Empedocles 490-430 BC
atoms tremble within densest
matter pulling down unseeable
gravities through deniable spaces
scorning illusions of strength
From my book Bohemian Scents
Strength
All posts tagged Strength
“The Great Grisly Big Tree at Mariposa Grove”
by Marianne North
takes a mighty man
one still hard with
plenty of bark on him
tall in his heartwood
stout fearless limbs
turned and ready to
swipe at his sickness
sweep its deep insult
of mordant affliction
from easy self-pity
stand head in the sky
feet rooted in pride
torso scribed by his
history rings marking
memories fraught
with his persevered
hardships his times
of abundance the
scars won in wicked
harsh seasons these
memories holding him
fierce in the face of
advancing disease
he has no skills to halt
but can nonetheless
laugh at it curse it
a boom to his voice
that the whole of the
forest will never forget
From my books Small Noise and Legacies (vol. 2)
“Smell of Snow” by David Langevin
pine boughs
heavy with winter
inner strength
“Old Hands” by Nelede Saeger
(Forever in My Heart)
my mother’s two hands
their name was Aida
for ninety-three years
till they died within mine
Neapolitan amber
kissed by the warmth
of ancestral gold suns
took on in their time
a tawny translucence
too-prominent veined
their rosaried
pianist fingers
misshapen
arthritic
two nicotined pads
in one comfortable
cigarette cleft
their butcher-strong grip
ably tended her
bed-ridden
twice-her-size husband
for sixty-three years
not to mention
their nursing
of parents and siblings
while raising three
boisterous
urbanized children
they made magic
of wooden-spooned sauces
and rolling-pinned pasta
some seventy-thousand
made-from-scratch meals
her affectionate gifts
from the recipes
cherished as prayers
in her heart
they used hair-nested
ear-rested pencils
to cipher their sales
to grocery customers
drawn upon
brown paper bags
so much faster and neater
than any old new-fangled
black and bronze
adding machine
they were peasant hands
born to bear
uncomplained pain
so toughened by toil
roughened by rustic
impatience
to get the job
any job
every job
done
yet tender as tulips
when drawn across
trouble-knit brows
of illness or grief
when stroking teared cheeks
of sadness or woe
I loved those two hands
even more than I know
how with every touch
they so dearly loved me
(originally posted April 2013)
Image from pinterest.com
give the falcon its wing
starlings scatter in bursts
across blue vineyard skies
the grape unmolested
reclines into ripening
safe in its succulence
peacefully purpling
sweet with maturity
leaving the felons
the plumed iridescent
escaped murmuration
to seek a new roost
for rapacious designs
fear of strength
and its consequence
once again proven
the gentlest of weapons
“Courage Bolstering Strength” by Carolyn Asha Young
resolute posture
gunbarrel cold to the touch
strong voice of silence
Granite Glacial Erratics at Home on a Farm – photo by Jack McConnell
they walked a long way to find sunshine
escaping from frigid hard whiteness
for warm soft embrace of the greensward
old souls of stone who remember creation
immigrants holding their alien dignity
standing their ground against xenophobe
cries of uncomfortable winds with their
freehold convictions of personal liberty
handsome with self-possessed strength
pleased to anchor an everlast change to
traditional notions of peaceful community
Empedocles, 490-430 BC
atoms tremble within densest
matter pulling down unseeable
gravities through deniable spaces
scorning illusions of strength
remind me how I tore into two tons of tragedy
when Hercules girded my infirmity in lionskin
and my veins exploded in splatters of laughter
at reclining danced-out shapes
daring to eat grapes in the lavender flames of affluent wreckage
did you know blood and gasoline both smell like urine
was I crazy or drunk
on ominous drips from slow-melting ice sculptures
did I kill you
or save you from saving yourself
when I pulled your fear and mine into broken glass weeds
remind me if you live
I can’t hear my memory’s voice
for the pounding liquid hammers in my vascular head
and the noisy cavitation of my shudders
“Red Oak”
Photo by Lyle Hatch
From fineartamerica.com
stout northern red oak
will seal its old wounds
overgrowing the pain
reaching confident into
the face of new storms
understanding the
intimate gist of survival
the alternate beauty
of scarred-over age
the sheer sense of cert
as it surges from roots
standing into the danger
a casualty naked and
altered by time ready
willing and nonetheless
able to withstand the
onslaught of seasons
to come bearing nothing
of malice toward weather
and wind who will merely
attack in accord with
their own violent nature
stout northern red oak
old men of the forest
regret their lost limbs
but not so the girth of
their years or the loft
of their ego grown tall
in their consciousness
knowing those injuries
come through their time
and travails made them
stronger than ever
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.”
– Ernest Hemingway
Poesy plus Polemics 