In the middle of my time,
within a bitter winter morn,
I found myself,
wandering, wondering, perhaps longing,
for something without a name.
I was on a journey,
through the leavings of my father's life.
My mother had crossed over several years ago.
His abandoned chambers were engulfed
in a second grieving silence.
Each room, it's furnishings,
it's soon to be empty closets,
recast as strange specters,
so many whispered tales to tell
of nightly companionship
warmed by a blazing fire,
now, nothing but misty memories
veiled in layers of dust.
All I beheld, called out for resurrection
seeking re-entry into worlds of thought and affection,
a pleasant awakening, offering existence
as what they were always meant to be,
my father's beloved friends.
His ancient, leather reading chair,
worn by long nights
in the company of Tiffany lamps
and overflowing bookcases,
longed for the warmth of a human body.
I trembled at this piercing disclosure,
the wondrous everydayness of a life,
my father becoming the world that surrounded him.
It was a wide world reborn,
a family gathering,
making their choice of a human soul,
his tastes and affections, loves and desires.
The rooms slowly became an archaeological dig,
a search for souls
in petrified forests of time.
Suddenly, an unruly ray from a spent sun,
full of sparkling particles of dust,
penetrated the gloom through a streaked skylight.
My eyes were led on a pathway
toward a darkened corner
where the beam settled on an old shoe box.
Obedient to its beckoning, I removed the cover,
encountering a legion of faces and places,
often poignant, frozen in time
like a Rockwell moment on canvas.
They stared at me with amiable eyes,
bonding across the veils of time.
Some I knew well from my youth, some vaguely,
most surely having crossed
that ancient river long ago.
Yet, all had existed.
Their names could never be erased
from the great wall of Being,
therefore, in some manner,
they were immortal.
Beneath the last photo,
I found several hand written, faded pages,
wherein my father unfolded himself before me.
His word painting vaulted through time,
a field of force, ever evolving,
uncontrollable, uncontainable,
deserving the name of being
as much as any mountain or river.
So, in the midst of a weakening sun
hiding away all too quickly in winter's darkness,
I rested in my father's ancient chair,
in communion with long shadows
cast by his words so many seasons ago.
His musings spiraled like a hot flame
suffusing my consciousness.
The light from that fiery pilgrim's chant,
I now choose to share with you.
**************************************************************
The old man lingered in indolence,
the softness of his garden recliner,
late afternoon, autumn, a season for dying.
He'd come daily to his refuge,
a man of the sun,
seeking the sultry sensibilities of summer.
Now the green season was deserting him.
Like his body, it was fading,
smoke before a wind,
an insubstantial thing,
wrapped in a shawl of softly falling light.
No longer would the Robin take the early watch,
nor the nightingale sing the praises of evening.
He dreaded the coming of bitter tempests
making bare the trees.
Could he not be spared a bit longer
from the time of thickening blood,
when auroras of vanished heroes
would flicker across the sky?
A time of incarceration in frosty shadows.
An enraged idleness, looking out
of steam streaked dirty windows.
How he hoped Fall would be hard to die.
Surrounded by his version
of the Hanging Gardens of Old Babylon,
nature had become self conscious,
arranged and designed,
no longer mere blind growth.
A declining sun shined with great Care
upon Fuchsia, Salvia, and stained glass Coleus,
secretly desiring the emergence
of deeper reds and violets,
a celebration, a blazing symphony.
alas, soon to morph into a sorrowful farewell dirge
at the coming of the dismal season.
Oriental grasses swayed in a subtle breeze
that moments earlier had served as a pallbearer
for the fiery crimson leaves
of his ancient Japanese Maple.
Their mourning fall from wet black boughs
was a blood red, reigning over a receptive earth.
The old man's white hair, shining in the sun,
dazzled the creatures of his garden.
Yet, he knew his bloom had gone.
His sun was setting,
desolation no longer subtle in its approach.
He knew this world
no longer welcomed old men.
The crumbling hours were hard for his frail hands to grasp.
His glance fell upon those withered hands,
veins a road map of his life.
Regrets had stripped him to the bone.
Yet, his hard pulse still throbbed
with the strength a fearless soul endows.
His fire still glowed
upon the ashes of time.
Some called the old man a heathen,
others branded him an atheist.
In truth, he was an unremitting pagan.
He believed in all the immanent gods
unveiled by Being through the vessels
of our fears and hopes,
our dreams and desires.
His was a barbarous soul.
He sought renewal of the earth
rather than a surrender to heaven.
He craved no consolation from other worlds.
This was his world, small yet his.
His time, though brief, was in his hands.
He liked the word pagan.
It had a ring of truth
in a world ruled by deranged, backstabbing liars.
He held that creeds make us old before our time.
We are undone when heavens and ideologies
devalue our world and our past,
leading us to shun or hate our only home.
As day wore on, he became an island of solitude,
abiding in the vastness of the wide word.
The heavens were an azure blue,
filled with white wisps of clouds,
like the hair of an elderly lady,
who soon would droop into a deep sleep.
Here he was the artificer of a world,
immersed in mood and memory,
the solitary chant of a lonely troubadour,
his words the making of worlds.
Suddenly, swaying oriental grasses caught his eye.
Without warning, an avalanche of memory engulfed him.
A long-ago dancer unveiled herself,
bursting through the crucible of time.
No longer could any power seal up
the gnawing demands of his past.
Past became Present.
*************************************************************
Young they were, wild of heart,
ascending the monolith called Mount Algonquin,
a gray faced monument to a slaughtered tribe.
They had set out at noon,
a sultry August day.
