Monday, September 28, 2009

story of a tree

I once told someone
A tree told a story to me
And how it grew and grew and grew on me
And he just laughed and walked away
So I told someone else
And she smiled and said okay

But she didn’t believe
I could see it in her eyes
And at the end
I asked if she got the point
The tree was trying to make
But she only said I had self esteem
Problems voicing my inadequacies through
Inanimate objects
Oh, the tree was very animated I retorted
Perhaps you study too much psychology
And too little of life
So she scoffed and walked off

I told it to others
The story of the tree
And how it beat and beat and beat on me
Some waited for a punch line
That never came
And it always hit too close to home
Some said the tree was naïve
One even said he wondered what
It’d say when the chainsaw started
“I bet that’d change its tune”
I bet it would, I said
But he didn’t get the joke
One old lady said, Honey, you need help
And even if that be so, it wouldn’t
Change the story of the tree
And how it cut and cut and cut into me
Or what that story has meant to me

By the end of the day I felt worn
And beat, slightly downtrodden
And meek
And I sat on the sidewalk
And blinked
And blinked
And blinked

And a big eyed boy approached me
Asking what was wrong
Said I looked like his father after a sad, sad song
So I said I had a story to tell
And told it to that child
And at the end asked if he understood
And he said yes, and I smiled
But I wonder if you do?



picture by Ted Martello

Monday, September 21, 2009

I fade into the night

I fade into the night with
Nina Simone spinning smooth like honey
disappearing into lucidity
I never cared for the word dreams
for dreams are quite different
than what comes at night
flowing out into all
this lucidity gives liberty
to what awaits
tomorrow is only a dream away.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

a brief encounter

I met an old woman down by a stream the other day
I was just sitting there
Watching herons hunt
And dragonflies dangle above the vegetation
Flying unions making hearts and wheels
Implanting the next generation in hidden places
and pondering the sexy sleek packaging of an egg
She said she noticed me a ways upstream
And I asked what on earth did she mean
But she just shook her head, smiled, and sat down
The brevity of her gravity shook me
But I paid it no mind
She wore fanciful stones and bare feet
Had the air of regal and aura of the wise
And she sort of looked into you with bent head
In a way that made me feel naked
Pierced by amethyst eyes
But I didn’t particularly mind
Her hair hung in bouncing curls that caressed the wind like feathers
I told her her fourth chakra contrasted the dangling amulet
And she laughed, touching it to her heart
What would you know of such things young boy?
But I just smiled
And asked what she thought of synchronicity
It has its benefits, markers to live and celebrate by
And of course we all know what happens
While celestial bodies dance
Coincidences are rather foolish and lazy logic if you ask me
Made for minds too bored to think
Magnetism is much too strong
And I must confess
She laid back on the grass and moss
And the flora seemed to wrap and caress
While she giggled and smiled
I was beginning to think
I was in a strange dream
She felt my unease
And told me I needn't be rash
Time is a flower and we’re about to bloom
And you are a little bee pollinating the temporal
Creating new chances
And spirals dancing off the stamens of possibility
She started crying
A mixture of sanguine, sadness, and crazed eyes
She said it was just her way
Of communicating with old friends
That could no longer voice language
And the ground softened
As a soft wave
But this was no pocosin
She told me to lay in her tears
And sleep for awhile
And when she started singing
My eyes couldn’t argue
And I found peace on the ground
Sinking slightly and smiling wide
As the dream world washed over me
Into fantastic visions and storm
Swimming arcs of light and energy
Tiptoeing lucidity I was on the edge
But something was different
And any control was gone
So I just rode down the stream
Letting it tell me it’s story
Like an allegory with too hidden a meaning
I felt sort of lost
And this stream was going in circles
Never reaching the sea
Never reaching me
I awoke around dusk
To sweet evening hues and long soft light
I knew she was gone before I even looked
If she had ever been there at all
Nothing left but I in wet ground
But everywhere was wet as a shower had come and passed while I dreamed
And the stream of my dream splashed upon me
Iris and ivy grew all around
And sycamores stretch towards the flow
I thought about that woman all night long
And the words she sung as I drifted off:

Yon lies archaic ruins
Lost to the vines of time
Yon lies the waxing moon
Full of strength and sublime
The morning star shines
To the east
To the east
Guiding us to grace
Enlightened feast
Swim in my waters
Swim in my halcyon nest
Feed from the forest
Feed from my breast
Yon lies tomorrow
Yon lies the past
Yon lies opportunity
So infinite and vast.

And sometimes I sing this song along riversides
When kingfishers chatter and fly by
And sometimes I think I can hear her sing with me
Softly somewhere next to the horizon
And I dance with the trees as I sing
And swoop and bring my arms like wings
Soaring, soaring to hidden heights
Hoping and knowing somewhere she is in my sight
She is everywhere
Like my fluttering heart beating out for understanding and relief.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

the puddle stirs like galaxy flushing away

One day I sat next to a puddle
Slowing stirring it with a stick
Making spirals of water with
Chasing sediment
Swirls upon swirls
And things got cloudy
And changed
Before everything settled
And became clear again
And I wonder
If God and Gaia and evolution
From time to time
Sometimes remind us
To stir things up
Cause commotion
Cause motion and mix things up
Conjuring change
Recreating new equilibriums
It isn’t survival of the fittest
Or the wittiest
I speak of the needed chaos and dreams
To reestablish a more complete
And profound order
Written by the blemishes of the moon
Felt like brail by momentary prophets

One day I sat next to a puddle
And watched the whirlpools dwindle and settle
And saw the beauty
Of stirring things up
And the clarity refound
Looked clearer than ever
As reflection returned
And I could see what I was looking at
Because it was really just me that was being stirred
And it took the stirring dirt to show me
What we stir on the outside
We stir on the in.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Photo of the Day




A butterfly and snail hang out in the moss alongside Crabtree Falls.