that exists for you. They will insist that you make a living rather than putting your time into developing your path, and they won’t see what you see within yourself. They may even stand in the way of your path and push against you thinking that they are doing you a service to discourage you from your calling because they feel that you will do better in life if you can just forget it and go make a living.

This may be true on the front of making a living, but once someone who has become aware of their potential down a given path abandons that path, he will sink into a pit of dismay that will ultimately end in death from suicide or ill health. The sentient who has become aware of an unrealized potential must strive with all its might to realize that potential, for to do otherwise is to deny a gift that is extremely precious and rare—A gift essential to the health and well-being of the soul, the psyche, the mind, the heart, and the body. It is the most essential nutrient, without which the sentient wastes away into despair and self-destruction.

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promise

During my trip to Vermont in July/August, I visited the Devil’s Tower, where I had an experience that changed not only the course of my life, but the shape of my past. The details of this experience will remain with me, within me, to be buried with my bones and passed only to the heart of what posterity visits my grave. I will pass it then, the whole promise of it, one All Soul’s Eve, and so will the Promised.

For even then will we be side by side.

promise

from the moment i looked up and saw
just over my head your memory
draped off the stub remains of
a ponderosa’s lower branch

from the moment i felt lightning flash
through my mortal form till numb
my fingers tingled the beginnings of
an electric understanding

from the moment my eyes took in
the simple shape of your past hung
to the south of the bear-scratched tower
bleached white with unshed tears

from the moment i realized i stood
where grief-struck eyes set your spirit free
held hands and prayed for your hope
overlooking a plain of creeping thunder

from the moment you reached out and touched
my song with hidden fingers and embraced
my heart my mind my long forgotten dreams
with all the love you gave in life

oh my god i knew you then clear
as the cobalt sky that shook over dark
rumbling clouds suspended far
far in the distance

and from that moment i’ve carried
the shimmering whisper of your ghost in my
bones my joints my manhood like a promise
tangible as the stars themselves

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A note from Adam

A moment came to my mind, clear as an ocean sunset. In that moment I saw Adam on his deathbed, speaking somewhat randomly up to the roof of his hut. Next to him were his many children, grandchildren, and great great great great great grandchildren. They listened to his words, and after a time they realized he was speaking to his creator, having seen or realized something about the generations to come.

A note from Adam

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.
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loam

What would I miss the most about the West Coast should I move away and make my home elsewhere? The redwoods. The tall stands of old growth redwoods that no camera or photographer can do a moment’s justice. I’ve gotten to know these trees over the past several years, and have connected with them in ways not easily expressed. They feel like friends, close friends. The tall drafty halls feel like the house my spirit has lived in for a million years.

loam

will your long slender roots
reach down and tickle my
thoughts through four
billion years of magma

will the call of an owl echo
from your chambered halls
and skim the cloudscapes
to my faraway ears

will your deep green needles
cast just enough fragrance
to refresh my memory
from the far side of the earth

will i see in the highest vapors
reflected off ice crystals the
faintest reflection of
your topmost branches

i will return to haunt you
to touch your red-brown bark
sit by your fountains and
sing to your leaves

if it be only my ghost
i will come again and drift
like drizzle through the scent
of your ancient gloom

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Gleam

You won’t guess it. You won’t conceptualize it. You won’t expect it. You won’t doubt or be convinced of it. You won’t have any idea it even existed. But, suddenly it may be upon you, and in that moment you will realize it was always there—that you were never apart from it for an instant.

Gleam

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.
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Projections

This might go some small distance to answer a question posed concerning my previous post, “Ode for Joy“.

Projections

We are small yellow suns
suspended together in space
plasmic arms entangled
in mutual relativity

Our avatars roam galaxies
seeking to see touch share
what momentary forms we
manifest in the tracts of time
remembering if but a sense
of our ancient dance

For how long have we caressed
our tandem orbits bathed
in the other’s light
For how long have we warmed the face
of myriad worlds and moons spun
round the plane of our equator

Here on a rock called Earth
warmed by a kindred’s rays
we have met once again
to joy in the spectral hues
we have loved an eternity

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Ode for Joy

My first synthetic ode. This form hybridizes the near-original Grecian ode form of Pindar and the dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. I will eventually write an article about this form and what I hope to accomplish through its exploration. For the time being, I hope you’ll find this an enjoyable, or at least interesting, read.

