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Year of Paradox

In a strange sort of way, it’s like coming full circle—but back to what? I don’t know. 35 Julys ago, my father committed suicide. He was 45. Today I turn 45, and I find myself in an incredibly pensive state of mind. It’s not that I fear I’ll end up like him. I have a small child of my own now. I know better. It’s more like for the next year, every day will be a reminder. Every single day. Here I am, alive. Here I am, living my father’s final year—well, part of it. He didn’t make it all that far into his 45th year.

I don’t know. I’m in a state of melancholy right now. Not a state of depression, just melancholy, reflectiveness, bewilderment. Yes, he was abusive, and absolutely terrifying. Yes, he was controlling and incapable of recognizing that a child has only just arrived in life and doesn’t yet know anything. Yes, he didn’t teach and explain, but punished and terrorized. Yes, he came home only after the bars closed and woke us from our sleep and yelled, screamed, dragged us around the house and punched holes in walls. Yes, he had terrible, terrible flaws. But, he was my dad and he also showed love, tenderness and compassion. Did he think I wouldn’t care? Was he trying to hurt me? I don’t know. I really don’t know. And I know I’ll never know. Never.

But what I do know is this. For me, this is a year of paradox, like going back in time or into an alternate reality and meeting myself, my dad, or someone that looks like him or me, and stepping into an entire year of life that is not my own, not his, not anyone’s. Just a crushing and unsolvable paradox.

Year of Paradox

Now begins another year,
    and not just any other year.
  This year begins the paradox
      of all the years that came to now.

Death began this very year
    when years had barely taken root
  in crackled soils of years to come,
      now finally tapping that year of death.

Life burgeons branches into years,
    each year sprouting foliage
  that casts upon the years below
      a shadow reaching for years of life.

New years wax within the mind,
    years of rocky, raw potential,
  but even these are bound to years
      spent fearing years of nothing new.

Old years fade from memory, but
    not the year you formed a noose
  and strangled out all years to be,
      haunting through the years of old.

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Beautiful Things

I started a Spenserian sonnet over a month ago—or is it two? But I can’t figure out how I want to proceed for the moment, so I’m going to manifest a few smaller ideas in the meantime.

Beautiful Things

Beautiful things go bloom
    in the night. Concussive
        shockwaves fan out to
    shake my bones and rattle
my humours with spasms.

Beautiful living things bloom,
    blasting silent explosions
        into my flesh as ashes
    of new beginning settle
in my convulsing lungs.

Grasses bang tiny blooms
    on the valley floor, as do
        conifers high on rocky hills.
    Everywhere perennials bolt
and burst blooms of every kind.

Cherry trees explode fireworks,
    ten thousand little blooms
        shifting beneath the moon,
    but these only fill the chambers
of my heart with quiet joy.

Why all the explosions? Some metaphors connecting with allergies and asthma.

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The Old Pain

My sister has commented in the past that I seem to be most drawn to reading and appreciating poetry that deals in some way with the subject of death. Perhaps. Some of my favorite, influencing poems are “Sunshine,” by Robert Service, “The Legend of the Organ Builder,” by Julia Dorr, “The Last Man,” by Thomas Campbell, and “Derelict,” by Young E. Allison. Each of these centers solidly around the subject of death in its own way.

“Sunshine” follows the final thoughts and feelings of a man whose wife has died as he himself succumbs to the same ailment that took her. “The Legend of Organ Builder” tells the story of a young man who wins fame by building a legendary organ that plays of its own accord. He arrogantly abandons his bride, believing she betrayed him and years later, when he realizes his mistake, returns home from abroad just in time to attend her funeral—during which he himself dies. “The Last Man” sets your mental vision on the remains of a dead Earth where the last living human speaks to the setting sun, knowing full well that he himself is soon to follow. “Derelict” leads you across the deck and through the holds of a derelict ship where all hands have perished during a mutiny, ostensibly triggered during a bout of drunken revelry.

So maybe it is no wonder that I find myself drawn to the subject as poet.

The Old Pain

There are too many anniversaries
that haunt the days and years as they go by
and all too many treasured memories
that stir within the old pain to a sigh.

