Faces in the October Rain

Outside the latticed window pane
The maple branches stretch, palm-upward, wet and dark
Upraised to silver streams en route to earth from heaven,
Coursing over skin-like bark.

Refreshed, refined, the cold mist hanging
in the air, another season's growth complete,
The tattered yellow leaves, now shaken down and lying
Scattered at the feet,

Bear record of one more year
And summer passing.  Enveloped overhead
The geese pass too.  A shaggy spruce leans, thoughtful,
On a deserted garden bed.

Far

The yellow arch of light is set,
Receding to the other side
While robins and mosquitoes glide
In and out a shadow-net.

Signs of melancholy press
From crickets, frogs, and lily blooms,
And intermittent valley glooms
The wings of one dark bat caress.

Vega sparkles on her throne,
The timeless Lyre, in the east
(as judged from cosmic speck, at least).
She does not threaten, nor condone

A petty planet dweller's deeds
Abroad the galaxy.  What care
To her long life beyond the air
Are living lungs or human needs?

Yet she is near, and you are far,
If measured on the scale of hope:
When aching eyes through darkness grope,
At least they see the distant star.

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J.W. Waterhouse. Lady Clare.

Sunday Stroll

The sitar sings in sky of stone.

An old one walks- but not alone,

His cane steps with him; open Day

Yawns a morning smile, not to betray

To passing youth they pass themselves.

Like dusty books on dusty shelves,

Some day much sooner than they think

They will be set aside... to sink?

Well, so they would now hold the view,

If they would think of him.  A few

leaves on the sidewalk notice more

While breathing less.  Another four

Pass by, one man, three dogs along

To drag him who knows where. A throng,

Then not a throng.  Crisp autumn air

Brings notes the old one heard before- somewhere.

An old one walks--but not alone.

The sitar sings in sky of stone.

µɛν…δε

On one hand she bars the door and bolts it fast,
Her soul securely sure, her cynicism drawn
Like a weapon, to save her from truth at last.
Afraid to be a pawn, she is a pawn;
Her fear a captive makes while she looks on,
Blindly willing her freedom past.

On the other, irresistible urges
Pull her unwitting, a moth to fire;
An impulse innate toward goodness surges
Against her will, that unwelcome Higher.
The thing she won't admit, that alone purges.
Hints abound, in "Unmoved Movers" and "Demiurges,"
And dead men rise, to call her heart a liar.

The Human Condition

Blank.  The surface may or may not fill
With words that soothe a wandering will.

Desperate.  Tears desert the deepest need;
If heart can cry, it can be freed.

Torn.  Between two worlds, and beings, two:
Time-Existence- passing through

 Shattered stellar systems' years
Like meteors.  Like dust.  Like tears.

Mortal- a sole deflected spark
Whelmed in tides of utter dark.

Undying- second existence twined
With essence holy, undefined

Definer, axiom of Light,
of Justice' strength, of Beauty's might.

Duality.  Not in God, but man,
His nature split since time began;

Though filled with reasoned passions deep,
To hunger subject, and to sleep.