Monday, January 26, 2009

today's sponsor: baby Xochi

while the goose bumps grow

I'm sitting here on the computer bored at home in Hat Creek so that can only mean one thing: looking through old poems on my old cpu from years ago. I'm hopeful and optimistic about this upcoming year, but for winter's sake lets keep it real keeping a little chill in the air...



Goose bumps grow like herding buffalo trampling across my body
But it is not fear or chill that brings them here
It is the sight of my children’s future
It is the light bouncing off our concrete
The chainsaws ripping green fingers down
Like the innocence ripped from me
It is not about forgiveness, it is about unity
It is not about mistakes, it is about renewal
The acid rain drips down my skin
Eating at my thoughts
Tainting my vision
Eating within
It is not fear or chill that brings me here
It is concern of indifference
Hatred of apathy
It is not the screams that haunt my mind
It is the silences in between
The filling of a lake into a mere seep
While the willows ache and the waters weep
The defecation of ecosystems and Earth through greed
Light protrudes a seed, as darkness begins to creep
While the goose bumps grow
Like herding buffalo trampling across my body
Stirring up the dust of myself and my dreams.

the battlecry that flows within

I have glared into the sun
Asking for its heat
I have screamed with the trees
On my knees as they fell
I have pawed the earth
Kicking up the dust of myself and of my dreams
I have been beaten and sneered at
For ideals not empathized
I have been given rebirth
By the pollen of flowers
The earth has put a song in my mouth
The fish of the sea have swam with me
The animals of the forest have shared shade with me
Hurricanes have spun my insides as a seamstress spins her cloth
As a spider spins her web
Lightning has struck the avarice of smoldering tribulations
Thunder roars at this unsightly spectacle
The unheard cries of my unborn children have begged this of me
To keep up the fight
To keep on moving through the darkest night
A seed of hope at the core of my heart has been planted
Beating with the wings of the birds
My tears have filled the rivers washing over mountains
Into the valleys and hollers below
I have sat in the furnace of flame and volcano
Lighting the torch of my soul
Filling my pores with the beautiful struggle of past warriors
The troubles of yesteryear fuel this passion into a limitless inferno of the future’s possibilities
Moving me forward on a march of bones and sorrow
Walk with me yearning ghosts of the past
This is the battle cry that flows within
To erase the strife of a dying planet
This will cannot be extinguished
It is beyond this realm, it is eternal
It is within the deserts and within the artic
It is within me
Labors of past misfortune and unforgivable acts
Tear at my limbs as demons and hurdles
But nothing can deter
The dreams of our children
No, nothing can subdue this pure and raw spirit
That enters my vessel
As angels enter clouds
I have seen the changes erasing time
Cut down before my eyes
I have seen a future
That can finally smile bright
Chains of misery attempt to bind me down
But the hope within these eyes
Cries of a better tomorrow
The sweat and pain and years of disdain
Will pave the way for an unstoppable wave
Unable to be fathomed by the blind and the indifferent
This is the battle cry that flows within
I have seen a future
With changes and chances for our children
The womb of the earth longs for it
I have been to the end
And I am going there again.

from the vision of the sun

Oh, how the trees sparkle
Swaying with currents of wind
How the birds swim
On the clouds, our very breath
Floating with the imagination of children
The colors grow and grow and grow
Landscapes speed by hills and swills and sunlit thrills
Until you and I and the sites and sounds
Appear as one as a ball in the distance from the vision of the sun
Silhouetted against a canopy of stars
We become one another
Ride the jet stream back to the stratosphere
Fall and return as loose petals and seeds speckling the ground
Each unique and vivid and alive
The scale changes like perception
So powerful to the eyes
The mind becomes painted alongside the surprise
Of such a gift
A setting sun smiling across the skies
Graceful dancing arms
Imitate the free form of flowers in May
So full of life
So full of beauty
A lioness prowls
With cunning eyes so full of undeterred duty
A mother carries her newborn to the swing
Rocking with the love and sentiment and motion
Of a hovering hummingbird feeding ripe juices
We all soak in the splendor of the sun
Days unfold these lucid dreams of reality
Of what passing emotional landscapes hold
That we are sweetly nothing but one vibrant and vivid and ever-changing mold.

old buggy trail

There is a road
Echoing of the past
Where horse and buggy once bounced about
Crossing the Little Falling River
But always known to us as the creek
The road is now overgrown and nearly gone

The fields of hay give way to a sweet sounding gush
Life’s sustainer, water, rushes smoothly over rocks
With memories of children splashing about
Swimming holes and grapevines
Not just us, but also the Native Americans of yesteryear
I remember the feeling of mud squeezing between my toes
As irrigation pipes prepared to provide rain
Providing food
Providing the ability of these words to be written
And for families to be raised