This is the day we met, the maple leaves
that flourish by the driveway, then as now,
were sunset red and swaying in the breeze,
dancing down to dress the walk below.

We paused amid the fumes of regular,
eyes locking for a moment like a spell
was cast between the rooftops of our cars,
enchanting us into a mutual thrall.

By time this maple tree had filled its crown
with lush green cover, we assembled all
our friends and family, and made a vow
to watch as one its colors fade and swell.

The months that followed blurred to a montage,
of salient years, each moment lived in full—
then all at once the sheen of that mirage
dissolved to barren sheets of salt and soil.

The call came in the evening as the sun
sent slanting shades of light across the play
of leaves that only barely had begun
to bob out infant hands in tremulous sway.

Your splintered bones lay tubed to life support—
I just assumed long hours kept you late.
It never once occurred to me your heart
beat faintly in the latexed hands of fate.

I raced to reach your side, to touch your hand,
to seek some indication from the staff
that you would be okay, your golden band
would not become a pendant cenotaph.

But then the surgeons came who strove to hold
your spirit tethered to your heedless form.
They bade me sit—my limbs grew weak and cold
as they explained your limbs were merely warm.

The lightning storm of self behind your brows
had lost its charge—the person that you were
no longer lived within the clay, and now
the clay was all that lived, and nothing more.

For months I hovered near and watched your eyes,
your cheeks, your hands, your every subtle curve,
for any sign that you were still inside,
alive in some mysterious reserve.

But there was nothing, just the rise and fall
of ribs responding to the steady drone
of air pumped through a plastic tube to fill
your lungs that would not function on their own.

Your bones were mended, lacerations healed.
The nurses kept the pressure sores at bay.
For all of this, your soul could not be hailed
back from the stars into that quiet clay.

Insurance coverage tapped and savings gone,
there was no choice except to make the call.
The doctors came—with somber denouement
you were declared as unrecoverable.

I held your hand in both of mine. Machines
were gently disconnected. Line graphs
that danced desultory rhythms on the screens
lost all expression to an air of grief.

To think it happened only blocks from here,
close enough I might have heard the sound
of metal smashing, sirens speeding near
to lift your shattered body from the ground.

To think that as the surgeons cracked your chest
and opened up your skull to free the blood,
I watched the evening news, reclined at rest,
and snacked on crackers in a tranquil mood.

It’s fitting, then—I guess—these maple leaves
turn red as gore around the time we met,
a keen reminder that our vivid lives
lay at the mercy of an unguessed fate.

This is the day we met, a day of cheer—
or so it was a million years ago.
Your ashes dream throughout the tireless years
above the hearth—a ghostly afterglow.

Maybe I use poetry to in some way explore and seek understanding into the concept of death. Maybe the inevitable has so occupied my thoughts since I was still a toddler that it only comes naturally to me now. Maybe it is the one thing we all share, no matter what. Even if there might be some immortal among us, walking through the ages observing our histories, he too must eventually die as the sun expands and incinerates the upper mantle from of our world. Death is something every living thing has in common. It is a bond we all share. So, then, is tragedy, loss, and finding some way to live and move on.

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i found God

Photos of Aylan Kurdi, the 3 year old Syrian refugee who drowned in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Bodrum, Turkey, have haunted my thoughts for several weeks now.

i found God

cradled in the pensive palms of earth,
his head rocked slightly in the gentle surge,
caressed by waves that murmured quiet prayers;
his arms lay pale and tranquil at his side,
his legs pulled partly up as if in sleep—
perhaps he slept, but he would never wake.

eyelids lightly closed on sunken dreams,
a cherub cheek lay pressed against dark sands;
and clothes that only hours before were filled
with flames of life and curiosity
now covered only stillness like a bruise,
a shroud still dripping fathoms’ worth of rheum.

peace was on his brow, immeasurable—
such contrast to the violence of his plight;
what circumstance would bring a child here
curled sleeping cold and graying on the shore,
his shrieks of laughter silenced to a sigh
caught strangled in the throats of passersby?

this is God, i thought, in all his glory—
we praise with words his name, then turn and plunge
him flailing in the dark of angry seas
until his strength plays out and every breath
is filled with brine—and sudden quietude—
just flotsam on the altars of the deep.

yes—i found God on the beach today,
the seagulls circled high above his head
and cried their long and steady mournful calls;
the people saw him and they knelt in prayer,
hands clutching at their heaving, hollowed breasts,
all hope of penance ripped from out their souls.

