Friday, June 7, 2013

Where is the Spider?





Time spins a web from the tree of life
and we are caught.
Blown like a feather, we cling
as our need gives us strength.

We touch the lazy leaf in awe,
smell the tangy edge of fruited laughter
and long for truth.

Days are sometimes our slow enemy.
The dullness of them
seeps into our lust
and inhibits our exuberance.

Many times a manic dance
spins us out of control,
before we can think of a purpose
we have passed ourselves
and must seek again
what we never found.

We are the umbilicated
tied to the past by a severed cord,
phantom pains 
keep us from forgetting
our beginning.
We are chained to the future
by the microscope of eternity
found in our children.

We throw out a life line
and glean
through the unbearable
coupling of our bodies, destiny.

From the depth of this beauty
we recognize youth
far back on the road.

The mirror mimics our exterior
when inside we realize that youth
has only become less frivolous
and more kind.

There are signs along the path we travel,
these are some I’ve seen:

Singing when your heart is full 
brings sweetness to your voice.

Holding the hand of one
who walks along the river
leads to the appreciation of
little things.

Listening to the message
of the sea,
humbles an overripe opinion.

Embracing in love sets a fire
that will not be extinguished.

Looking inward for the teacher
calms the trembling fingers
of your grasping search.

Laughter emptying into your
troubled soup
sweetens the bitterness and strengthens 
all the essential ingredients.

To struggle against the web
is to be caught more fiercely.
If we are still, listening and open,
we can appreciate the glistening 
of its craftsmanship
and the touch of air
surrounding it.

Peace is fleeting,
found in an instant
when eyelash meets the cheek.

Does the tree of life
concern itself with our struggle?

Tall and sure it holds the web,
but can it protect it from what is
or what will be?

I still have not seen
the spider.

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Growing, So Sweet and Treacherous




The tree and that crack
in the sidewalk may be gone,
where I flew like a small creature
made from wind and hair and scabbed knee
down and over the small bump that the root
curved just so for my delight.

I would stop and pull the corked bark
out a little and it seemed it opened
just for me to hide treasures in;
pieces of polished glass,
a lovely smooth pebble,
a four leaf clover.
Somehow I thought as I drove by
they might still be there
waiting my charge
into a new adventure.

The house where I grew up
still stands with dormer window eyes
and a door that is red.
The green lawn, so good for running,
was where I broke my arm tripping on the sprinkler.
Now there is a hill there
with a jungle of delicious flowering plants
and although it is the same
it is many years different.

I wanted to knock and proclaim myself the person
who put love notes to someone not yet arrived
under the eves outside my bedroom window,
I was the one who pretended to eat sandwiches outside,
but instead, hid them in that hedge out front
and made great friends with a cat that liked tuna fish.

Above the garage now
is a beautiful room with lovely windows,
when before it held my butterfly collection.
It was there where my brother sent my first admirer
up the ladder, then pulled it away and made him stay
‘til he was done with following me,
for I was twelve and knew nothing of my sexual power
or the burgeoning heat that had attracted him.

You are soaking my heart with memory...
house…dear house, where growing
was so sweet and treacherous.