A Sea-Grass Elegy

We come, but like the wind that blows,
We pass. Into our hibernation,
Hidden in recesses and in nooks,
Until the passing crowd goes mute.

We reach, but like the grass that waves,
We’re firmly rooted to what we can do,
The limits of our kind,
And scarcely see beyond our patch of land.

But: every other Saturday,
In full imagination,
We stand upon a pedestal
For our great peroration,
And rustling and whistling,
We lightly brush the ground,
Our eyes turned upward toward such stars
As never can be found —

We try. We spread our loving arms
To take in all that we can touch;
But tethered to our practices,
It’s all just undulation.

We breathe, but like the mournful sea,
Our whisperings don’t reach the ears
Of all the many, focused on their vanities
And cares.

How is it we cannot escape
These harnesses that bind us?
Why can’t we move away to where
Our loving ones can find us?
Was there a rhythm I could beat
Or melody I knew of
That taught this secret to our souls
You’d see the great debut of
This majesty, this honesty,
This all-too-often sought for —
And we could lay down arms for winning
All that we had fought for —

We sing, but like lonely gulls,
We cry for all we cannot say,
And live to see another sunrise
Of the few we’re granted.

We live, but like the wind that blows,
We pass. Our lives, an oscillation,
Hidden in our stretches of the earth,
Until our waves pull back from shore.

— Owen Servant

Soft The Rain Falls

Soft the rain falls
On a little girl’s dreams
As the windows streak with tears

For the mother and father she barely had:
The ghost of her Mama, the voice of her Dad —
Before she came here to be told, “don’t be sad”
In this impassive place

Still the rain beats
On the roof overhead
As her mind jumps past the years

To a festive wedding with her the bride;
Lovely, with her Daddy there by her side –
But she can’t make the face out – the love, the pride –
Nor see her Mama’s tears

Sad the wind blows
From the far mountain streams
To join with her in her plea

Soft the rain falls
On a little girl’s dreams
With nobody there
To see

Space Aging

He traveled once in Saturn’s rings,
He’d walked out on the lonely Moon,
His heart had seen the farthest reach
Of space

But now he sits and browses life
And wonders not at wondrous things,
Imagination crumbling
Apace

It’s not just years that made him age,
It’s choices meant to keep him safe:
The little steps he took with each
Misgiving —

He did the things he thought would best
Befit a person of his age:
He grew, but he forgot to keep on
Living

The day he ceased to dream of space
He sort of died. The shell lived on:
They called him now a man, and not
A boy —

But sometimes, our nobility
Is lost when we reach ripened life;
When every thing’s a thing, and not
A toy

So never sell your inner soul
For what you think you ought to be:
Remember what it is that is
Your joy

The Price The Tribe Demands

Uniformity
In thought and look and feeling

Conformity
In action and in word

Atrocity
That’s overlooked, or sanctioned

Capacity
To swallow the absurd

Mendacity
In reasons for our reasons

Opacity:
To hide what’s true or real

Complicity –
Acceptance of what’s evil

And paucity
In truth to what we feel

Autumn’s Children

Slowly, leaning slightly, shuffling
Two together, down a gentle incline
Towards the lake. The shadows
Break the field, as autumn welcomes
Two of its own children to its midst.

Love: it grows and changes,
Leaving things behind it didn’t need
And focused on the future,
Emerging fresh from seasons past,
And reaching less for speed than for

Each other