If fatherhood has given me anything, it is an incredible pain in my chest at the sight of a dead, abused or impoverished child. I see the eyes of my baby son in the face of every child. I’ve heard it said that God is revealed in the face of our children, in their innocence, love and wonder. If this is true, then there is no hope of salvation for any of us, for we are all responsible and we all bear the shame of such atrocities.

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Aural Borealis

This is my 14th trisect, by far the most challenging of them all for me. First the poem, then some thoughts.

Aural Borealis

Vibration

Her voice began in a furnace where blinding flashes of light
arced through scraps of metal until they swirled in a pool
of fiery molten fluid, drawn through a running cast
to red hot beams that slowly dimmed to a charcoal gray.

Her voice remained congealed within those cold gray billets
until at last they were moved once more into the fire,
reheated to a yellow that rivaled an alpine sunrise
then rolled into burning coils of thick unfinished wire.

Her voice emerged like a mist—heavy, cold and gray—
clanging anemic pangs with every shift and shock,
until it was drawn through the eyes of a series of shrinking dies
and thinned into tensile threads of spidery, silvery hue.

Her voice awakened at last, a vivid reverberation
borne aloft on the wind to dance over rolling hills,
chasséing amid the bunchgrass, jetéing through the sagebrush,
and pirouetting through the air with flying seeds.
 

Resonance

Her frame was born in the grip of weathered, ancestral hands,
leveled against the kill, for when the shaft was flown,
the hunter’s ears were piqued by a sound that yet remained,
inspiring him to hunt for a means to play the same.

Her frame took shape in the calloused hands of inspiration,
coaxed into living form from scraps of wood and skin
by ancient artisans who notched imagination
in ornamental bows that flew but melodies.

Her frame evolved in marble halls that harbored kings,
scales and chords expanding until resistance formed
a pillar to hold against the pull of hallowed strains
and serpentine harmonic curves to relieve the same.

Her frame outgrew the very hands that gave it being,
bursting forth a will that of its own accord
would volley out barrages of elegance and meaning
on airs reechoed over undulating lands.
 

Serenade

Her breath is a wind that brushes gently through the desert,
stirring the stained glass petals of Venus’ looking glass,
exciting wild bergamot atop green towers,
and swaying deep-throated harebells lightly on their stems.

Her hum is a feathery rain that tickles arid sands,
drifting down from downy skies until all ears
relax for a moment from the wary, watchful strain
that haunts and harries every living thing through life.

Her chant is the purl of a spring high up a narrow canyon,
wild mint and licorice gathered round the edge
of small, translucent pools wherein the heavens ripple
impressionist renditions of hawk and thunderhead.

Her call is a shower of light that streams over emptiness,
distant mountaintops and nearby shrubby hills
dissolved into a silhouette that circles round
beneath the shimmering flow of relativity.

The inspiration behind this piece is two wind harps, both conceptualized and created by New Mexico resident Bill Neely. Most people know the wind harp as a wide, narrow box with a few strings upon which one may close a window in order to force air past the strings. These two harps, however, are shaped like the concert harp and larger than life. The first, referred to by its sculptor simply as “the NFO windharp,” stands 20 feet tall and weighs 1600lbs. The second, called “Tempest Song,” was commissioned by the owners of the now defunct Traditions shopping center about smack in the middle of New Mexico and weighs in at 3000lbs at 24 feet in height.

“Tempest Song” was the first of the two wind harps I chanced to visit, in 2002, actually driving out to New Mexico to see and listen to this living, musical instrument after stumbling across some information about it online. The experience was somewhat ruined by noise from the close proximity of Interstate 25. Upon returning home, I sent its creator an email along with a copy of “Aeolian Strains,” a poem inspired by my visit, and I was invited to visit the first of the two wind harps on his private property the next time I made it out that way. I made it a point to take him up on this offer two years later, spending a night under the soundboard of this 20 foot harp—a wonderful and somehow enlightening experience. It has ever since been my intention to try to write a poem worthy of that first harp, remembering that night under the stars listening to her sing.

