Songs and silence

Even in the town

from dusty eaves, beauty falls,

blackbird sings his song.

 

On strung wires of sound,

vibrating ugliness strums,

river flows silent.

 

Mild spring air invites,

spirits rise, floating on noise,

some peace falls—a rose.

Star soars

The oracle promises good things for this morning. I mustn’t miss any of it.

 

Star soars,

River runs

Out of the sacred night,

Telling love songs

To this quiet morning.

 

Songs

Once I bowed my head with all the rest

Breathed in the scent of incense by the candles’ flickering flame

Fearing death almost as much as I feared life.

Now I raise my face to the rising and the setting sun

And wonder at the silver light of the moon

And how it soothes the ugliness out of every scar.

Instead of tuneless soulless words

Chanted beneath a sky purged of mystery and the deep unknown

I let my soul soar on the wings of the blackbird’s song

Into the morning where every hue of feather and petal and leaf is born.

And when it is time for night to fall

I will fade into the soft darkness between the stars

With the song of the blackbird rippling in my ears.

Cloud ships

I’ve written a number of short poems these last few days—mainly about clouds and blackbirds. Here’s one of them.

Through the morning sky
They sail
The thick pearl clouds
With their cargo of rain
To loose in showers
On the thirsty earth.
And as they row
Across the sky’s blue depths
They sing of glassy waves
Deep sea caves
And jagged, gull-wreathed rocks
In the booming voices
Of ocean mariners.