https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vUSYlotulU8

Reposting My Blind Eye

Blind Eye

In Exeter, the apples lay rotting on the garden path,

As gentle Devon summered in a late last bluest sky,

And man-tall hedgerows that lined

The brown-mapped roads up on the moor

Began to show their russets and their goldens 

As the light began to die

Earlier and earlier, the thorny hawthorns bare,

The maple, oak and dogwood leaves floating down

To hedges’ grassy banks,

Leaving holly and primroses to brave the coming wind,

To color through the gray.

The chill was there that long past fall,

A marker of an unseen pulse, a throb of

Strife, not hers, she thought, but from the

Rovers on the quai, the travelers’ dogs all running wild,

Or hearty shouts of revelers closing down

The pub at 2 AM in Wonford Road.

She didn’t want to know.

She closed her eyes, and didn’t see the world was spinning

Way too fast; her garden bloomed through early frost,

She carried on; the blind eye turned to

Balm enough no matter present tense:

On the trellis by the terraced beds, the bramble and the ivy twined,

She should have seen the signs.

Ah, well; all that was long ago, the choirs stilled, the

Gateways closed, the spring of making new again

Choked by betrayal’s rust; corrosive lies,

And long into the future that came awake in that bad

Dream, the beauty of that year turned to dust and formlessness.

In dormancy all things repair; they sleep into another time,

And so she did; the decades cloaked in silence as she moved

Through past and memory, stoked indifference, turned

Away, resolved to find some relic, some retrieval from the ash.

Who knows just where forgiveness lives; who tells one how to do it?

But forgive she did, with wisdom earned, eyes seeing all around,

And now she sees another turn, another of life’s seasons:

Her spring was dashed, and summer too; all that is gone

Forever now, a waste of her, a waste of time, time ungifted witlessly,

And no recoup, no recompense, though

Steeliness and wholeness won,

And she is seeing where she’s been; the hedgerow bare,

The thorns to keep the wild ones out,

But the holly’s red, the primrose blooming,

For she is autumn now.

Far Out There

So, is now when we're supposed to 

Be saying goodbyes, but we don't 

Know it? 

We talk among ourselves about

This listlessness, the ennui

We don't have the language 

About it yet.

Powerful, though, the fields

Around us as we navigate 

If we find the quiet within

Enough to breathe and 

Reassemble

Resolution, ever?

In night, quiet, black out there,

I circle around mind's persistences,

I think I should try to listen to myself, 

And am grateful

That I'm not inclined 

To give short shrift

To all the matters staring at me,

The ones I put in front of me

And it's such a struggle, 

And oh Lord I am so tired

Though.

The road was beautiful

And the gentle land out there

Was rolling sweet

Still, I couldn't do it all,

When I went when that 

Place called, 

And so I didn't. I just tried,

Ever and anon.

I say I tried to lose and leave you there,

But when the spinning and the ordering

Came round, again, and stopped, 

I found you, there, as here

I think I carry you, the way

We do it, watching as the road

Grows longer, far and dimmer, and 

Tucking you, you're one of them,

Away in memory, journey,

Passage, and I find I'm shining 

Still, I shine for you, 

You're shining.

Once Undone

I recall,
I think I recall sitting with you
In the creaking swing on the
Side porch, perhaps
When the air softened up
And quit the restlessness from
The prairie wind for those
Moments between end of
Day, well, the high, clear light
And the pause pregnant with
Birds, frogs, the breath between
Those perfect balanced worlds
As we nestled young into
One another, and
Into silken night.

Earlier on any afternoon we would lie
On blankets under the willow
And the scent, wisp of
Lavender about to bloom and
Lilac bursting lilac all our
Senses—beyond the prairie
Tall grass in the twilight
Coming on, when
I'd willed, then, time to stop,
All there in those
Moments, every fiber,
Every sinew was on fire.
You were so beautiful.

Hard to say now,
Another lifetime on,
Perhaps I was looking for
You even then,
Searching for the lush
Landscape of lust,
Most likely I can't really
Even try to call it love,
But there, dusk into a midnight
Blue I found you, only hopelessly
Years on, colliding, veering
Into a present coming through
The golden past miasma

A violet lightning broke the dark
Across the prairie,
And through the willow's slender
Lacy boughs, I remember how
The sky flashed rich
And strange.
I let it all live into life there then,
As now, but I must tell you,
Though, I don't really know,
Perhaps I am letting go,
Perhaps climbing ragged
Like the honeysuckle
On the pergola these decades
On, your face and
Countenance as it was then,
Finding you, and finally knowing:
It was enough.

Jump

Anything is possible,

Just listen to the folks 

Around you. 

Look at the light in

Your western skies, your 

Eastern skies,

There are such good 

Answers around us. 

Today and tonight I talked

And listened to

Some friends, from near

And far, and I can't quite 

Describe this yet,

But these good things 

Are happening. 

Words for a Highway

I had a huge
Wave of homesick,
Had some waves of it
These two days,
And it canopied me all today,
Mowing, weeding, looking at
The perfect sky,
One day we won't be able to go,
We will be stuck in longing.
We won't be able to traverse the
Miles, feelings or
Attitudes, the rigor of putting
Wheels toward the beckon
Of the west, each mile
Signaling that it might
Be the last.
Mortality looms, and
It seems liberating.
Tonight I told them, my kids,
All the hell that's coming.
They sat quiet and
Looked up at these heavens
And I told them
As best I could, it
Starts from what feels
Like home,
We have to rebuild
This world.