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Sunrise

Malaya will be one year old on the 22nd. I am going to try to write a poem every year to commemorate his birthday. As it occurred to me that he may one day want to hear about the circumstances surrounding his birth, I decided that his first year poem could serve as an archive of memory and impression as much as a commemoration.

Sunrise

You were born in starlight, stardust
   congealed, commingled with blood,
under the harsh, cold fluorescent
      glare of breath, suffocating for air.

It was the shortest night of the year.
   Your heart began to falter in the warm
red canal, so we nodded our assent and you
      were cut from the belly of mystery.

First light had not yet grazed the east
   when you were lifted, barrel-chested,
from your ancient, ancestral pond into
      cold, thin, arid space. Your round

orbs hid behind frail pink lids, squeezed
   so tight your nascent dreams moved
etched against them. And your face,
      it was wrinkled with screams,

yet no sound passed your uncut gums.
   A latexed finger reached in, swiped
meconium from behind tiny tonsils, and then
      you rattled a brief, panicked wheeze.

The dimmest of stars fell back into night,
   the space between ever so slightly
lightened. An amber tube snaked down
      past those tonsils and pulled up thick

green fluid, and when it finally returned
   you struggled with all your might
to slake some unbearable thirst for meaning—
      A quavering cry spilled from your lips.

The faintest whisper of halo gathered
   along the rim of eastern hills. Thick silver
scissors appeared in my hand as pale
      white gloves held you still. A voice

broke through my wonder, “You cut, Dad.
   You cut the cord.” I trembled—dizzy—
starting to comprehend your fear, but I
      couldn’t say, “No.” The now of this

moment already began to phase into then.
   Stainless steel bit down on that organic
corridor you followed from far-away realms
      of dream into being, cutting you free.

You were cleansed, briskly, like an old doll,
   swaddled in bright white towels, then
passed into my uncertain arms. Warmth
      of your newness pierced through me.

From the hills the halo gathered strength
   and began to lift—More stars drifted back
behind its veil. In my arms you drifted back
      to sleep, exhausted by the large ordeal

of becoming. A wooden bassinet wheeled
   out before me, transparent walls rising
from sturdy, light-grained panels. I balked,
      unsure how to lay such perfect frailty

safely down. Slender hands, showing
   signs of age, grace and motherhood
reached out to guide, half lifting from my
      arms your towel cocoon. Tiny round

nostrils peered out from the layered folds,
   drawing silence from well-trained chaos,
exhaling stillness as I wheeled you along,
      trailing behind a periwinkle gown down

sterile corridors through a series of wide,
   magnetically sealed doors to a room
where tiny round nostrils peered out from
      staggered rows of white, cotton cocoons.

A pale, pale blue began to follow the halo
   upward as more stars returned to dream.
You were cold, I was told, and so your
      wrappings were opened and your ribs

exposed to a deep, amber herald of the sun.
   This awakened you, and for a moment
you explored motion in this strange new
      atmosphere with tightly curled fists.

Then again you slept, afloat on darkness
   beneath clear light—a solitary leaf curled
perfectly still on the dark mirror depths
      of a pond. I watched you in your infinite

quietude, hardly drawing breath for fear
   of disturbing those waters. After a time
you woke, or perhaps dreamed, and you
      stretched out a nearly translucent palm.

With the last knuckle of my finger I touched
   the inside as lightly as first twilight winds
touch high summer glades. And, perhaps
      in reflex, your fingers closed around it.

The blue deepened, now only a few stars
   left peering through thin archipelagos
of cloud. I froze in contemplation, studying
      every detail of your glowing, coral pink

digits. Studying, until my arm grew tired
   and trembled, stiff and numb—Until I could
no longer sense your grip through the pins
      and needles that gripped my limb.

Then you let go, grabbed your folded
   thumb, and were still again. I leaned back,
lightly rocking the light tan chair reserved
      for new fathers to fill each exhausted

moment with new life. A fresh pair of eyes
   periodically floated by to check your core
temperature. I floated in and out of dream
      until you were lifted from the warmer

and returned to your light-grained bassinet.
   News came that the seat of mystery
had been resealed, and its bearer now
      recovered, resting. Time had come now

for you to know her warmth, smell her sweat,
   and taste the nourishment of perfect
comfort. I watched your face, still squeezed
      shut, as we wheeled down stark,

sanitized corridors to where she lay—half
   sleeping—covered to her neck by brown,
raveled blankets. The heavy frame rose, half
      lifting her petite frame to receive you.