Soon they entered a magnificent stand
of white birches glowing in the sun.
The whiteness intensified the creamy softness
of her golden brown skin.
She stood among the birches
tall and statuesque, an exotic queen,
daughter of the giant rock.
Her presence was announced
by a screeching blue jay.
A scarlet topped woodpecker ceased his labors,
and eyed her with an admiring glance.
A rambunctious chipmunk nibbled on his acorn,
cautiously observing the young intruders below.
Whispers of wind came up in a sky that listened
gracing the tops of the birches
with the sound of a gentle surf.
The young man's lover greeted the scene
with a great laugh, thundering across the valley below,
a joyous laugh, banishing
all shame and regret from her life.
She loved this world of tears,
enough to die for it.
Algonquin had become her throne,
her fiery eyes ruling his world,
She was his Maude Gonne,
his Lou Andreas -Salome.
Much labor of muscle and bone brought them
to the dwarfing of the spruce,
signaling the final stage of their mission.
A great pinnacle took shape above,
thrusting its massive grayness,
high and bare toward the heavens,
proclaiming the majesty of earth.
After scaling the final stretch of rocky cairn,
they were silenced by the view from the top.
Far below, a hundred lakes
dotted the green canopy of Adirondack pine.
To the North was Placid and Whiteface.
To the South they watched a plane,
far below, circling over Lake Colden.
Lesser mountains seemed a cascade of water,
wave after wave,
beating the base of the great monolith.
After sandwiches, graced by a full throated Chianti,
they affirmed their plan
to spend the night on Algonquin.
They fell into a languorous state,
enjoying their tiredness as the day grew tired.
The air was relaxed and designed
to hold a quiet one couldn't find in a city.
Pine needles twitched and crawled
in a wayward burst of wind
that moments before, caressed
lonely lakes and valleys.
They knew they were of and by this holy world,
ecstatically connected to the all of it,
its giving and taking away,
creations endless chant.
The young couple rested on their sleeping bags
as daylight slowly ebbed.
In the distance, a final beam of wandering sunlight
adorned lordly pine ans spruce with a golden shawl.
Distant columns of Gothic granite murmured a lament
for homeless evening breezes,
as shadows roamed over their deeply lined faces.
A hush of silence fell upon the lovers.
A sliver of rising moon hung low upon an evening star,
perhaps late for its nightly appointments.
A billion stars emerged in darkness.
Their beams would soon dance on the lakes below
creating a world out of nothing,
as an ancient Word
created the universe in a whisper.
The majestic young queen
was overcome by the lights of night.
She felt a burning within, a savage presence,
awakening the world in which she dwelled.
She began to dance upon the massive rock,
losing herself in the rhythms of the night.
She glided and whirled
in a wave like motion,
feet barely touching the rock,
like shadows freed from her body.
Her movements spoke a hidden language,
summoning her young knight to join the dance.
Her smallest gestures
meant more to him
than heavens gold
or diamonds of this world.
Together, they obeyed an ancient beat,
as the tides of Earth obeyed the risen moon.
Night wore on, fusing them into a single body,
intertwined in movement.
A celestial music united their souls,
and spoke of their destiny.
They knew this, just below the level of consciousness.
Some dark souled deity,
observing these children of Earth,
might claim they were born to sorrow,
fighting a long grim fight
against an ever encroaching darkness,
a son and daughter condemned to the treachery of time.
Yet, to them, their dance was a joyous celebration
of love and life in the here and now.
Tears might mark their fate, but on this night,
love bore down upon them like a runaway train.
Death and ashes would have to await their stage call
in the drama of these enchanted youth.
Laying upon their sleeping bags
they were absorbed by the night.
Their hot blood flowed across this darkened scene
taking a languorous shape in silence.
The risen moon kissed the earth,
as sleepy mountains reached toward the heavens
seeking a warm embrace.
A billion stars silently witnessed the ceremony below.
It was the sort of night,
when nothing in the world is alone.
The young man saw tenderness in her eyes.
He met no resistance as he gently
began to remove her garments.
After she removed his, they embraced,
their bodies trembling and melting as one.
He kissed her eyes, her lips, her neck.
He opened his mouth over hers.
She moaned and welcomed his insistent tongue.
Their spirits met and mingled,
anticipation overflowing.
Every part of her body
held a secret to be uncovered.
She forcefully pulled him up,
and guided him deep within.
For a moment, there was no moon,
no stars, no mountains.
only two lovers locked in a tempest,
lips and hands made of fire.
The young man knew his body could be distant,
but his spirit would always be where she was.
He wanted nothing that was not her,
nothing she could not bring by being alone.
She had become the Penelope, to whom
his voyaging heart would always return.
His love had become timeless,
a remorseless lava like flow.
He'd thrown himself into her volcano.
The burning fire in her heart engulfed him.
Sensing how he felt, she smiled and said
"yes,yes."
Suddenly the old man was awakened
from his autumn revery.
"Dinner's ready dear."
"I'll be in shortly, sweetie"
Late that night, after putting his song on paper
the old man folded the pages of his memory,
placing them under photos in in an old shoe box.
He smiled at the thought one day his son
might find this verse, and come to know
of long ago youthful passions on a mountain top
passions of his mother and father.
**********************************************************
Nothing exists that is not a child of the past.
Our world is a perpetual resurrection,
a natural transcendence, bursting the chains of time.
The seemings of things,
perceptions, ideas, and memories,
are beings in their own right,
the latest species in the vast evolution of Being.
So, let us pass in quiet,
making no cries,
no streams of tears,
no rivers of sighs.
We end where we began, amidst the endless circles of life.
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