Restorative Dreaming
A pensive morning in quiet shade
Of this is inner contentment made
A sip of silence, a moment’s rest
In the garden corner I love the best
With butterflies skimming the border’s blooms
Voile curtains billowing out of rooms
A book of poems upon my lap
Read in short bursts between nap and nap
And the sound of a bicycle coming near
To bring the post of love-letters here
I’d rather recline in this reverent haze
Than waste on reality any days
Listening in on rehearsals for the new Jake Heggie Ahab Symphony a companion to his opera Moby-Dick), I wrote. Tonight (24 April 2013), if you’re not able to attend in person, you can watch and listen to the live streamed performance of the world premiere at 8 pm CST at this link, featuring tenor Richard Croft, the University of North Texas Symphony Orchestra and Grand Chorus and conductor David Itkin: http://recording.music.unt.edu/live. In the meantime, from me:
Characteristic Frequencies
Light, to begin, as though it were the dawn,
And whispered voices breathed themselves awake,
And sentience would rise and fall and make
A storm, turn faint again, scarce moving on–
On lyric waves these messages were sent,
Foretelling danger and the pangs of grief,
Then, gentler, sing of comfort and relief,
Follow each graceful passage where it went–
This, while the song comes lapping up at me,
Comes pulling like the most insistent tide,
Whether the sound grows deep or thin and wide,
Draws me on deeper in this sonic sea–
Seek me no more, but let me run aground,
My soul sunk in these waves, and listening, drowned.
Defying ProbabilitiesThe most improbable outcome
Of delirious, fanciful dreams
Is not the impossible can’t-be
That perpetually it seems—
And I can prove this conundrum,
In my personal life, is true,
For it happens that though it’s wildly unreal,
I’m actually loved by you.
Daybreak ReturnsFrom the grasslands, from the marshes, from the margins of the moor
Rise up misty ghostly creatures in the pearly light of dawn,
Some mementos, revenants or sylph-like spirits past and gone
To the brink of ancient memory and up to its creaking door,
People whom we, fond, remember or with some frisson of heart,
Those who populate our past, storied as fabled gods and kings,
Filled with magic and wild treasure and a million pretty things
That we wish we might have honored as such value from the start—
So at daybreak they come whispering, returning, silver-grey
Without tarnish in their sterling, as they rise up in our sight
And return to us those memories had fallen into night,
Bringing back that love and loveliness of theirs to present day
With special love to all of my Canadian friends!
Out Cold
Do not the hockey puck invite
Your flaxen brow to cleave
By wearing not your shining helm;
And do not tear your sleeve
Upon the blade of someone’s skate;
And don’t assay to test
Opponents’ blows, save if you wear
A Kevlar hockey vest;
Avoid, if you are able to,
A stick thrust at your sternum,
For whacks like this are undesired
Even by those who earn ‘em;
Above all things, I recommend
You not enrage the goalie:
Though wounds are bound to happen here,
Some risks are just unholy.
Shrouded
What is the measure of sorrow’s depth? A mile, a fathom? Soullessness?
Is it a silent suffering or screaming agony? Or less
Than nothing? Is true sorrow deep as midnight? Is it fiery? Cold?
Is’t a return to youthful helplessness, or falling instant-old?
Who knows the grief in its extreme that tells how deep sorrow can grow?
Only the ghosts of doubt can guess at this: I hope I never know.
On the Hour
I hear a distant clamoring, that clear and golden hammering,
the calling so enamoring me of this hour of day,
That chorus of the chiming bells change-ringing, as their music swells
until no other parallels the news they swing to say,
‘Til every other sound should cease as swiftly as the bells increase,
work stop, hopes rise, hearts fill with peace; the ringing calls that soon
The echo of its chimes will fall where it sang out from wall to wall
in waves of life over us all to tell us it is noon–
No wonder, in this ringing sphere of tonal loveliness I hear,
I sense a sweetness drawing near and beckoning to me
To join the clangor of the song, to strike at every chime and gong
and bell, that each must sing along and set the midday free–
Ring every bronze and silver note, ring brass and gold, and keep afloat
all of earth’s joy–the antidote to death is in this tune–
Ring happiness, ring love and peace; ring out the hour of sweet release;
ring the refrain of this caprice until another noon!
Countdown to Dreaming
What sprightly sprites, by noon and night, what fairies of the air
Dance in my dreams? To me, it seems there’s always someone there
To twist and twirl, to whiz and whirl, to pirouette, jeté,
To bow and bend and to transcend mortality this way.
No one can see this dance but me, and only when I slumber,
When forty winks or nap, methinks, begins to unencumber
The dancing denizens of sleep, my own replacements for mere sheep,
And I must count them, lest my deep repose should lose their number.
You may not be the least bit surprised to hear that I was recently duped by a fast food commercial (yes, I do eat Junk Foods of many kinds) into thinking that a special treat of theirs was going to be worth trying. Not only was it worlds from what was portrayed (as the old Norwegian-joke goes: ‘What was wrong with it??? The food was terrible! And the portions were so small!’), it was accompanied by a zippy little packet from the counter container marked Honey, which on closer inspection turned out to be not honey but ‘Honey Sauce’–a packet I was too fearful to open after reading the long ingredient list wherein honey fell fourth to three of the other four sweeteners, barely before water and a list of preservatives impossible to spell.
I was tempted to go directly home and swill real, pure, local, raw Texas honey straight from the bottle, but I resisted. Needless to say, the packet of Mystery ‘sauce’ (I still find it kind of amazing that it’s even legal to call it that, let alone Honey Sauce) went instantly to the circular file, followed in short shrift by the remains of the appalling main dish, and I went off to cleanse my palate at home. You’d think I’d be smarter by now. Sigh.
Fasting Food
Silly me! I thought Fast Food
meant eating something raw and crude,
Something exotic and delicious,
not appallingly pernicious,
But cooked and primped and sauced to serve
as amuse-bouche, starter, hors-d’oeuvre,
Not some spectacular, emetic
parody of dietetic
And comestible delights—
it seems to me, Fast Food, by rights,
Should be what shows up close to hand
in finished form and on demand,
Unsullied by the attitude
of what we often call Fast Food.
The World in a Nutshell
All of the world’s in perpetual motion,
A loop of swift action, a constant commotion
That moves us in nervous centrifugal rings
To do and to act on a million odd things,
And so caffeinated we cannot hold still,
Or the moment of fixity surely might kill
Our fast-racing heartbeat, as used as it is
To zipping and zapping around in a whiz—
And all of us hope we will one day find quiet
And respite from all of our everyday riot,
But I am suspicious that it won’t occur
Until the last second of living, no Sir!
Art-Colored Glasses 