Her gown was opened, the last two stars
   of night inversed on the sepia mirror of her
chest. You were placed in the sky below them,
      and, drawn to yellow light from those dark

stars, you latched on and drank deep of life
   -giving rays. Tall cottonwoods, ornamental
maples and broad, flat rooftops emerged
      from halflight into color. As you finished

the first meal, western peaks gave praise
   to the sun. You slept, rising and falling
on the breath of that flawless sky. And she too
      slept, exhausted by the long ordeal

of bearing a son. Shadows pulled back across
   the valley floor, light creeping into every
crack and crevice, sifting down through leaves
      and window blinds, settling silently across

your round rosy cheeks. Though my own eyes
   wearied, I stood watch, only closing my lids
enough to wet the hot, dry sting as morning
      rose like a blossom, and all things were new.

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Wild Cherry

For over ten years now, I’ve tried to write a sakura (cherry blossom) poem every spring. Though I started this poem early in the spring when the trees were still in bloom here in the Reno area, they’ve since greened and gone to seed. As a new parent, it has been more challenging than ever for me to focus my time and energies as I would like, hence the slow writing process. Another thing I try to do every year is to complete a poem on my birthday, which I’ve managed to accomplish here.

Wild Cherry

for Joy

Each hour with you is a blossom
  on a dark wood cherry tree
bursting light from the silence
      of wood grain mystery

Each week that passes between us
  is a twig on that dark wood tree
swaying on gentle breezes
      like foam adrift on the sea

Each season we share together
  is a branch from which they grow
bright as a cloud in the darkness
      reflecting the full moon’s glow

Each year that shimmers behind us
  is a limb that holds on high
moments arrayed in a splendor
      that rivals the dawning sky

And lifting it all like a prayer
  is the trunk that widens through time
rooted in layers of meaning
      that nurture the living shrine

The particular species of cherry used for inspiration here is prunus avium, or wild cherry—sometimes called sweet cherry.

Publication History:

California Quarterly — Summer 2023

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I must be

One may be able to infer from these words the nature of an inner struggle. It is a struggle that has endured in one form or another since childhood. Now that I’m a father, now that I look every day on my baby son and experience the wild array of emotions that come with watching him coalesce and evolve, this struggle has become all at once completely inane and yet all the more intense. It is winter. My one method of preference is exposure. Yet I have a powerful new reason to cope with the fears and uncertainties that have plagued my being for as long as I can remember.

I must be

I must be more than memory,
   more than just a name,
more than faded echoes cast
      from pictures in a frame.

I must be more than faint suspicions
   coiled in the heart,
smoke-like apparitions drifting
      through a starless dark.

I must be more than supposition,
   more than just a guess,
fashioned from a dust that fell
      through years of emptiness.

I must be more than stories told
   by uncles, aunts and kin,
anecdotes of vague recall
      from time beyond your ken.

I must be more than fantasies
   of how things might have been,
conjured up to fill a void
      that widened in my stead.

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October Moonrise

I happened to visit a storefront a couple weeks back that’s nestled in the eastern foothills of the Sierras along I80, a few miles west of Reno. Soon as I pulled up, I noticed the full moon and realized my luck. I hurried my way into and out of the store so I could hang out a while and take in the view. As I did so, watching every subtle change for 20 minutes or so as dusk rose up to meet and overtake the moon, I couldn’t help but notice that not one of the several dozen people who came to make a purchase from this store so much as looked up to take notice of this spectacular scene unfolding before and around them. In some ways I felt sorry for these people, in other ways frustrated. How does one not notice such splendor? How does one stand before the throne of God and see nothing? I thought that impossible strains and terrors must be burdening and goading these poor creatures along to render them so incapable of seeing this rare panorama that perhaps occurs only once a year.

