To thine own self be true

Something about nonchalantly
throwing a leg over
the top of guard-rail
25 stories up
creating your own story–
the hero of imagined possibility;
no one else about
to stop or question you
about the legalities of such,
inching slowly down
like Spiderman
peeping in tenants’ windows,
giving them a giddy wave,
peering into their own imagined
pseudo-private worlds;
it’s really only ego
conquering a high-rise
like a still-life mountain
when a line snaps/
and the descender feels
an even greater rush
trying to aim where
she might land
and then walk away
intact.

In the fall we drift along
the tree-lined streets
of unfamiliar places.
Leaves cover everything:
sleepy cars and houses
sidewalks and our coats.

My son drags his foot
beside the curb
like a street-cleaner,
but even he admits
we could never hope
to hide these dead
in all the sewer grates.

Joggers and young girls
with dogs pass by
and look at us as if to say
‘You don’t fit our decor.’
The leaves uncaring,
fall in slow time,
wordless to the earth.

I used to think
that streets like these
were only meant for lovers
and their lonely ways,
but how wrong can one be
about yellow, orange, and green?

In the fall they drift along
the tree-lined streets.
The man is crunching memories
as he watches his son
run on ahead,
laughing with the wind
and leaves.

(for my daughter Heather)

The poet is in the garden.
He has come to hear your dreams
to bless your green endeavours.
He speaks to you in earth-tones
many sounding strange to your ears.

A bird sings of the cedars.
Here there is still time to bud
and bear fruit in the garden,
to turn into leaves or flowers
thus, on the ever-changing land.

Growing seasons have been known
to vary, but always recur in the annals
of earth. With more sun and belief
in the garden, you too, might grow
in a summer of stems and blossoms.

There is so little time, though.
The wind calls your name
and whispers of eternity.
Clouds come and go
and the fence needs painting.

A poet is in the garden now.
No one else will walk with him today.
But the sun is surely good to all
and blinds his failing eyes
with a white warmth of wisdom.

True, it gets soiled
now and then
and after fall,
with snow.

Eventually ice,
then waiting for
beak-pecked memory.

Spring’s first robin–
full, the mirror bath
catches eyes alike,
revives new stock.

So someone
refills it–it is,
after all, expected.

I take the jug
and pour libations
to my aery brethren.

Honoured by their
short feathery stays,
voyeur to their dips.

Yes, I could do
nothing,
but it’s not mine
to choose.

You were such a long time coming, but better late than never. A moonshadow that quieted birds and chilled the air. Startled I was at the hole above that opened in the clouds. Your dark magic enveloped me and released our night-side, then blinded me.

It’s not every day one gets totality like this. I took off my glasses and looked directly at you: your prominences and primal flares– a lifetime of love in what seemed like seconds. Corona moment.

All light and my life changed then, all plans and limits. No diamond-ring affect, still I’d stake my vision on what we truly were then. People cheering… it was suddenly o’er before I could catch another glimpse of you.

Mostly it seems we spend our daze looking down not up, living slivers of human events. But as I recall, you blacked out the sun and melted lines to any known bearings, causing outages and disruptions. It is thus I remember you well, your beauty and mystery, moving on, passing by me on an empty field in Oregon somewhere, feeling lost for words to say all that knew just then, of sun and moon.

My new poetry phase confirmed using my own photographs with my poems and prose. Image and words fused in new hybrids.

Chant for Pilgrims (prose poem version)
(Castile, Spain)

In the musty cloister corridors of Santo Domingo are the voices of the ages unexpectedly. Men without women. Men without guns. Men assured of purpose sublime. Re-gardless of time, untouched by war, chaos and the mad pursuit of money. Here there is the grace of melody sans harmony and rhythm. Here there is holy society of the single melody in language and tones beyond your limitations.

Listen. It sounds like Peace. It sounds like Soul conversing with self. It sounds like sanctuary, blessing and forgiveness for all and everything. Leave all cares outside these stones, this monastery. Pettiness, ego, control and strife. Here there is but eternity and a balm that none of us likely deserve. Listen for the songs when they change keys or time signatures slowly, magically.

This is a transcendent life here beyond your haste, your real and imagined complications. No one here lives beyond the simple chants which forever start each passing day or century. Within these patient walls, the monks have found It and a timeless truth that we all need, having lost our ways so many times in life’s pilgrimmage.

*For a selection of my poems, use blog Search: Richard Davies/Poems.

“Happiness is a direction, not a place.”
-Sydney J. Harris

“It takes four seasons to know one year.”
-Anonymous

“Happiness resides not in possessions and not in gold; the feeling of happiness dwells in the soul.”
-Democritus

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible winter.”
-Albert Camus

“The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.”
-Eden Phillpotts

“Gratitude is a soil on which joy thrives.”
-Berthold Auerbach

“What is the meaning of life? To be happy and useful.”
-HIs Holiness the Dalai Lama

“It matters not how long we live, but how.”
-Philip James Bailey

“The world is but a canvas to the imagination.”
-Henry David Thoreau

“But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads.”
-Albert Camus

“Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.”
-Anonymous

“Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.”
-Frank Lloyd Wright

“The art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.”
-Havelock Ellis

“I believe that if one always looked at the skies, one would end up with wings.”
-Gustave Flaubert

“Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.”
-Victor Hugo

“I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.”
-John Burroughs

“Earth laughs in flowers.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

“None is richer than he who simply has peace of mind.”
-Maj Wambebe

“Just living is not enough…one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.’
-Hans Christian Andeson

“Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher.’
-William Wordsworth

“Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty.”
-John Ruskin

“Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The quieter you become the more you can hear.”
-Ram Dass

“In wilderness I sense the miracle of life, and behind it our scientific accomplishments fade to trivia.”
-Charles Lindbergh

“Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible sun within us.”
-Sir Thomas Brown

Just another spring weekend in E-Town.
Ever notice how all the blizzards and heavy downpours curl in and then rush in from the east? (The worst storms come from the east. Well, in Mill Woods certainly.)

“I am a young, vibrant man.”
-DJT