      Ode for Joy

      I

  Her eye was caught by a distant name,
    unfamiliar and yet not quite.
  Inspired, she followed a dream that came
    from somewhere deep in her quiet heart,
a link that led to an unexpected hope,
      born of intuitive sense
      cradled in bamboo song,
confirmed by a kindred voice that helped console
      the reign of a keen unrest
      that troubled her, unconfessed.
   Canticles from another time
         settled near
      in the curve of her ear,
   bringing a dark horizon light,
         raising the sun
      where a half-moon hung,
until her soul, embraced by vibrant hues
of promise, once again became her cherished home.
 

      II

  He felt the touch of a silken tongue
    brush his mind from across the world
  with observations and thoughts, half sung
    in accents cast from a dreamtime mold.
Intrigued, he listened to every tuneful word
      whispered with delicate breath
      soft as a moonstone breeze,
expressed from a place of enigmatic birth,
      where steady Pacific rains
      sang life in refined refrains
   straight to his heart through lays unknown
         to his ear,
      just abolishing fear,
   welcoming home forgotten hopes
         faded within,
      but arisen again
like morning rays on cloudscapes scattered far,
igniting new horizons to vibrant shades of faith.
 

      III

   Their pasts unravel thread
         into a bright new tapestry.
   They’re both reborn and dead
         to what was once and what will be.
      Visions leap before their view,
            revealing possibilities,
      and each is clear on what to do
            to make them actualities.
                     And so begins
                  the recreation of their lives
               as deep within
            a transformation of their minds
         reveals the way
      to stand forever side by side.
        The best thread of their days is used
             in the shuttle of their unity
        to weave a scene they know by trust
             on a loom of shared serenity.

Joy is my fiance, whom I met online purely by chance. She, from her life in the Philippines, one day stumbled across a poem I had posted elsewhere, “Perfect Silence”, and found herself researching its author. On one profile she found my Yahoo Instant Messenger ID, and on another she read that I work with children but don’t want to have any. Then she popped me a message out of the blue, “How could you work with children and yet not want to have any of your own?”

Needless to say, I was puzzled by this note from a complete stranger. I responded with one word, “Overpopulation”. This sparked a conversation—or perhaps debate—that lasted four hours. The next day we talked on the phone. The day after that, Skype. And we’ve been talking-talking ever since.

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ice

I have a commitment to myself to write about writer’s block itself if ever I feel it coming on. This way I’ll still have something to write about.

ice

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.
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Solitude

During my week in the Yolla Bolly Wilderness last month I encountered a stillness of mind and peace of spirit unlike I’ve ever experienced before. I’ve only twice before gone more than three days without coming across another human being, both of which were on the Yukon River. And I found these two experiences extremely disconcerting. Clearly I wasn’t ready to make peace with Solitude.

To make peace with her I’ve had to—not reconcile myself to a life without intimate companionship—but accept that it’s a very real possibility. Accept that maybe it’s not the most important thing in my life, not so essential to my health and wellbeing. And when I met Solitude a third time in the wilderness, this time backpacking, I found her not so repulsive, not so unfriendly. In fact, I found her energy quite feminine in nature, and comforting, accepting.

Solitude

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

This poem has taken me a month to write because I felt it so important to take my “self” completely out of the poem, and to make only pronominal references to Solitude herself. This stretched me to find other ways of wording a journey and expressing the development of a closeness between the spirits of two beings, one an embodied entity, the other an immaterial principle.

Poems like this represent what I strive toward as an animist poet.

Publication History:

Clamor — Fall 2009

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contrition

There are many reasons behind an individual’s behaviors. We are complex creatures, conditioned by complex histories. So complex, in fact, that we rarely understand ourselves what motivates us. But it is worthwhile to try to gain insight into and an understanding of those motivations. These insights and understandings can guide a process of change and personal growth, and an honest contrition for past behaviors that may have caused harm to others, and ourselves.

contrition

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.