October Moonrise

large and silent the full moon hovers over
a pine studded ridge just inside the gray
purple haze that marks the closing
                                        edge of night

dark citrine plates climb high into a pair
of ponderosas where they reach out to join
spiky tufts of green that overhang and
                                        frame the moon

overhead cloudless skies still resonate
the deep cool purity of day as ravens
quietly fan claw-like wings up the canyon
                                        home to roost

that hazy rim rises faster than the moon
it folds like an eyelid ever so slowly
on the all-seeing gaze of Odin’s singular
                                        ice blue orb

a few of the keenest stars begin to burn
through darkness that gradually creeps
up from the long horizon like a distant fog to
                                        touch the moon

cars pull to a pause in the newly paved lot
people emerge thumbing their phones
to the store and back never once lifting
                                        up their heads

i sit on a rock by the concrete walkway
eyes struggling to take in every nuance
chest riven by surreal resonance with
                                        all i see

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Samsara

Birth. Death. Impermanence. Samsara. Samsara is a concept I was exposed to and learned about during my late teen years. At first, the notion of a never ending cycle of birth and death—coming and going—was somehow a comfort to my thoughts. But as I’ve meditated on the concept over the years, it’s become less and less of a comfort and I begin to grasp the value in learning how to find one’s way out of this never-ending stream of coming and going.

Here I reflect on the coming, the going, and the impermanence of it all. This is my 6th synthetic ode.

Samsara

i

Roiling coiling boiling
             beyond memory dreams
   phase and shift in amniotic mists
         swirl in the silence of pulsation
      swim in the stillness of song and dance

Slowly gently gradually
   sensations coalesce illuminating
shapes only somewhat guessed before
      till time takes hold and presses
long hard strained contractions
         bearing breath into the light
      where lungs expel a fluid reverie
   and struggle with thin arid vapors of life

Now spry pink fingers fan out
            new translucent maple leaves
      that ball and bob and grasp
         at each candescent moment
   each ray of raw potential
               emerging from the void

ii

Ailing paling failing
             beyond hope of recall
   yesteryears evaporate like mists
         drift in and out of apprehension
      drone in the absence of conscious thought

Fiercely surely naturally
   perception dissipates into a darkness
shapes only somewhat recognized
      as time slows down and shuffles
somber strained abstractions
         toward an ever shifting shade
      where lungs expand in fluid misery
   and struggle at each dim sensation of life

Here sun browned fingers curl up
            frail exhausted walnut leaves
      that twist and creak and claw
         at brief pellucid moments
   at dreams of lost potential
               returning to the void

iii

An old oak grows on the side of a hill,
the side that faces the afternoon sun;
on the ground in the grass, her litterfall
has collected around her ancient trunk,
its bottommost layers turned back to soil.

A short distance away the blanched remains
of a sister lies rotting in the grass,
her wood resculpted by late autumn rains
and frosts that covered her corpse with a glass
that deepened the wedges along the grain.

The old oak rises, the last of her kin;
her trunk is split and a third of her limbs
in perpetual winter scrape like bone
the progression of ever changing climes—
the blistering azure, the thunder’s groan.

In the shape of a crescent moon, decay
has collected around her knobby base,
the twigs and branches that once would display
a green that shimmered now turning to waste
where skeletal shadows reach out and pray.

Another third is beginning to wane,
the crown has turned to a light mottled shade
and the leaves have begun to curl and thin
where, before, a reflective glimmer played
like fairy folk dancing within the sun.

She is old; she was old when condors soared
in the skies that revolve above her leaves;
for centuries she has weathered the storms
that lumber in from the watery weaves
which pattern the sandscapes of distant shores.

Her time is near, as it nears for us all;
the vibrancy of her youth has been lost
to the powerful change that claims us all,
yet she faces the end and bears the worst
with a grace that exists within us all.

So here part i explores birth, or coming into being; part ii explores death, or going out of being; and part iii explores impermanence, or the stream of beingness. Most of the parallelisms in parts i and ii exist between the two segments. You may find it an interesting experience to read parts i and ii at the same time, line by line.

Another thing that may catch your attention as you read is that part iii uses an entirely different style than the first two parts. Everything about it is different. Parts i and ii read like free verse while part iii reads more like a piece of classical poetry. This is intentional. This is meant to jar the senses by jabbing a sliver of “impermanence” under the fingernail of thought.

