A Circle, Full

A constant battle wages.

Not unlike the push of day and night,

of looming dark and present light,

the child fights the man.

Defying all that causes such transition,

he's holding tight his innocence,

like stream born stones aright withstanding waters push,

smoothed and shrunk by time.

All the while

experience ceaseless wrecks its rage

like pounding waves against the sand

abound in chorus rote.

Obstinate and still the child stands despite,

with every shard of will withstanding,

soon or late with scars withdrawing.

The birth-ed child swoons in Spring and green,

where all exists perpetual bloom;

A roses pedal never bends beyond its first unfolding,

ever newly curled and slightly closed.

The sun is dressed in constant dawning,

freshly pruned, skyward strewn and climbing.

Each the sparrow perched between the swells

of learn-ed song and unlearned flight.

He, the willful rock in April's welled and sightly stream,

is set alight and loosed by deft decision,

steadfast and stayed by choice-

each by will.

Age-ed Man resides beyond a constant dusk,

a winter's constant chill

where flowers bend to wilting

stilled upon the cusp of dying.

The sparrows song has long since ceased,

the last to wing has taken,

only echoes lone and far the meekest doves of mourning.

He the stream,

the crested wave bereft of choice or will,

forsaken cold and crashing, broken

aimless bound to shake

whatever deeps the tides will take.

Between the Spring and looming Winter

dwells at first the fruit of Summer's blooming.

Not the breadth of Eden,

but fruit forbidden still.

All its threads that start to weaving,

when woven etch a pattern lined with grief and deep decay;

Abundant sun indulged to overflowing,

days of endless length conceiving nights

where calm and rest go unrecieved, untaken.

Such a wealth of pulling pleasures,

such that beckon every child birthed.

Strong their pull,

weak the hand deceived that meekly rising first defies

and turning slow to soft submission full commits

ascending strong with winged desire.

As up the eager hand receives,

down descends a fragile will and thought.

Thus arrives the Autumn's deepened red,

the fated breath to bate the fall.

All that once was crafted full

in pieces carved and fine,

all that April loosed and raised to walking

stands upon the swell of dark descent,

deeply shaded just upon it's looming crest.

Each is hemmed and baited,

kept within it's bounds and swept

amidst the auburn dying.

What once resided all adorned in newborn jade

is dropping sure and slow as dusk upon the daytime,

not unlike the swell of night.

It's then the curling crashes,

forming full the fell and will-less Winter

where each the child first reluctant,

cold and scarred beholds the man,

his hands abreast and filled to overflowing.

The hand that once defied,

which once would nurse a sparrow lame to health

and lift it back to fill it's precious nest,

that now to take would be

a fowls wing to break.

With brush and eye

that once had beckoned beauty,

now arthritic, aged

its fingers late refuse the grip

of once it's glad and whetted brush.

A bird who's lost its flight,

the child's lost the sweet delight

to be the smallest speck

in beauties ever casting deep design.

But even in the depth of Winter,

though seeming crestless, endless,

still there keeps the faintest promise,

a far off hope of Spring.

Beneath the ground the soil sets to working,

far beneath the frozen shards of Winter's breaking

something left of life is waking.

While still the furried swells are crashing,

every smoothed and shrunken stone

amidst the wild white remains.

Between the rush of Winter's rage,

the quickened pull of each its tides,

they small and slow reside.

Withstanding Winter long- surviving not defying,

some arrive to walk the steps of Spring.

It's here,

here that man beholds the child,

child fills the man to overflowing,

welled with something so minute

yet vast beyond his understanding full;

Something vague remembered,

only flashes half believed and fading.

Not for all, perhaps for only few,

the time to grasp what long was lost,

a circle full,

the slow return to endless Spring's

perpetual blooming

all alight with sparrow songs

and constant dawning;

The sweet return of innocence.

Fire, Fly!

I wander long the mild nights of Spring

that linger late upon the eve of Summer,

right upon the looming crest of Summer's slow approach.

Pondering past a patch of grass

where once I witnessed Summer's land light

dimly lit and flickering fade beneath

September's blackened dusk,

I briefly stop,

a mere and stuttered step

amidst my effortless many marched

to give the flashing life a passing thought;

Its quickened moonlife,

lit and leaping,

lighting August's sweltering night.

Its shy descent to crescents,

quick it's fading, mute it's waning.

My stuttered step's return to walking

just as sudden stops in full.

Before my eyes agape and awestruck,

all about the stretching meadow,

low and skyward

leaps the little lights return,

far outshining moon and stars!