Nature is beauty in its truest form
The farm, no better place to have a childhood
To learn the true lessons of life
To take care of the land so it will take care of you
To nourish your family and be connected to your community
To love and laugh and work and sweat
To take a break from the race of mice and men
And sway with the trees, become deep rooted, and smile at the majestic spectrum of a vibrant sunset

Walking through the woods it’s quite hard to see
The slopes turn so subtle and calm
But with a little glare and a slight tilt
Squinting through the brush at the right time of spring
You can almost hear the laughter emanating throughout
And smiling eyes and waving arms
On that old buggy trail into town

for my people stuck in winter all year

The delicious meal of winter’s chill
Fills my bones with life
The whipping wind starts to descend
Cutting away the strife
Brisk filled lungs lapping like puppy tongues
Frantic at the air
Life’s days unfold among the dry cold
Smiling at beauty so rare

For most do not view nature anew
If one is closed to the senses
Oddly comfort does smile all the while
Luster gleams behind never seen fences
If ignorance is bliss, what did we miss
Dust settles down the road
The freezing is worse, a subtle curse
Always frozen inside their abode.

old poems continue for better or ill

Tigers give birth here
Thoughts of rancor spill upon the floors
Babies cry out now
Dust leaps from cracks and doors
Forever wanting more
Sweet emotion sweeps the page of dancing fingers rustling sage
The forests colors slip through my running eyes
As the dew drips
In my pores singeing bonds
The world is ours
Have you ever sat in the ground standing still?
Feeling life penetrate up
Energy meridians filling in
Breathing happiness just like the sun
Floating carefree with clouds whipping against air currents of change
The carbon body a mere vessel
Or if you like better a blinking shutter speed stage
Life permeates the earth’s veins
Entering release upon this page.

--------------------------------

Scaling the concern of thoughts
Washing over like a rainbow of raindrops
Every corner of the mind drenched
Entrapped inside a box of saturated hues and sounds

The desert holds so many secrets
So many lockboxes of buried memories
Blown over by the grains of uncertainty
Blown over by the magnitude of its own size

The ever changing surface
Forever paints the present
The swaying shifts
Tilt the hillsides of our eyes

Perception molds conception
As our memories mold the bendable past
What is real and what is false remembrance
Melt into unruly shades of grey

Washing over like a rainbow of raindrops
Dripping through our pores
To decide our next decisions
While we overlook the past’s fiery furnace

The brain binds the strands
While the heart frantically chops away
The soul fuses the gaps
In efforts to remember the tears’ adhesive force

The cohesion of the draining dawn
Pulling us towards another door
Washing over us like a rainbow of raindrops
No one knows where the decanter starts

Scaling the concern of thoughts
No one knows where they will climb
The slippery surface of vertical limits
No one knows when they will fall

And so we are left
Squinting into the size of tiny droplets
Trying to read the words covering the downpour
Washing over us like a rainbow of raindrops.

-----------------------------------------

Digitized


Living between the cracks of life
Our youth are becoming blind to introspection
Trying to reach the peak of a mountain that’s already crumbled
Trying to see a sunset that’s already passed
Beauty within marketed into designer fashion
Everyone wants to be a runway model
Naïve to the magnitude of stars
Because our own outshine the rest
Strange times in a world getting colder
As the world constantly heats up
The culture of this country already seems forgotten
Digitized, we learn about forests from computers
We learn how to live in a net of safety
Recliners with pockets and options and gadgets
Television tells us what family should be
Until we forget that we think for our own
Molded by molds of words acted out
We are a nation of bad sitcom jokes.

------------------------------

Lakes settle
To the smooth flapping of birds
Gliding onto their reflective air strips
Flowing with the gentle wind
Subtle ripples like dimples
Move across the wet landscape
Shaking through the sun
Branches drape
The edges like lockets of hair
Bending with the breeze
Bending through the air
Spasms of currents
Fight and collide with one another
Always ending with a draw
Because it’s not about winners and losers
It’s about composure
Reflecting with the stars
It’s about the dampness of our hearts
Seeping into a sound
Leaves float like carefree boats with no destination
Only returning home to be born of new life
To be extricated of their shell
Breaking down into vessels
Entering the breath of thousands
The pace quiets while the lake slowly settles.

