Embedded Files
Growing Younger
Growing Younger
I've tried catching Time by the tail,
Though this proves a difficult endeavor,
For the Beast, while everywhere He prowls,
Is elusive, invisible, and imminently clever.
Once was, I believed not in this Beast,
That what's called Time is but matters' change;
An elm waxing strong, pushing leafy tissue to sky,
Or boulder mounting boulder in nascent mountain range.
But more devious traits assumed this Time
As my life streaked along without hiatus
And a gaunt, wrinkled visage in the mirror
Brought me face-to-face with my old nemesis.
Growing old is no evil I say,
But Time is stealthy, as a thief
That creeps up slowly, without sound,
So to one's treasured health relieve.
So before He no doubt catches me,
I'll stalk Him patiently and well,
Embracing here and now, amplifying present,
That hunted is momentarily hunter in Life's Jungle.
1984
Secrets
Secrets
'Tis true that some carry secrets,
Deep-as-mine-shafts secrets of soul,
That when exposed to popular light
Appear withered, disjunct, shallow.
Yet this is not to take from them,
Those secrets' sublime meaning
Whose apprehension renders joy
And to mendacious lives forbearing.
1985
A Toast to a Lost Friend
A Toast to a Lost Friend
Though time and distance have rent asunder
What our youths' gentle vigor wrought,
That brief touch of your soul to mine did render
A lifetime's soft memories and lessons taught.
Were't sea turned dust and sun extinguished,
Were't bonnie-green hill to split and sink,
Were't my last bit ‘o strength near relinquished,
To you I'd raise my cup and drink.
1982
On Melancholy, our Madness
On Melancholy, our Madness
Worlds within our heads,
Structure perception,
Making us see the seeming,
Rather than dream the dreaming,
Of possibility and joy in
Roiling spontaneity and happiness,
Just to be.
A humbling miracle in and of itself.
1987
Last Questions
Last Questions
Give me your hand that I might see Time's writ on your flesh.
What tales does this weathered tissue tell, what lives have you led, what dreams did you deign?
Are you dreaming now?
Did you dance under opulent moons on lusty summer evenings?
… steamy .... soft ... effortless, impossible movements ...
Are you dancing now behind those eyelids, in your brain's sleep-death?
Is this body you wear the price to pay for wisdom?
What is your wisdom?
Do you know you are dying?
Give me your hand that I might come to know you.
These brittle-thin, twig-finger bones, splotch-yellow skin enwrapped,
Let me feel their fading life.
Did these hands hate and love?
Clenched tight or slow caressing ... where are the objects of such attentions now?
White sheets shroud your eggshell body,
Thin, nutritive conduits disappear under this wrap to join your veins.
A clock drones softly above your bed, measuring the dimensions of your solitude.
What is immortality?
Give me your hand that we may share a final moment.
That you were awake to speak with me now ...
But could our dialogue be more meaningful than this?
They say death has a certain putrescence.
I say it is only another smell of life,
Ambrosial, affirming, sacred.
Do you smell this now?
They say with every death is lost a part of the world.
Perhaps a greater part is gained.
Do you feel the ashen-grey seeping over your face?
Give me your hand that I might pose one final query.
I feel the thick calluses on your fingertips,
While the warmth slips from your palm with quiet stealth.
You-are now as many have been and I will be.
Can you tell me, perched as you are
Like a great commander, a Nelson, mortally wounded in holy battle,
Or a simple, pious saint to be martyred in bright licks of flame,
Can you answer this one last, before drawing a final breath,
Can you tell me only, simply,
Where will you go?
1984
Driving Home
Driving Home
High school essay, Philosophy 2
University School, 1977
The automobile is a marvelous invention. Operation of the machine requires little in the realm of mental energy, leaving a certain freedom to think or ponder, as if one were sitting- alone in some quiet room. Once, while driving home, I slipped into such a contemplative state. The car continued as if programmed by some unseen, unfathomable force. I was vaguely aware of a suburban landscape rushing past. But awareness was something separated and apart from the body. Physically I was driving, yet perception of the experience came from some alien, timeless level.
At one point, my mind considered the operating car. What a wondrous conglomeration of metal, liquids, glass, and plastic! Each molecule is ordered according to some holy plan forming pistons, lights, and knobs. Liquids circulate through metal in precise conduits to fuel, cool, and lubricate. Electric particles flow through worm-like passages to produce the phenomenon of light, or move a needle on the dashboard, or clear precipitate collected before my eyes. All the various parts and motions coexist around one principle, forward movement. What a miracle of complex interaction!
Mechanically, unwilled, a hand leaves its precious grip on the steering wheel to lower a window. Immediately the scent of flower -trees directs the mind to the colors forming a tunnel for my car.These red and ivory bursts of delicate tissue look so odd emanating from the hard, rough-hewn wood. I'm amazed at how much energy is needed to allow this sudden sprouting of vegetation throughout my half of the globe.
How optimistic are those tiny flowers on that crab-apple tree! Each minute treasure holds a 'promise of new beauties; fruit; abundance. Some petals are already dropping. Blown by wind they create a fragrant confetti rain on the hardy dandelion. Ahead the yellow and pink carpet is devoured by a machine on whose haunches sits an old man. Perhaps he is thinking about the intricacies of his device in the same way I considered mine. He coughs at the blue-ish sputterings of his machine. Sights and sounds fade away.
My body now feels the coolness of approaching night. Thoughts turn to winter, the stark and desolate world now shunned. Winter is Nature's respite from life, a temporary death which serves to remind of the permanence of the transitory. Such thoughts are not disturbing, for a fate awaits everything. Body can and will eventually lose the harmony of its parts. If such were to be my fate at this instance, the car would swerve, and perhaps hit the grand old oak just ahead. The body would be punctured. Life's liquid would be absorbed hungrily by the earth. Molecules, whose purpose might have been to blink an eyelid or lift a finger, would assume new roles, perhaps become a bit of plant root sucking in existence. The change wouldn't matter for the whole is but a multitude of changes. Over and over the external reality is altered in a timeless cycle, as if pressed on by some unseen, omniscient truth, the meaning of existence.
I now consider a city sidewalk. Masses pass the single spot where, miraculously, a desperate leaf pushes through a crack. They are indifferent, unknowing. This force, this life amidst artificial desolation mirrors the meaning 'of all existence. The irrational drive to exist, to continue to be, speaks from the now-wilted blade trampled by a young and arrogant blind man.
There is no failure here. Success is contingent on oneself following the path of one’s destiny.
I pull into my driveway.
Page updated
Report abuse