Surrounded deep in midnights blackened tide,

half a million cast

from new to full,

new to full.

My bearings, lost amidst their dancing flames, return.

Quick my racing pulse has ceased it's growing,

slow my feet concede to stepping,

and long the land lights

fill my hungry heart to overflowing.

Not the Least

The tides, the swell and rising,

crest and curl, the crash,

the whitening trough receding.

I watch the restless crawl

of each unwelcomed guest approaching-

one by one, by one

their heedless pawing meets the shore

and goes ungreeted,

each in turn retreating,

all their passion spent.

It doesn't go unnoticed, not the least,

the likeness in our sudden rise,

the smallest swell preceding.

Our body's quickened crest,

and just as soon

its downward curl to swift decay, and pale,

our passion spent.

And just as every crested wave

that crashes crumbles to the shore,

each surrendered drop asunder

lone departing swift

to join the sea from whence it came,

so our bodies failed and wilting, withered

make their mute return to dirt and dust,

our sundered soul departing quick

to dwell where once conceived;

To places far more vast than oceans,

far more deep.

To one day rest within the gentle hand

whose fingers molded every curve and crease,

to glimpse the brow that thought our laughs

and wrought our dearest dreams.

Return,

as every wave that crashes

swift retreats to where it once began.

Flowered Fleet

With steady hold on April's reigns,
Easter ushers Springtime forth,
reveals its lock released,
its lever sprung
and both its stable doors unlatched
and open swung.
Outward trots its flowered fleet,
quickening swift toward gallop full and glistening,
up and toward the towers' blossomed reach,
beneath the cool of shaded bowers,
far beyond the meadows green and overgrowing.

Naught of death remains, in sight nor scent,
within its trodden wake, its tracks
behind and left which render all things
bright and breathing;
Morning's winged residers
all alight and seeming steeped in song,
their cheerful praise
within the dawning's primrose keep.
The gardens groomed for growing burst,
begetting stems and pedals birthed
in colors no less vast that deep,
with depths surpassing moonlit oceans
infant eyes
and starshot skies of late December's making.
The meekest Oak and farthest meadow,
each one leaden, barren, sparse of late
returns to former splendor,
laced with lilies golden white,
adorned with buds and growing.

Easter's waking beckons all things forth,
to death and Winter giving chase,
replaced with realms of latent buds
awake and skyward rising.
Its flowered fleet, of mane
and hoof, and gentle neighing,
gallops far abroad and full
till all things filled with life are welled
and each is overflowing.

Mutual Mirth

Conceived on winters morning, bursting small
but rapid growing since your looming birth
was learned, your little pedals latent all;
The thought, the blooming want of mutual mirth
in holding close your blossomed blue, before
your opened each and newly knowing eyes
to tell you that I love you true, and for
the first, to hear it in return, replied
with earnest love alike, a purest love.

It ceaseless grew, increasing even through
your autumn birth and winter budding cold.
Like spring's restrained desire, autumn built
October loosed and unrelenting bent
upon the winter's will, availing long
its unabateing winds and all the while
awaits, retained and racked with wanting, need
to share it's laden mirth, awake and filled
to overflowing, so my yearning welled.

And just as spring's release returns to lift
and spurn the leash that lately life restrained,
revealing lavished gardens vast of grown
and wild violet, scented lilac strung
with birds alight and humming, so today
when long at last the wish upon which all
my will has long been bent had burst from bud
to blossom full, did sweetest mirth release
from teary eyes to both your ocean blue.

Predawn Dwellers

All things await the sun.

As I walk amongst the predawn dwellers,

the white winged perched and ashen mourning,

the dark sky weakens, grays

like long lit charcoal.

The little beings, winged and wide eyed,

witness calm the crescents dim descent

to morning's deepening tide,

submerging also each the chards surrounding.

Awake and warbling slight, each awaits,

along with every tree

beneath their little feet,

about their lighted breast,

that listening turns their leaved and lavish branches

east to greet the lift of midnights leaden shawl,

and rise of morning's lantern.

The sky too is shifting,

shy in shadowed shades.

It's eastern crest has turned the strangest blue,

rainbowed wide with strips of primrose,

layers thin, yet vast of violet.

It waits, as does every mile facing

westward charging, yet unchanging.

Its final chards submerge,

mutely making way for mornings star

which upward pulls with steady pace.

The predawn dwellers shift,

their voices calling,

just as sudden every branch begins to lift,

as all things waking rise, reflecting

each the great sun's restless dawning.

