Seed

“Seed”
Painting by Jeanie Tomanek
From lavendercreekglass.wordpress.com

what profits the seed
who compulses
convulses
with urge to release
its pale essence
to shoot forth its
tender and tentative embryo
into the warm wormy soil
defying suggestions
of gravity reaches itself
up and up
breaking surface
to find greening rays of the sun
rays that carry tomorrows
from heaven to earth

what profits the seed
is fulfilment
the sense of met purpose
one focus
one moment
one job to be done
continuity realized
with deft execution
the broken shell
remnants of seedcoat
now satisfied
knowing it gave of its life
to the larger imperative
moving the spark of existence
from then to again

Wombs

“Pillars of Creation”
Photo of the Eagle Nebula
By the Hubble Telescope

 

fertile heavens
maternal astronomy
hearts of stars

 

 

From my books Small Noise and Riverthink

Evaporation

“Evaporation Offshore Zakynthos”
Painting by Traute Macom
From traute-macom.eu

odd times are upon me
when the air wants me
more than I still want myself
it draws out my liquids
the essence that moistens
makes supple my surface
this skin I have worn for so long
dried out clutches of atoms
are lifted away caught
like smoke in a vortex
organic invisible uprise
disrobing me taking my
skin-felt touch memories
feelings familiar estranged
given up one by one
to a volume of vapor
that age and fatigue
have resigned to empower
accruing a transfer of will
as I dissipate ever so slowly
identity forfeited unto
transformative winds
where the bits and the pieces
of what had been me
find free-radical futures
transported by conjugal skies
forming bonds with the residues
shed by old souls whom
I never had met in whole flesh
but will nonetheless join
mingling molecules
bellying clouds till the weight
of us grows to the birthing point
heavy release in the form
of fresh torrents of rain
falling falling fat globules
that diminish reform and refine
with each league of descent
till we light oh so gently
distilled cleansed and pure
to repopulate earth

A Time to Every Purpose

“Holy Family”
Painting by Heidi Malott
From hmalott.blogspot.com

remember the birth
even more than the life
of the man who would die
in eclipse of our sins

in the birth is the promise
the possible everything
each newborn babe
a most lovely creation
immaculate vessel
containing all human
potential the heights of
all mortal achievements
the deepest divinely
held hopes for mankind

even more than the life
of the man who would die
in eclipse of our sins
remember the birth

Ideation

“Idea”
Abstract image from
pics1.imagezone.org

the mind is a lonely chamber
a notional womb-space
unquietly busy with purposeless
comings and goings of strangers
thoughts alien dispossessed
orphans of intellect
stumbling about unenlightened
bereft of connections
yet hopeful of being adopted

they jostle they manhandle
shove through the crowd
ever seeking positions of
frontal lobe prominence
wanting the slightest
acknowledgement knowing
that even a brief recognition
assures them distinction of place
in grand memory banks

here they’d live in indefinite
pregnancy waiting that moment
of formative candid nativity
fully emergent intact and discrete
as one cogent idea held aloft
on its very own brainwave
now ready and willing and able
to travel its way to expression
in audible speech by its host

Private Dialogue

“Woman Looking in a Mirror”
Painting by Richard Edward Miller
From encore-editions.com

burn the green wood
kill the young
nascent saplings
emergent from
rich loamy wombs
before time
(so you tell yourself)
ever feels pain
before trauma to
rootstock of memory
call it humane
this cold intervention
supposing that forests
when left to their
natural development
suffer from
certain privations
too many grown trees
who compete for
too little fresh air
in a landscape
too wanting of
less oppressed
access to sun
you have choice
(so you tell yourself)
free to decide
and what heart
would choose suffering
knowing the world
gets along
(so you tell yourself)
hardly diminished
and never to miss
a mere few
generations
of trees

Eloquence

Thistlethwaite Twins
Photo from upi.com

like those twins who emerged
from the womb holding hands
prenatal life is quite eloquent
unless we choose not to listen

Songs of Life

Photo by Lennart Nilsson
From Life Magazine

motherhood music
chambered harmonic chords soothe
emergent unborn

La Musica Della Vita

Poesy plus Polemics

My life plays like opera

Each day sounds new notes

The people I cherish

Blend their vocies with mine

High and low tessitura

Yield intricate chord

Progressions through keys

Modulated by moods

Chiave signatures mark

Those particular days

Fate tuned sharp or flat

***

Melodia echoes

Through holes in my soul

That identify me

In bel canto refrains

To discerning ears

My passions descant

Contrapunto themes

Tender and protean

Harmonia laid down

With basso attained

From my angrier side

***

My heartbeat counts tempo

Driving each movement

Of human scale epochs

Childhood’s sonata

Lithe scherzo of youth

Stern adult adagio

Wistful rondo of age

But segues will not

Always smoothly obtain

So brief passages turn

And depart from motif

***

These breaks often signal

Life-altering soli

Indelible moments

Of legato languor

In lazy withdrawal

Or staccato attack

Seizing destiny’s horns

Intermezzi of mourning

Lushly lacrimoso

Or explosions of joy

View original post 174 more words

Delivery

Photo from hamsterdreams.wordpress.com

clouds bellied with rain
hanging low on horizon
birthing pain thunders