The tower brings the earth to sky,
The water brings the sky to earth;
Maybe we’ll know it, by and by —
The reason for our life, and birth,
Or maybe, we are meant to be
Twixt woe, and what’s uproarious
In equal measures, to reflect
On what’s above
And glorious
The sky was bluer than the truth,
The days were green with kindness,
And what our limitations were
Less known to us than now —
And where we gathered, laughter grew,
Like moss upon a treeside;
We swung out on a tire swing,
And flew when we let go —
What made sense then was not the world,
For it’s been ever troubled:
Our dreams were dark with mushroom clouds
And polymorphic fears,
But others worried for us, we were
Busy being children,
And didn’t see our lakes and rivers
Came from others’
Tears
The silent hour comes, and when it’s so,
We gaze upon an ever-changing flow
That we can’t comprehend, or quite take in:
But where there are no answers, still we go.
When all the things we thought would give us sway
Within the silent hour slip away,
Then frail and tiny as we are, we stand:
The heritage within, our DNA.
Not every hat’s a crown, nor chair a throne,
And sometimes, weariness strikes heart, and bone,
But do not fear the silent hour’s call:
The stillness has a beauty of its own.
catch a spate of flying dreams,
hold them for a feathered rest,
tell the moon to send its beams,
call the sunbirds to their nest,
give no thought to fears arising,
nor to conscience terrorizing,
just stay
a day
and dream the tears you had away.
run in circles, walk in place,
lay a hand upon a brow,
draw out past the edge of trace,
find the “why” that births the “how”
give no thought to what is coming,
nor the echoes of lost drumming,
mistakes
and breaks
just know you now have what it takes
Just past the rusted mailbox, I walked her from the road;
She turned her head to listen to the river as it flowed.
I watched her dark hair blowing, like the soft-reeds with the breeze,
For love was whole and perfect, and I was at my ease.
Outside a country restaurant, the sky was branching red;
To hide the gath’ring teardrops, she turned her graceful head.
Her dark hair passed beside me, as she lightly touched my arm;
For love lay dead and broken, and twas I that did the harm.
So now, my friend, why are you frowning?
All this could mean a moment crowning
What we might have hoped today:
There’s no reason for pretending;
There’s much here that’s ripe for mending,
Well within the lovers’ play.
What is right? There is no knowing;
All I have’s but scant for showing;
Rare’s the truth that’s not half lies:
Without promises unduly
Rash, for now, I’ll love you truly;
We don’t have to compromise.
[An exercise in cribbing another poem’s metrical patterns. – Owen]
Tell a tale of tall trees,
A thicket full of woe;
Shadows in the black land,
Miles yet to go.
When the shadows moved, then,
The earth began to see —
Wasn’t that the oddest place
For you and me to be?
For you were in your waiting-phase
Waiting in a fashion,
And I was in a torpor
Longing after passion,
So we were in the orchard
Looking for a sign,
When in came the locusts
Who drank all our wine.
I
Was flat upon my chest
And crawling on the ground
Trying to keep
My small head down
My brother in the grass
Dressed up in army green
Back where we
Two could not be seen
And then I heard a crack
And saw him
Still
Like a GI Joe
Left out on the bedroom floor
