couple poems for the weekend
gus stills
Posts: 367
Under the gaze of an open sky
(empty and falling fast)
a tree leans in the wind with a sigh
and one walks, hands buried in pockets
eyes down and breath billowing
thinking of metaphors and loss
(and somewhere elliot smith sings)
one walks, shoes worn and socks unmatched
over a sidewalk bowed and cracked
whistling with the weight of it all
(a weight which won't fold,
which won't fly in the wind)
one walks without hurry
and knows he could crack
(under the force of a windblown feather)
and shatter into asundered bits of grief
which won't hold, which will come
(together again, whole and warm)
with another footfall, another step
beneath the flat sky, the leaveless trees
(and the last wilting note of a mournful song)
babel was everything mixed and mashed
and stacked high for the wrong reasons
stretching up and falling down and
misunderstood for all the right reasons
one voice lost in the cluster of a thousand
screaming wails laments whispers and groans
the tragedy of that voice, that one voice
unheard--that voice echoing from the ceiling
of an unfathomable height, that voice the
simple unadorned floor of heaven itself
I need to feel, he said, I need
to feel the current of the earth,
and he went to the mountain in
a pair of jeans and a ripped jacket,
with boots oiled by time and work,
a four-foot walking stick he'd found
floating in a stream and dried by the fire.
I need to see the dawn of the day,
he said, and feel the wind on my face,
and he went and clambered over
granite and scree, and slipped his way
across unmarked spans of ice,
digging his feet in to test each step.
I need to sit in a place with no shade,
he said, and warm a cup of tea,
and he went and made his way aloft,
to the final ridge, and then a steep field
of ancient boulders which seemed dropped
like coins in a brook, and he heard the drip
of a stream high above the world, and
he watched a spider creep over a lava flow.
I need to contemplate the world,
he said, with no distractions,
and he went and sat above the horizon
and the rivers and valleys and the dawn
itself, and watched it breath, and he sipped
a final cup of tea until only the patterns
in the bottom of the cup remained.
(empty and falling fast)
a tree leans in the wind with a sigh
and one walks, hands buried in pockets
eyes down and breath billowing
thinking of metaphors and loss
(and somewhere elliot smith sings)
one walks, shoes worn and socks unmatched
over a sidewalk bowed and cracked
whistling with the weight of it all
(a weight which won't fold,
which won't fly in the wind)
one walks without hurry
and knows he could crack
(under the force of a windblown feather)
and shatter into asundered bits of grief
which won't hold, which will come
(together again, whole and warm)
with another footfall, another step
beneath the flat sky, the leaveless trees
(and the last wilting note of a mournful song)
babel was everything mixed and mashed
and stacked high for the wrong reasons
stretching up and falling down and
misunderstood for all the right reasons
one voice lost in the cluster of a thousand
screaming wails laments whispers and groans
the tragedy of that voice, that one voice
unheard--that voice echoing from the ceiling
of an unfathomable height, that voice the
simple unadorned floor of heaven itself
I need to feel, he said, I need
to feel the current of the earth,
and he went to the mountain in
a pair of jeans and a ripped jacket,
with boots oiled by time and work,
a four-foot walking stick he'd found
floating in a stream and dried by the fire.
I need to see the dawn of the day,
he said, and feel the wind on my face,
and he went and clambered over
granite and scree, and slipped his way
across unmarked spans of ice,
digging his feet in to test each step.
I need to sit in a place with no shade,
he said, and warm a cup of tea,
and he went and made his way aloft,
to the final ridge, and then a steep field
of ancient boulders which seemed dropped
like coins in a brook, and he heard the drip
of a stream high above the world, and
he watched a spider creep over a lava flow.
I need to contemplate the world,
he said, with no distractions,
and he went and sat above the horizon
and the rivers and valleys and the dawn
itself, and watched it breath, and he sipped
a final cup of tea until only the patterns
in the bottom of the cup remained.
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