#passion #poetry #art #my words #soapbox
She said she hears the night birds call
But when I listened I could not hear them
It was during the last breath of summer
Blowing the first leaves of fall
Tired eyes were looking to the west
Into the setting of the sun
Where withered limbs bare of fruit
Sway in a dry September wind
Forgetful of the spring
Naked she sings in the moonlight
She dances beneath the stars
Even as my heart yearns
Desperate to hear her song
The echo of the night birds
Calling from afar
The sun is setting
Life flows on
The wet air swirls
Between warm rays of sun
Lines of rain begin to fall
Clouded thoughts change
I sit half submersed
Thin sheets of water form
Running rivulets combine
And beneath a translucent cloak
I stay
The sound of the downpour
Drumming across the hollows of my mind
Singular drops form upon chilled flesh
Glitter faintly in the failing light
I sat and watched a red faint wisp darting amongst the garden rose
I had never seen here before such a gallant dragonfly dressed so well in scarlet robes
I wonder what ill omen does he bring
Complacent in my thoughts to leave the decision to chance and eternal spring
For neither death or sickness care
From whence such beauty may have flown
I shall in my innocence not despair
And wait to see what more I may find Here along this gardens path
The Summer rain turns to snow
The sunny sky behind grey clouds hides
Somewhere a flower grows beneath a carpet of white
And all care free emotions smother underneath a mountain of cold
Alice sat distracted. A nuthatch was slowly making its way down the trunk of a nearby sapling. It’s funny head-first hopping reminded her of the her own first moments leaping through worlds. As nauseating an experience it had been, Alice was secretly hoping to get the opportunity to do it again. The only thing that was holding her back was the how and when.
Alice had gathered from the many frequent visits of disembodied voices that the portal from here to there ( where something she never knew) was always opening and closing. To use it, one simply needed to be determined and fully willing to accept the next outcome. The concept of outcome being as close to exactly what the event actually meant.
Alice couldn’t quite understand that piece of information either.
She just took it to mean 1+1=2 but to get to four the possibilities increased as well as the path. Everyone understands 2+2, or 1+1+1+1, or 1+1+2, and even 1+3. But doing the possible backwards or even not at all could cause a bit of stress. 0+4, 5-1, and so on into infinite realms could get a person marooned, even completely gone from before, during, and after. As insane as that sounded, Alice was not yet willing to prove anyone’s theorem’s just yet.
Why did everything have to involve math…
Alice could bring herself to accept that it had only been three days. What she couldn’t believe in was the constant transition of the garden outside.
She vaguely remembered the first time looking out of the window. The season had been late spring. The butterflies and hummingbirds fluttering amongst the many wildflowers and well planted rows of perennials. Annuals like irises taking over where daffodil and hyacinth had earlier flowered but now becoming just green leaves and dying stalks.
With later glances outside, Alice noted the crepe myrtles had begun to bloom with deep purples and reds. Their many branched arms spreading outward casting a welcomed shadow from the hot blazing sun.
And today as she gazed upwards in a daydream daze of building castles in the sky, Alice’s distracted eyes watched as oak and maple leaves began drifting down from leaf clogged gutters. The browned yellows and crimson reds slowly sailing down, down, down carpeting the flower beds.
Alice even noticed amongst the brown blades of overgrown grasses the aster and goldenrod turning to seed. The planting of daylilies she must have confused for irises being nothing but withered yellow and brown mulch piles beside dried stalks of gladiolas.
No. Though she was not a naturalist or expert at gardening, Alice knew the changing seasons without the need of flocking geese or migrant fish swimming up stream. Without a doubt, and without need of the old sage explaining things, Alice knew she was sitting in the middle of 0+1 or something very close to it.
Across the room the sage let out a humourous chortle.
To Alice the old man always seemed to take great interest and enjoyment during her most confused moments. It’s was almost like he knew her mind, and saw all the outcomes before she did, and thought her ignorant.
Leaves fall spiraling dance
Drift alone but in a breeze of chance
Countless colors of yellow and gold
Even the darkest browns becoming bold
The garden rustling with the wonder of where spring fled
Aster and mum sharing their purple and red
Naked and alone in a world grown cold
Where has the buttercup, the iris, and violet gone
Beneath a blanket of earth to sleep as the nights grow long
There is beauty in the dance of the butterfly
An image in contrast to the blue of the sky
Her yellow wings beating out rythm to nature’s song
A peaceful presence helping to move time along
And magically blending the colors to green below
With a pleasant smile I say to her a quick hello
Her time more important than you or I
It does not matter when she makes to me no reply
I’ve been here before. I’ve sat in this dust filled room watching the same spider weaving her web. Sitting slouched with the wait of eternity perched cumbersomely upon my eyelids. Through the haze of blurred vision I have been witness to a life time of war and decay. Still the day is not over.
Time wanders independent of reality. Change only the product of some other force combined, separated, absent.
After all I exist as a simple closed system. Only one has ever been able to open the door or close it when through. The one is, that’s all anyone need know.
You and I live connected. Forever entwined even during the trials where effort is wirepulling or sanguineous. From the salt of the sea, and water of the heavens, you and I are. That’s all eternities secrets told upon a gentle breeze.
Rambling on, two old souls… (Here the sage began singing in his head. A song about fish bowls and endless calendars. – the author)
Invisible hands scrawl out variations of lines. Words both cryptic and plain fill margins and footnote. The simplest thoughts hidden in the most compounding phrase. Only the distracted eye can see clearly the misspelled word while the clearest mind reads on.
