The Wind – Fellowship of the wind –

“It’s the questions we can’t answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question and he’ll look for his own answers.”

– Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man’s Fear

 

I could feel the strength of the wind.

Fresh, dark, mystical wind.

On the shadowed side of the steep mountains,
clouds hovering, the wind teasing,
making smoke tails.

Strange feeling, exhilarating yet,
peaceful, almost entrancing,
the wind in my hair.

Smells, fresh, moist, sounds of a tree,
a falling comrade in the green forest,
all carried by the wind.

How is it that I fit in this mystery?
How is it I’m taken by this wind?
Like a seed carried away from my past,

by an ever present but constantly changing wind,

Dropping me pleasantly down

to finish my here and now.

Brother wind and I take flight.

Also published in Broowaha

First published in Opinions Of Eye

10022011

The Value of One

“What about everybody else Pye? How many lives can there be in one universe?'[…] ‘How many lives Richard?'[…]’One.’.” – Richard Bach, One

 

If I knew I would be saved by its shade, would I see the value of helping it grow?

The most incredible things can happen when I place investment in the life of one. That person may change the course of not only my life, but of the world. Who knew when they encouraged and befriended a young, and then unknown, Albert Einstein, Maya Angelou, or Steve Jobs, that the person they invested in would greatly affect the course of their life and a great many others?

Human nature, being fascinated with egocentricity, evaluates success with increasing numbers. The danger is that I engage my efforts in activities that guarantee my advancement up the ladder of accumulation at the expense of an individual. By overlooking the one, I surrender my beliefs, my identity, and my dreams to assure an increase that will eventually destroy me and lead to the failure of accumulation. When I forget the value of one person, I forget the value of me. My life suffers, my dreams die, and my soul withers. Losing sight of this intrinsic worth of one, self-esteem becomes a creature formed by opinion, my happiness will depend on a demanding public, and my conscience accuses me of failure with each drop in my perceived worth. Don’t worry about the many, concentrate on the one overlooked and forsaken by society, by business, by the fickle crowd. Then, placing myself in a constant awareness of the value of one, I will follow the example of my Big Brother, leave the 99, and go after that one.

Also published in Broowaha

12242011 

Blossom – Rebirth of a lover

“What a strange thing!
to be alive
beneath cherry blossoms.” 

– Kobayashi Issa, Poems 

“A fallen blossom
returning to the bough, I thought –But no, a butterfly.” 

– Arakida Moritake, Traditional Japanese Poetry: An Anthology 

crazyformusic

Lightness, adrift but within my grasp always. 
Your like the blossoms of a tree, brushed off by the wind, 
yet still you belong to me, 
though we are apart. 
We are intertwined souls, mated by nature and God. 
Soon I shall lift you back up, 
from my roots you will be reborn 
to forever be one with me.
Your my bloom my love, this tree will always sustain you. 
I long for you to be on my branches once again, 
the whole of nature in agreement with the union. 
Oh how naked am I, my lover! 
How my branches sway at the sight of you! 
Come clothe me with your fragrant beauty, 
and let us be whole again!

08042011

Love Again 2 –

I believe this fits the general theme of my blog and so I give you this poem, written by Philip Larkin. Enjoy.

Thomas Hawk

“Love again: wanking at ten past three
(Surely he’s taken her home by now?),
The bedroom hot as a bakery,
The drink gone dead, without showing how
To meet tomorrow, and afterwards,
And the usual pain, like dysentery.

Someone else feeling her breasts and cunt,
Someone else drowned in that lash-wide stare,
And me supposed to be ignorant,
Or find it funny, or not to care,
Even … but why put it into words?
Isolate rather this element

That spreads through other lives like a tree
And sways them on in a sort of sense
And say why it never worked for me.
Something to do with violence
A long way back, and wrong rewards,
And arrogant eternity.”

My Tree

Inspired by the death of a friend, the birth of a granddaughter, an ache in my aged bones, and the prayers of my youth.

bbeingmee

Mixed emotions gather in mushroomed gray lined clouds, a fever pitch of worried concern and loss of beloved companions. Friends carried away like leaves in the gusts, piling against some unseen barrier far away from my tree. Familial doves alight from my branches in pursuit of a roost built by man. Could this tree ever hold them? Life is a tornado of ever changing events, blink and their gone, but I need to close my eyes, the dust of change causes pain. Age pursues me with a ravenous appetite, lying like a pride of lions before the pool of forever hope. Will I drink, or will I be consumed, to be a part of something else, my bones becoming their bones, my blood bringing health to their blood? Sweet Peace, where have you hidden yourself? Are you in the garden, hiding behind a tree? Come to me and share your priceless trinkets. Blinking back tears, pressing against the incoming tide, I swallow inevitable foamed certainties. I pulled an old jar from the ground beneath my tree. In it I hid inscribed hope with these words: God dances over me with joy and He will give me rest. I close my eyes in a sleep that only comes to those who labored hard in the fields, harvesting crops of contentment from the begrudging earth.

Hammer – Wisdom in the glyphs

 “All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.”
– Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam

My dwarven frame easily pulled the hammer from the tree. Only the handle revealed what nature had covered in growth, the bark swelling over the mauls head, hiding its width. Lightning is what freed the dull aged tool from its captivity in the trees belly. I studied it with curiosity, swinging it and flipping it in my hand with instinctual proficiency. My trade gave me ample strength, spending long hours with pick and spade pulling trinkets from greedy stones in the ground. Thinking nothing of it, I slung it across my back and meandered down the muddy trail. Noon came, and looking for my daily treat of fruit from my trees, I discovered that all within easy reach were picked clean. I’m not lazy but I really didn’t want to climb my bulky girth up those darned trees, so with my dwarven ingenuity, I thought to sling my hammer into the tree to obtain my bounty. With a mighty heave my new friend flew into the fruit laden branches dropping their delicious meals in a scattered buffet. Thinking the hammer to have gone through the branches and fallen elsewhere, I turned to the fruit. Right as I bent over, I heard a rustle and whoosh behind me. Turning to see what fate had in store I caught the hammer right in the chest. Knocking me to ground, I liedthere stunned by a new bruise and this thought, “the hammer came back!” Now that I knew what to expect, I played with it. I enjoyed this little trick of magic that made life easy, however, at times I grew angry and threw her without a thought and she, being without mercy, would come back with her own ferocity and near take my head off. After suffering one to many broken ribs and a couple of black eyes, which, if not for my dwarven constitution, may have knocked me senseless and never to recover, I rubbed her and looked closely. During my curious examination I saw, in dirty and molded letters, this inscription, “Be vigilant where you throw me, for I am your word”.

Rain Drop

“Do not be angry with the rain; 

it simply does not know how to fall upwards.” 

― Vladimir Nabokov

fanpop

Why am I leaving my place of comfort, my mountain lake so clear and pristine?

Why am I flying higher and higher through places I’ve never been?

Why am I spinning in clouds so dark with rumblings fierce?

Why am I thrown to the ground in anger it seems?

Now I am being swallowed up by a young oak.

That was the reason for all my trial and discomfort. It was to give life…. 

04132010

Dead Tree? – Appearances can be deceiving

 “A cold wind was blowing from the north, and it made the trees rustle like living things.” – George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

 

c-4-r-n-a-g-e

The tree throws off it‘s leaves, drawing in its energy, preparing for the battle.

It appears dead and for many months, no life appears.

But beneath the surface, vitality runs, coursing through its toughness.

Don’t be fooled by the appearance of fallen leaves,

for deep in the coldness the tree yearns. Soon

the leaves will return and I will

find shelter under the branches

of what appeared

to be, a dead

tree.