Atammayata
Birth and death, love and hate, the burnt scent
of cloves on fingers and campfire on jeans,
…..nothing is attached for long.
In the butter-soft leather light of purple fog,
a royal procession of swans announce themselves.
Not made of that, the lake is restless for now.
Sunken Garden
You say my eyes are mesmerizing,
….what do you see when I look through you?
When I penetrate you, unravel you, disrupt your heart with my gaze?
….Oh yes, we are in the weeds now, my friend,
down with the spiders and bees, trying not to get stepped on.
But I’m moving faster than you are, sinking to a place where the weight of the garden
….is too beautiful and heavy and perfect to hold in one place for long.
A Definition of Bliss (for Joseph Campbell)
In this land of a quick and unexpected death,
…..where the air is almost wet enough to drink,
I am merely seeking an experience of being alive,
…..my best and only religion,
the music of tiny, bare footsteps splashing.
A Father’s Love
More coveted than gold
from lead, or wine from milk,
is her belly laugh while chased
across the living room floor.
Even the master alchemists
of Florence could do no better.
Strength
To be believed, they say you must be bruised
or ruptured, vapourized, turned to particles in the smoke,
…..how poison ivy causes the skin to blister.
Have they forgotten so quickly? Before laws and judges,
there was Motherhood, lionesses fighting on the open plains.
In This Time of Survival
Like pickled radishes sealed in mason jars with cloth fabric toppers,
the world will come to need poems,
gently carried in Amish wicker baskets from the root cellar by the toolshed,
brought inside and opened
with that vacuum-pop sound of glass twisted.
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image: George Payne