I know.
A tale of two, you and I. A circle folding in often looking out. Neither seeing the end nor ever beginning the race. We chase the clouds as a dog chases it’s tail.
A rambling of time ticking out life with everything existing as fundamental interactions balanced upon a needle point tip.
Pat sat patiently in his garden. The watcher was in no hurry to get anywhere.
The soft buzz and fiddle of insects drifted about on the sweet summer air.
There were birds singing and calling back and forth. They too appeared in no hurry to fly off to some distant place.
Here the rose and columbine flowered amongst the ironweed and goldenrod. A clash of season mixed with the pastel colors of the sweet pea vine.
Eden.
Only Adam strolled these garden paths. Lost in wonder. Idling away the moments… (Here again the sages attention drifted of into another song. Something of dull days and thinking that he has something more to say. – the author)
Alice sat perched high upon a stack of books. She had been busy thumbing through a few of the older ones trying to look interested.
Ever so often she felt the need to put the book down and gaze out the one window of the sages library.
It was a beautiful day outside.
Alice had asked the old grumpy man if it would be okay to throw open the glass. With a distracted angry scowl the sage had signalled a stern no.
Alice had went to the window anyhow. After a Herculean effort she had found it impossibly stuck.
The old mage laughed quietly beneath his beard. Since the change of humidity and weather he had been unable to open the window himself. Alice probably would contrive some mystic use of magic to the sage preventing her from doing what he said no too. He laughed again a little louder.
Alice had stalked angrily back to her stack of books. Secretly cursing the old mans powers over nature and time.
With a fish eyed gaze out of the window, and a pleasant tune in his head, the sage went back into his trance. ( It was at this point I, the author, came to the conclusion the sage was going to be absolutely useless today.-the author)
And time flowed on…
The katydid and tree frog chirping out a lullaby
In the shade of the great oaks
The summer sun now just breaking above the distant hills
Filling the air with warmth
A soft breeze moves the green leaves and tall grasses
The passing cooler air drifting down through the hollow
Carrying with it the smell of flowers from beyond sight
Lulling tired old men into a quiet reflection
Silent as a shadow
Breathing in the peace of the world
The mountain folk were a completely different nation unto themselves. They were proof that a drawn line wasn’t what made a mixed group of people into a country. They were proof that it would make them enemies…
The forest underbrush had nearly completely obscured the trail. If not for the occasional bent reed or bare patch amongst the bracken a traveller could easily become lost in the half light of the bottom canopy.
Other than the man made tracks he was leaving behind there appeared no other sign that any other human had passed this way in generations. That was something very disheartening and troubling. The traveller had more than a lifetime of training in tracking and survival. He had even more memories of the countries landscape. Images of before and after floated across his vision, each step made on the internal magnet that could guide a homing pigeon or smart bomb to their final destination without error.
The only problem came with the now. The now could throw a wrench into any plan. The now could be raining or blazing dry, a flooded landscape or a burning forest fire. Only the Author knew for sure what the now would be. It was in that way He made sure the traveller would stay true to the story. At least that’s how everything usually went.
Alice nether knew where she was or when she had been there. The whole tumble from the one next into the other had left her a bit addled and confused. If it wasn’t for the sugary scent of strawberry glaze frosting that was currently drifting about the place Alice probably would have stayed in that kaleidoscope frame of mind for quite some time.
Hunger… Alice was very hungry. The first sounds to reach her ears was the growling of her own stomach. Soon after that conscious thought came the pain of the tight cramping knot of her guts slowly churning. The need to separate reality from delusion was to take second seat for now.
With a quick scan of the room Alice saw that presently no one was there. The rows of shelving and stacks of literature were present. The large ancient writing desk stocked with and ink well and piles of parchment paper was located just how she had seen it. The only thing absent was the box of pastry, the old man, and the ever increasing mess of sprinkles and jam about the floor.
“Damn”, Alice thought. “Missed out and stuck here, where ever here is.”
A almost unheard voice spoke from the dimness of the library. Alice almost mistook it as one of her own thoughts spoken out loud, then as the return of the insanity from the night before. “From where does the strawberry grow? From what does the hunger know?”
“Through what path have you vaulted? For what reasoning has time yet not come?”
Alice felt as if a door had opened and with the fresh in flux of air slammed yet another doorway closed. The sudden shift of pressure bringing a bit of nausea and the threatening kaleidoscope of confusion she had already overcome.
When the room returned to normal Alice noticed a few more lit candles burning, the box of pastry opened and set within arms reach from where she stood. The strange old man was busying himself with an even stranger white container with blue labeling. Without a single gaze back over his shoulder the sage asked,”Glass of lactaid free milk, Honey? I mean Alice… I fear we haven’t any honey at this moment.”
Pat sat once again in his garden. The summer heat had came earlier than expected but not so early that it would ruin the plantings. He’d have to run the drip hose more than usual until everything had set down good root.
The sky was filled with white cotton candy clouds; Each set drifting on a sea of pastel blue.
Many years ago Pat had hung many small wind chimes about the wood that surrounded his home. He had set so many so long ago that the watcher couldn’t remember where they were exactly. All Pat knew was on beautiful days like today the effort had been worth it. The native songbirds with a musical accompaniment by the wind softly off set the rustle of the trees in the cool summer breeze. “I know that reads as a horrible sentence, each word exactly accurate and the moment perfect.”
Pat was for the moment at peace with the world.
False Promises Nouveau 