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Three Thumps

This is in some ways inspired by my reading the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. Not the content aspect of it so much as the storytelling aspect. During the few months it took me to work my way through the tales—yes, I’m a very slow reader—I gained several valuable insights into the overall nature of storytelling and how it can be approached in poetic form.

This is the longest highly structured poem I’ve written. I hope you’ll enjoy.

Three Thumps

Each day she walks through old white oaks and laurel trees
where often on a park bench just beneath their leaves
she sees an older fellow sitting casually,
a book held in his hands not far above his knees.

She finds him always lost amid another world
that turns from page to page as slowly it unfurls
against the backdrop of his mind, the letters curled
in hands as weathered as a pair of walnut burls.

Just recently she chanced to see him as he closed
the covers of a tome to which he held his nose
for several weeks there on that bench within the grove
where leafy shadows played across his rustic clothes.

This caught her eye because just then he lifted up
the words within those pages like a sacred cup
before his deep gray eyes, as reverent as a monk,
then tapped it thrice above his brows with ringing thumps.

At this, she couldn’t help her curiosity
and found herself approaching him to ask why he
would thump the words he pondered on through recent weeks
against the seat of all he shuns, accepts and seeks.

She asked, and he was more than just a touch surprised,
for in his reverie he had not realized
that anyone observed with penetrating eyes
his tendencies and speculated strange surmise.

But, still, he thought, she is a young and vibrant thing
to be so free and open with her questioning;
there is no harm in what she asks or answering,
so I will tell her what this little custom means.

“It came about,” he started, “very long ago,
before I climbed through youth onto this high plateau
that rises steadily above the years below
to stop at cliffs that overlook a great unknown.

“I found myself absorbed into a text then, moved
by all I read, my youthful understanding soothed
as seeds of insight sprouted, grew and came to bloom
within the subtext of my soul and all I knew.

“When every word had danced its way throughout my thoughts—
their twirling motions still reechoed in the halls
of mind—I wondered how much knowledge would be lost
to time and slip beyond the powers of recall.

“Then all at once I thumped the book against my head
and asked the ones who govern life that I forget
not one small passage, phrase or word from what I read
so wisdom may inform the days that lie ahead.

“At this new thought I thumped the book a second time;
for wisdom shapes the waterways through which a life
will flow, and more than ever now I wanted mine
to move through channels carved by what I found inside.

“Then one last hope occurred while still I held the tome,
that any insight gained this way would on its own
bestow good fortune on all days to yet unfold;
and so I thumped it one last time to drive this home.

“Since then, whatever I might read, when all is read,
I pause to three times thump the text against my head,
the first for memory, so though I’ve reached the end,
I’ll always bear in mind the best of what was said;

“The next for wisdom, peerless pearl of peace of mind,
that when affixed within the crown bestows a sight
that guides the wearer of the jewel, however blind,
to paths and possibilities of greater kind.

“The last for fortune, that the understanding gained
from studying the thoughts therein would somehow change
the course of life ahead, the days that still remain,
in ways that mitigate calamity and pain.”

He stopped, his salt and pepper beard now motionless,
and saw her dark brown eyes were lost in all he said;
at least a minute passed in silence; sunlight etched
mosaic patterns through the leaves all round the bench.

A ruby dragonfly came drifting near, then soared
abruptly off to fade above a nearby sward;
at last he added, “Now you know the reason for
this little custom you observed and how it formed.”

While he was talking, she had dusted off a place
to sit beside him on the bench and contemplate
the words he used in answering and to explain
why he would shock the front edge of his thinning pate.

She listened to his every word and did not stop
his monolog to interject a single thought;
but now that he had finished with his long response,
a silence thickened like a slowly rising fog.

At length the silence overcame her taciturn
consideration of his luminescent words;
and so she crossed a knee beneath her business skirt
to turn and thank him for the story he unearthed.

She told him that she doesn’t normally approach
and question individuals whom she doesn’t know,
but that his habit was so foreign to behold,
she couldn’t help but stop and ask him to disclose.

She stood and thanked him once again and wished him well,
then carried on across the park to where a swell
of skyscrapers emerged above the green—a realm
where dreams are sectioned off to rot in flat gray cells.

