Wind Chimes

November sidles up in a ghastly affair. Soon all is muddled, missing beneath the misting mornings, a hallowed eve on winter's frostbit hearth with ice crackling as the bones of autumn, and the trees shiver as chimes. The sun's false facade a saccharine sweetness, etching warm memories onto frozen hearts. A ghost town, ghost town, echoes in my head. Ghost town, lights down, I'm going, gone away. Watch ye the birds, veering south it seems. A warning? A mirror of nighttime dreams? None, the difference, between raven and writing desk, as night transcends, descends, and November names them now as one.
What is one day's difference? Dreams demarcate the day, a beautiful boundary. A sky so clear, a miracle blue. Oh, those clever birds, pie-wedged and pointed south. What if I might see everything tween the sky and I? Each molecule drifting, whisked and borne on the breeze; each bacteria and virus, dastardly nomads; each seed and fleck of dust, each blue-winged bird, whirligig pod, scarlet leaf - might I join the sacred dance of sky and sweeping wind?
Where art thee in this hallowed hunt so hollow? Into light all things must fall, glad at last to have fallen. (Jane Kenyon). Chime, chime, gallant graceful hills, trees - a valley sings surprise and beckon. Hither come when lost: grassy knolls and evergreens are ever green against the pumpkin patch palette of undecided deciduous leaves, and silver clouds blanket, the rook of heavens folds its wide wings around this earthly egg.
When weary footsteps plod along alone, unfound, follow these ancient trails, snaking along rivers, against mountains, home is where heart leads.
Who is it who asks me to find language for the sound a sheep's hoof makes when it strikes a stone? (Jane Kenyon)
Time approaches, recedes, with whimsy's grace and no trace of solemnity. Regal pretext, no forbearance accords the king of draining moments, seconds seeping from that shattered hourglass. Alice, dear, what's that you dream? If, when, you descend, clasping at roots and stony outcrops, the rabbit hole, I promise, promise, I'll catch you where you fall.

If one hand by yours be clasped, Father
What then is t'other for?
Breath of fire, cloud by light
Beggar me with brilliance, Lord
Blind me with keen sight
Bless, begin, bestow upon
Break beyond a fight

Juniper Hills and a Sagely Brush

When you build your house on babel, before long, all your friends are gone. And none spoke your language anymore. Then, whether mystery or history come knocking at your door, open. To a world most musical at dusks and dawns, alighting and rising as the butterfly's song. Quick, silver as mercurial pools, your eyes flicker and flit in lovely apprehension. Touch, and you'll ripple the lake-heart of calm, pierce the surface tension. Dainty the dawn, dulcet the dusk, halcyon the heavens between. Patient the whisper, shy as the fawn, the susurrus of wind new life brings.


Driving into the mountains last friday, the sun began to set. The steep cones of central oregon appear as shadow jaws against the horizon, and the ghastly remnants of trees are ashen memories of forest fires, crowding the hills like whispering ghosts, dull-eyed and plaintive. Charcoal lines of distant slopes form a sinister skyline underneath the golden moon, low and heavy over the treetops. The grasping trees stoop over the road, and I feel both protected or assaulted by their leaning limbs.
A chill on the air smells of winter, carrying a biting breathlessness and a hint of juniper, intoxicating as gin on the wind, greeting our entrance into Bend, the high desert.
Where man began and nature ends, I know not. Perhaps man's is a tentative hold on that sagebrush land, rugged lovely standoff against those volcanic sisters whose tempers may erupt on a slight. Patience, I'll linger not long. I'll miss the leaves and trees of my land, though this sweet juice of juniper pacifies my soul and imparts its wisdom - a brush with sage.

Turn my glass soul upside-down, gentle snow comes falling down
a bus, a school, a one house town
a child skips 'long an empty street,
snow builds high around his feet
before a while my crystal soul, is silent
silent
and winter full
place me down and soon I'll be, a dust reminder of frozen things
timeless attic memories, a photo treasure
misplaced mysteries

Season of Senses

Sometimes the senses are strongest in the swinging seasons. When the earth slingshots around and a quickening growth or decline of sunlit hours describes the dreidel wobble of the earth. When the greens grow or crinkle, when rains drizzle down the branches into nutrient-rich earth, as chimneys spew smoke and pines music the air, as dogwoods die in crimson, sugar maples in orange-red, broad-leaf maples into yellow-orange, and japanese maples brush purple, while the larch trees transform into goldenrod yellow, painting the mountainsides in hearth-fire. The noxious fumes of city factories ripen in these seasons, bleeding into the stones beneath our feet.
Already, the morning condensation settles along the windows with an illusory icy sheen. Even as fall slowly settles, a wintry breeze promises cold, and not long waiting.

Which of us, in his ambitious moments, has not dreamed of the miracle of a poetic prose, musical, without rhyme and without rhythm, supple enough and rugged enough to adapt itself to the lyrical impulses of the soul, the undulations of the psyche, the prickings of consciousness?
~Charles Baudelaire

Willingly blinded, I minded not my senses, not my memories: the scented trees, autumn breeze, patterned paintings of passing time.  Beards of fire burden the trees, the pond cries reflected tree tears and broods on blue; a giant fowl sits over the sky, incubating, and its nest of branches and fog is a ghastly ghost nest, fledglings shivering beside fires. Glance away, and I remember not Fall's chai tie and patchy pumpkin sweaters, his shaggy hair and shredded trousers. A slate gatsby hat settles atop his head, and he limps, his disposition darker every day. I recall not, for my perception rests, and wakes only blind, now and again.