Its then the sun alights

and instant cresting east ignites

to render what of late was painted

purple lined with primrose,

all to patterns gold and life-lit

leapt and giving calm

it's live-long blessing

far amongst the dwellers all

who now alight in wing

and joyous song.

My Humble Pew

I miss the wild,
nature's every stitch of every thread,
long that brought,
though not of late,
my youthful soul to bent and humbled knee.

The early summer forest
thick with green and flowing,
welled with flowers, lilacs grown and glinting
white with violet,
far beneath it's ceiling
high and pied, of leaf and pine.
Its slightest stream,
an almost silent crawl
that weaves and winds its way
amidst the timbered crowd.
Each its songbird's precious verse,
those familiar, others strange,
all a welcome war to wage
against the retched roar
we ceaseless rage.

Autumn's melancholy,
peerless death in breadth and beauty,
joyous Spring
with all its splendor spent
on breathing birth to latent life,
and even sorrowed winter,
lifeless born and barren.

The dawn and dying dusk,
the chill of crystalled night
when distant stars from deep
reveal their clear, indifferent eyes,
awake, yet unaware of ours;
our minute view of things untouched,
untarnished yet and unattained,
our mighty minds despite.

For wild nature need not wait,
nor us to keep its course.
Ever, nature acts on will and whim,
bereft of time and care
of feet abound, or eyes aware.
The trees will ever take to root and sway,
and fall,
the sparrow's song within.
The most shallow stream
remembers where to flow,
as each the seasons need
no sign to die or grow.

Yet
I miss my humble pew,
my narrow view,
that even now is dwarfed
by just the smallest April oak.
I crave creation's deep design,
its fabric sewn with skillful hand
and artful eye.
Trapped between the bounds of days and time,
on city street or rural road
I wallow famished, faint,
awake and yearning;

Nature, beckon!
Break me, bring me down to bended knee,
amidst your beauty
set me free.

Rain, Rain

Again, again I greet your soft stampede,
afoot and whispering verse with chorused rhyme.
It's long I listen, late when wonders wake.
And not for what of old you've seen, but where
instead your gentle drops have ancient been,
of what in distant days you've felt, and who?

Did one amongst your many mingle
midst the storming sea to cradle only brief
His wearied heel or arch when once He trod
in faith, afoot across the storming sea?
Or drop beneath the starry sky to grace
the newborn's infant eye, or soft
beget a chill upon his creaseless brow?

Alight in ashen grey, did one or all,
or any wet that creased and precious brow
when thorns beset His aged and sorrowed eyes?
Perhaps his burdened back or bloodied hair,
His hanging head or pierced and flowing side.

On dusk's approach, I walk your slowed stampede,
within the hope, a silent hope;
of all your gentle drops upon my skin or near,
that one amongst you had the joy
to wash away His tears.

Our Mirrored Stay

I consider the moon, our likeness
lone and roaming dark the distant deeps and lacking
light within to cast
a lamp upon its lonely way.

I ponder long its nightly waking,
what was given, lost
from well without to lift
its darkened veil and light
its lofting fair.
Relating all the while with
that which lately rutterless roamed
reflecting now the full and fallen sun;
That which, had not the morning star
relenting westward bled,
would not have seen the road that led
nor shone amidst its leap
along its way.

My last reflection, last
but no less pressing lingers,
cresting toward the brink of morning's break;
our mirrored stay,
our days both marked and fleeting all
foreknown and headlong leading,
each like lures
have long been cast,
our purpose set, our path to seek
and find, but not to last.

For both, the waxing moon and I,
who only by the sun's descending
pale in semblance shone, will cease
our pallid climb at Dayspring's rise
to join the morning star.

Acorn

Consider the acorn; all the countless born
to each the reaching bough of every Oak.
While all in time are loosed and dropped,
they often meet an early end, beneath
the Oak or Maple, Spruce or Pine, atop
the early leaves of Autumn, moist and wept.

Of all conceived at such great heights above,
it's few that take to root, and latent first,
begin their beckoned bloom, becoming soon
the blossomed life that every acorn formed
was meant to be; a strong and growing Oak
aright and sprung out fully formed to feel
the mirth of sunlit days, despondent night,
the birth and living wrought in willful Spring,
bereavement brought on Autumn's crimson wing.

Consider why; for what the countless loss,
the lives potential spent and wasted hence
to only birth a rel'tive few? And what
awaits the many spent that never stood
beneath the sky? I ask, in faith I ask,
but meekly wonder why, and what awaits
the countless cast that fleeting life denies.