He watched her walk away and vanish like a mist
that dissipates when rising sunbeams shine amid
the vapors, causing them to glow and fade in wisps,
then rose himself, returning to his daily niche.

Throughout the day she answered phones, composed reports,
attended meetings, cultivated strong rapport
with all who shared her daily hamster wheel perforce,
and navigated storms of deadlines port to port.

Throughout the day the old man’s words reechoed back
to her attention, while she worked, and overlapped
with mental focus leveled at the daunting task
of satisfying expectations and demands.

Until at last the day was over, and she found
her feet retracing steps through verdant, well-kept grounds
toward where she lives across the other side of town,
that bench now still beneath midsummer evening boughs.

She pulled a book from out her shoulder bag to read
as she commuted through the darkness on a stream
of light that arced and paused below unresting streets
until she heard her station’s name and left her seat.

As she ascended concrete stairs back to the light,
the sun began to set and cast its colors high
on wavy cirrus clouds that fanned across the sky;
again the old man and his words returned to mind.

She reached the steps that rose to meet her townhouse door
and climbed them to the comfort of her covered porch;
she fumbled for her keys, and then her spirit soared
to be at last surrounded by her own décor.

She kicked her heels off in the entry way and left
her keys atop an ash wood corner stand, intent
on eating something small before she got undressed
to soak away the strain of unrelenting stress.

When all was done, she found her shoulder bag downstairs,
still hanging from her grandma’s dark-stained oaken chair,
half pulled out from the matching dining table where
she hung it when she first got home and freed her hair.

From this she pulled the book she read while on commute,
its pages nearly finished, nearly all suffused
throughout her intellect, her intuition fused
with understanding raised by every page she viewed.

This book was given to her by a long-time friend
who felt its words would calm her thoughts and help to mend
her spirit from a recent tragedy that leapt
from nowhere to assault her days with grief and dread.

She took it to her room and propped herself in bed,
and just inside an hour finished all it said;
she closed the leaves and pondered everything she read
then suddenly she thumped it once against her head.

“For memory,” she thought, “that every word may shine
like stars, however far away, throughout all time
to light the plains and valleys of an open mind;”
and then she raised and thumped the text a second time.

“For wisdom, too,” she thought, “without which all I’ve learned
would be of no more use to me than bridges burned
where chasms gape or surly waters leap and churn;”
then one last thump she gave the book to make a third.

“And, yes,” she thought at last, “for fortune—certainly—
a cosmic shift within the roiling karmic sea
that alters all potential futures yet to be
toward something better than what waited formerly.”

She sighed, a perfect comfort sifting through her chest,
and placed the book atop the nightstand by her bed;
she reached to turn the light off, feeling oddly blessed,
and turned to drift into a nearly dreamless rest.

This is all developed from a habit I formed some years ago. Whenever I read a book I really enjoyed and felt I gained something from, I do have a tendency to give it a few taps against my skull, just in case osmosis is a real thing.

Structurally, this poem is written in iambic hexameters from the first line to the last. Whether or not you scan the lines strictly as iambs somewhat depends on your accent, but I took accentual variation into account as I wrote this. For instance, most people I know pronounce “every” as “ev’ry”, but there are plenty who clearly enunciate that middle syllable. Though it throws an anapaest into the line for those who do so, it doesn’t throw off the overall flow of the poem. When I write a poem to meter, I intend for the lines to be read naturally. It should not be necessary to force the meter. Nowhere in this poem will it be necessary to invert the natural accent of a word or phrase. Where weak accents occur—a quantitatively short syllable despite the accent—it’s fine to scan them as weak for a “short” hexameter. I weigh such lines and read them aloud several times before deciding whether or not to keep them. This creates variation in the otherwise overpoweringly iambic lines. I’ve also used enjambment to throw off the expectation of meter in a few places in order to disrupt the “iambic trots” a little. As you read, you can allow the meter to disconnect briefly through this process as a sort of syncopation. This is intentional, and also used for rhetorical impact.

The end-line scheme all the way through is aaaa, but not rhyme. Instead the focus is on end-line assonance, with variations within the scheme involving rhyme, alliteration, and/or consonance.