radar string eyes haunted legends swing rattle river skin tip pebble rips
I didn't find a place for radar and string.
The Old Woman of the River
“Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river.”
— Jorge Luis Borges
The river swirls and burbles
Over pebbles, sand and rocks.
Flowers swing to and fro
On its grassy banks.
If it has any thoughts
It keeps them to itself.
◊
All they found was the rattle.
Did it draw him forward, inward?
Until he tipped, fought briefly
And then, wide-eyed,
With an innocent curiosity
Became the river—
Not ripped from life,
Eased gently from it.
◊
She sits and watches
The swirling waters—
Its bubbles and its ripples
Dancing on the surface,
The skin between two worlds.
Her haunted eyes look deep
Yet somehow blankly.
Legends are unreliable
But a popular thought flows
Through the village people
That she has always been there,
Always looking in to the waters—
Remembering. Waiting. Hoping.
◊
The river swirls and burbles
Over pebbles, sand and rocks.
Flowers swing to and fro
On its grassy banks.
If it has any thoughts
It keeps them to itself.
◊
sitting free space go roots body stream breathe listen seeds peace vision
Renewal
He sits quietly, alone,
At peace, a separate peace.
He breathes, listens, reflects,
Pondering how somebody
Who loved him so deeply
Could just be…gone.
◊
Like people, plants die too.
So runs the cycle of life—
When the gardener plants seeds
He has a vision, a dream,
A return for his efforts.
Whatever seed he plants
It will need space,
Room for shoots, for roots
To take hold and grow.
◊
Love is like a seed too.
The same rules apply—
Rule one is basic:
You get back what you plant.
Plant beans and you get beans.
Plant love and you get love.
So be careful what you sow.
Rule two is oft forgotten:
You get back more than you plant.
Why else would you sow?
◊
And so life goes on for him—
In the field and stream
Of fleeting and precious time.
Not free of fears but with courage,
As all gardeners must—
Planting and replanting love,
With hope.
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Tennis, Turkish, Delight, Melon, Brook, Officers, Steps, Conclusion, Earliest, Pan, Asparagus, Yellow.
The Letter with No Date
It spoke of asparagus.
What was that all about?
And melons, eaten in the sun?
The vague mention of feathers,
Ruffled during a tennis game.
The crossed-out word: Turkish.
Delight? Coffee? Baths?
Seems out of context.
Handwritten. It had no date.
A woman’s writing, neat.
The paper brittle and yellow.
The ink faded and barely legible.
It had been carefully folded
And put at the back of the book.
That book. The one with the ribbon.
The sort given to officers
Receiving their commission.
It spoke of love, of separation,
It spoke of flowers and candles,
Of brooks and ferny glens.
It spoke of Pan and his flute.
It spoke of desire to reunite.
It spoke of the steps to take,
Places to go, even when to go—
The earliest opportunity, it said.
It sought a conclusion.
I wonder…
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Almanac, Vegetables, Smoke, Rocky, Pursuit, Tide, Data, Pearly, Block, Hedge, Yellow
The Almanac Keeper
It lives in his back pocket.
Battered, crumpled, well-thumbed.
Its pages guide his life.
The tides come and go
As the pages predict.
The moon and stars follow
The stated arcs of time
As foretold in the yellowing pages—
The data of his life, of his being.
He scribbles in pencil—
Margin notes that embellish
The records of the relentless
Movement of seasons, of time—
When to plant vegetables,
When to prune hedges,
Small bon mots to ease
The approch to the pearly gates
But silent on the reason to use pearl.
Good advice on the smoking
Of a recently slaughtered pig,
On blocking out crops
For ideal rotation.
On the habits of wildlife.
Towards the back
A prayer of thanksgiving.
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Wordle 709
prowl, beast, claws, shift, mask, strands, twists, temple, wandered, underworld, map, thread
The Labyrinth
“The seeker is the sought.”
— Rupert Spira
The path winds around
Not outward, spiralling in.
No need for Ariadne’s thread here
He’s not trying to get out.
Getting out is not the end,
Not the goal he’s searching for.
So, when his focus shifts
From the temple to the paths
That twist and turn, seemingly at whim.
It slowly dawns upon him—
The underworld is not below,
It is found to be within.
There is no map to guide him—
He is the map, it seems.
He had wandered, prowled
Around the edges of this maze
In the earlier days of his quest
But fearing the enclosed beast,
The Minotaur of fear and doubt,
That prowls the darkened corridors
That traverse across his mind.
The eyes of fear, the claws of doubt,
They pulled him from the edge.
Now, denying Ariadne,
The strands of silken threads
Lead him further in, not out,
And there, in the silence
That was always there,
The mask finally falls away.
He is the temple.