---------------------------------

The Playing Field

Most people live quiet lives of outcries silhouetted against their own bitter soundproof minds. The few rise, like those rare flowers in the middle of the dessert, nourished off the strained, fed from the pain, the beautiful few who actually through their helping hands gain. The stark differences on the spectrum of civilization in any aspect is so illogical and irrational when analyzed it leaves one with a somewhat detached feeling of doubt as to if reality is even real, because how could something so pure become so awful twisted. The greed really is the creed, and has blinded the motives of those who are not even yet born. It has not laid out a road for them to take far before they walk, but far worse, before they even crawl. Such thoughts haunt concern and mock the very strands of hope. So the question becomes how does one hold optimism in these times? Through necessity. Through an age old balance of must that we confront in the face of harsh times. For the few who knew may rise above, lifting the faith of the masses upon their shoulders, to fly high, and if only for a second, give us all something to look up at and watch with the eyes of a child; a livid sunrise being torn through by a group of tainted yet soulful doves.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Wintertime



Well, well, where does the time go? I have been busy running all over the place and not doing much writing or reflecting. But I have been taking a few pictures, so lets have a looksie, just for funsies...




Poverty Creek done dried up.



Sweetness. Shout out to great handmade accesseries at Etsy.com.



The simple things of life.



Good spot to read.


I went out in the woods for a few days during the master cleanse, which seems like such a long, long time ago now. Back while there were still leaves on the trees. I wanted to bid them farewell, the last of the leaves, and watch them dance and swirl into their regenerative nourishment. It was rather chilly and windy, as the end of autumn should be, and I enjoyed it rather thoroughly. I wanted to paint the scene of the mountains rolling and rolling, the valley and ridges and the fractal breaks causing such serene shadows in their textured grace late in the afternoon. But my drawing skills are laughable, so I just sat and starred, watching the mosaic in front of me change day to day as red and orange folds of the earth's skin melted into a sea of gray bony fingers reaching into the sky. Winter has her own grace in her own ways but I had to milk the colors for all they are worth. The peak was past by the time I got back in Blacksburg but they never cease to inspire.



One particularly windy afternoon I laid in my tent reading a book and drinking my cayenne concoction. There had been a murder of crows in the vicinity on and off, and they were making quite the stir so I stealthily poked my head out my tent with my binoculars in one hand. On a gusty day like that they can disappear in a fleeting second so stealth can be key in witnessing certain naturalist sitings. What I saw did stir me. The crows were courting, paired together dancing in the air, swooping ever so close up and down on an ampltude of hundreds of feet, taking turns turning upside down and touching claws, tumbling and rolling. It was so smooth, such a dance, and I felt blessed to watch it. I was able to witness it again later from the cliffs for a few minutes, the lovers in front of an azure backdrop covered with monstrous cumulus clouds. I hope I am lucky enough to witness bald eagles lock claws and spiral down together before I die.


Back home for a minute.



The oldest barn on the farm, it's seen better days. A sweet persimmon tree sits at the edge of it. The fruit is great for making winter breads, cookies, and jams, and was used regularly to supplement winter's meals for Native Americans.




Xochi on the Creek, the lower terrace of the farm. She was very excited to find a bone on our walk, and I was very excited to watch a kingfisher send out a war cry then dart into the creek bringing forth a small fish and fly off upstream to a rock to enjoy its meal. I'm super excited to know there's kingfishers on the farm.



Clarkton Bridge, one of the oldest steel truss bridges in the state. It was almost torn down a few years back but a group of folks raised enough care, attention, and funds to save it. I watched a yellow bellied sapsucker in all its meticulously pecking glory.




An unexpected Christmas present, getting to milk a tiny puppy since my cousin was puppy sitting. Super cute.



The end of the rain means one thing, the birds are coming out to play. Speaking of birds, I love birds. And luckily for me, I just got a new camera to play with, so I decided to try it out on some common aviators.



The laughing man himself, the pileated woodpecker, next to the pond across the street in the pasture.




Cedar waxwings congregate in the sugar magnolia at my aunt's house. Right after the rain ended all the birds came out and seemed very excited, carrying about and singing without a care.



A tufted titmouse enjoying the leftover apples from the tree in our backyard.





Talk about a brittle plant.



Back in the Burg. A limestone cardinal on a dogwood branch.




Sacrifice, one of the eight pylons atop War Memorial Chapel on the drillfield.



A white-breasted nuthatch shows off his upside down skills, these birds are great clingers.



A real cardinal munching on some berries.



The male attracts a female cardinal with his vivacious color.



The kingfisher shows itself. I love this bird and this is my first shot of one. Their beaks are huge in proportion to their head. I was pumped to see it so close. They are very territorial but it can be tough to sneak up on one, being sneaky themselves.