Sonnettics

Although the slice of moon is fiercely bright
at 5 a.m., the canyon’s fiercely dark.
I’ve run beyond the artificial light,
and passed between the gates behind the park.
The cool, dry air falls gently on the stream
which, in its turn, falls gently through the trees.
The moonlight shadows falling like a dream
upon the road where newly fallen leaves
lie still are only echoes of the fall,
the early fall.  My early morning run
anticipates the lateness of it all
before the early rising of the sun,
by this: a simple trip by which I’m found
with hands outstretched before the shadowed ground.

We slowly drive from happiness to guilt
Enjoy the casual stops along the way
To see some monument that someone built
Or watch the purple sunset turn to gray
The road is so much quieter at night
The wheels are so much softer in the dark
Don’t try to read the map without a light
Or analyze for miles my last remark
The song begins to crackle and to fade
The farther from the signal we proceed
The tune begins to sound like its afraid
Of interfering with some silent need
But silence is a humming static hiss
That never thought its words would come to this

He spins a little flower by its stem
between his fingers, staring at the ground
obliquely at the place from where he plucked
its life.  A dozen others lie around.
Each broken stem his nervous fingers tore
with thoughtlessness he never will surpass
then spun it once or twice before he dropped
its dead potential on the verdant grass
In time the stems and flowers will decay
and fertilize the lawn, both blade and weed
will benefit from his uncaring gift
and equally uncaring they will feed
to grow, to be a place both soft and strong,
a field to be mowed down and walked upon.

The rising blue she feels beneath the street
betrays the way she longs to dance away
with clouds that drape the moon in cold defeat
that beg her in their luminence to stay
She laughs at how the moon has no control
of ripples in a puddle she has splashed
She laughs again to feel its sudden pull
then suddenly she feels her hopes are dashed
The crowds of night’s reflections pass her by
The rising blue is swirling overhead
The dance betrays the dancers who would fly
beyond the clouds and moon.  They’re dead.  They’re dead.
So down she lays her body in the street
And to the blue surrenders her defeat.

This one is like a pile of orange cloud
Obscured by dull apartments on the hill
It’s like the bluest sky that god allowed
Constrained within the confines of his will
It drags its feet across the perfect grass
Where just before the summer children played
It comes to stay but never comes to pass
This is the one of which I am afraid
I only want to hold my wife and son
Who seem too far away from me tonight
It isn’t done, my god! It isn’t done
It isn’t fair, my god! It isn’t right
This one consumes my solitary rage
And makes me feel a thousand times my age

The curve of flesh reminds me of a lake
How water bends the earth to seek its rest
The liquid soul rests for the body’s sake
Or makes the body flow at its request
The gentle way the water laps the shore
The way the shore responds to every touch
As if the soul knows what life has in store
And helps the flesh conform to life as such
And only when one soul has split apart
And only when one half has found its mate
The flesh responds by flexing from the heart
Where life divine seeks only to create
The curvature of love begins to swell
And deep within the miracle will dwell

The virtue of this road is where it ends
For where it ends is also where it starts
Perspective lives, on which each trip depends
Where roads converge they also split apart
And where the roads converge they lead me home
A single path that seems to know the way
The road is empty but I’m not alone
Her thoughts have traveled with me through my day
And just below the sunset, on the right
Between the trees I catch a glimpse of gold
A window that reflects the day’s last light
A place where I’ll be held and where I’ll hold
She’s at the door as I pull up the drive
Her day all timed to when I will arrive

My reach is short; the stars are all so far
What god would make a universe so vast
On Wednesday I’ll be getting in my car
To drive five hundred miles very fast
The closest stars are just within my reach
The closest stars are still so far away
I only want to give a kiss to each
I only want to find some way to stay
What man of you has ever touched a star
Or even stretched to touch the loving sky
You seal your little lights inside a jar
And one by one your lights begin to die
To god, the universe is just a spark
But I will drive on Wednesday through the dark

Such stones exist for skipping from the shore
which shaped them by its rough and gentle tide,
where form and polish build to this rapport
a father and his son stand side by side.
They search among the millions for one stone,
perfection, or as near as it can be.
The father notes how fast the boy has grown;
the son is lost in searching reverie.
Then suddenly the perfect stone appears.
The father picks it up; the son approves
the smoothness of a thousand smoothing years,
and with a fluid fling, how swift it moves.
Three skips create their ripples with each kiss;
the stone slips back into the blue abyss.

(more…)

The day is green and flowers mark the dawn;
I feel her rising love; I feel her grace.
The warmth of dreams I’ve dreamed still linger on;
they linger like the smile upon her face.
And as she folds her hands around her child,
and sings to her and rocks her back to sleep,
I feel the dream upon which she has smiled
the dream of love and promises she’ll keep:
of bearing life in Spring, of love in Fall,
of giving of herself and giving more,
of softness and of strength surrounding all,
of home that welcomes love within its door.
My dream, a home upon which she has smiled,
with love for her, the Mother of my child.