Into Obcurity

All these things I can't explain

Or escape

That I need to explain

Become less clear by the moment

And why bother

Because I only really want one approval

And that feels so distant

In each consideration and consultation with truth

Hope recedes

Distance increases

And I fear that this vision declines into obscurity

December 2023

Waiting For the Storm

In the approaching distance

This dark eastern horizon

Spilling over in anger and rage

Receding bright western sky

Forced to the edge

Not a question which will prevail

The first soft, sparse raindrops

Give little word of the lurking deluge to follow

Though one glance at the sky

Speaks volumes towards the imminent fury

November 2023

Waltzing Silhouette

Violent longing and burning soul

Blackened roots weeping in silence 

Sustaining darkened grace

A fire rages

Casting spells of passion

A silhouette waltzing among somber shadows

Desires an unburdened heart

Without resignation to circumstance

November 2023

Reverence and Awe

Laced in varying sketches of disdain and doubt

This brooding, disheveled sky

Forecasts the demeanor of the moment

Preparing to herald the encroaching fury

Suspected to be a horizon away

Over the dividing line between my horizon and yours

Within are patches of light promising eventual calm

Its power measured in the bending posture of the distant evergreens

We revel in these moments finding renewed security in the promised aftermath

Behind, another and another, these clones of nature

Repeating the steps of what came before erasing the recess between

Each seething, venting, moving on along its destined path

And we stand in silence, looking on in reverence and awe

October 12, 2023

I'm fascinated with the seemingly endless cycle of storms that often blow through here in western Oregon in the spring and autumn. Storm moves in, vents with wind and rain for 15-30 minutes, moves on, the sun comes out, a rainbow appears, all is calm .... but not for long. There's always another storm approaching.

This is not a stormy sky. It was actually taken at the height of regional wildfire season

The Realization

Occasionally, in the blind slivers of silence, when you ultimately come to mind, the realization that your existence in this tiny corner of time and place, becomes an overflowing measure of how absolutely fortunate one was, to be present in the moment, to be a small part of, to observe the beauty and passion, to know the power of your brazen soul. If I could know the depth of your raging heartbeat, if I could fully experience its lack of boundaries, if I could touch its unifying force, how much more enriched and greater my days would have been and just perhaps, the myth, the whispered rumors of pure and blatant, inexhaustible joy would be realized.

September/October 2023

A fictional thought ...... or is it?

Creating Magic

Listening for a visionary, revelatory voice

Rising above the accepted noise

A vision follows

A shadow from another time announces arrival

A presence that alters this world

That even frenetic fragments of time wait for

Ruminating on what matters

Keeping past times vital 

Reshaping the usual static around life

The conclusions are being redefined

Creating magic from the world's chaos

And illuminating minds

Nothing is pre-determined

Reassuring that there's infinite and everlasting beauty around

September, 2023

The Dream

Looking around this room at all these faces 

We started out together

So young at that time

Many of us stayed together through it all

A few departed and returned

Some parted and never returned

Except for this moment, this dream

It's twelve years later

We've changed and yet we've remained the same

For so long I could have never imagined this moment

All together again

Like that first day

When I cried as my mother left me with you

We were all together when we lost JFK

We followed along when they walked on the moon

Friendships blossomed

Some lasting, some faded

We once thought we'd always be together

And this was my sudden dream

I often reflect on those days

Who's survived

Who remains

Who has last

And I've felt this connection for sixty years

And in this one moment, In this simple dream

We were all so young again

And these days

When I sometimes fear I'm in my final hours

For this moment we were together again

Which has always been my unspoken desire

September 6, 2023

Half a Chance

Despite humbling trepidation

Balancing fear with uncertainty

Considering dreamed of possibilities

But failing to take that risk

While searching for a path to reach .....

.....  a heart

Another soul

I suspect given half a chance

I could fall in love

August 2023

Occasionally there's someone who just appears so fantastic .... and you're afraid to risk losing that presence in your world by taking a chance. 

In That Needed Moment

Like from a risen whisper

Or revived rumor

You appeared in that needed moment

Radiating undefeatable light 

And a universe of unearthed desires and possibilities

Spreading potent significance to this place

To this lost foolish life 

August 2023

Assumptions Countered

These visions pass in frantic seconds

Becoming incomplete memories before allowed to reconcile with the present

The shattered shards of unverified promises await restoration

At the least, clarification

The process aborted with every muted reckoning

Between worth and gain

Benefit or salvation

And discovering, countering all assumptions

That it wasn't intended to be lasting

Or rewarding

July, 2023