Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Along the Way


Parrot in the jungles of Honduras, shot with a 300mm telephoto lens.

Awakening on the branch of a tree
A huge forest surrounds all things
Ancient; based on size, breadth, and smell
Moist and dark, a penetrating aroma of antiquity is about
Existence is lost, sheltered from time
Passing moments slowly sprout into awareness.

Understanding and comprehension are held like a dark secret
Every door opened, exposes yet another door
All seeming the same in the end, back to the beginning
A maze eternally cursed to traveling, lost roads
But how can this forest exist within a desert?
It’s been so very long since water was tasted.

Washing the dead of winter into the new hope of life
While quenching knowledge that doesn’t exist
Like a river of insight, flowing
Into a giant lake of promise and ascension
Living for this dream and searching for this water
From a promise made long, long ago.

Occasionally other creatures are encountered
Crawling from branch to branch
Hovering like some life spirits, in principle
Closed and contained in hollow, guarded shells
Somehow pretending familiarity, yet hidden nonetheless
Evolving from unsolved riddles.

From slow vibrations to perceived movement
Almost life like, straining to emerge
Yet not sure of what’s ahead
With cracking and tearing, it happens!
This shell of gestation rips into reality
As the metamorphosis completes.

In one maddening moment, from the mind of the chrysalis
After all these years of soul searching silence.
A butterfly emerges and says, “I used to be just like you”
Pausing confusion ensues, and then
For a moment, locking minds merge as one
Exposing the process and its purposeful end.

A journey steeped in evolution, from eons unfolds
Infinity experienced within the breadth of a second.
Just as a thousand questions come to mind
Within the grasp of reality and juxtaposition
The butterfly takes flight and is quietly gone.
Will I pass another along the way?



OSI #127: Cocoon

This is my 100th post on OSI. Thank you all!

Friday, July 23, 2010

Azzura


A late afternoon view from Pudong across the river to Shanghai.


Standing on a street corner
Almost anywhere
Nighttime is drifting in
Like a dusty curtain closing

In a dark and dirty
Sometimes, lonely place
A shopping cart hurries by
With cardboard pushing it nowhere

It’s a faceless existence
Still baking on a hot sidewalk
Next to a glazed commuter
Lost in the digital world

This time of day, exudes a feeling
Wrapped in lonesome sounds
Like a cab horn in the distance
Calling to the steam rising from the curb

From a street side venue
The delivery truck chugs along
Making its last rounds of the day
Mixed within those noises

As a part of daily existence
It seems like a foreign land
From the quiet introspection
Of the countryside, just down the way

From the shadowy smokestacks
Comes a pulsing self-awareness
Deep within the primordial ooze
That made us who we are

I climb out, dripping wet
Feeling and wanting more
How did I get here?
What should I do?

Above the noise and fray
A subtle voice is calling.
There’s an angel in my pocket
Speaking in the tongues of living

Get right with the world, she says
Do something
Make it a better place
Stepping through the subway door

Within a crowding presence entered
I head home once again
Embracing the nightly news
Awaking from my dream.



OSI#126: Angel

Friday, July 16, 2010

Spinning


Quiet thoughts for a friend


Lost in the sky
The clouds roll by
I think about what is not
With an arrow shot into life
Toward a target; what might be

And I roll within them
Quiver in hand
Bow cocked
Pointed toward, pieces of reason
And the seasons that rise and fall

The world is spinning around me
I can’t latch on
The world is spinning around me
I’m all but gone
And I hear you calling

I watch the sparrow fly
With a gentle feeling grown
If not today, then tomorrow
Or maybe yet another day
While inside, in silence I moan

But what about now?
Taking control of tomorrow
Arms flapping within conviction
Have faith my sister, never waning
I know your strength’s within you

Don’t let the sparrow fall
Give meaning to it all
If not today, then soon
Or maybe yet another day
For it’s still not too late

Many moments may pass
For my sister to understand
And for sure that she loves him
But can he understand?
Another rustled page turns

A sad truth comes to pass
Because you think and make it real
A life contains a future
Every breath you take inside
Leaves one less until the end

The weight is pulling you under
Under this great weight
All you feel is sorrow
And everything I feel, right now
Is sadness for you

And life is like a melody
Within a book that can’t be read
I know the answer is within you
Though I am lost in the first words
So write another chapter upon the staff

The path is clear to enter
Yet no one finds the key
If only I had mentioned
Remembering, I’m just me
As dust fills my eyes

And from the heart
Knowing
It’s never too late


OSI#125: Preponderance

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Daybreak





The day breaks, the breeze comes up
I think I hear you calling on the wind
My heart soars with thoughts of you
A silken moment, carefully lined again

There’s a fragrance in the air
The pungent odor of the morning tide
Like an intimate memory lingering
Summer’s intoxicating reminder, inside

A written message you’ve left within me
A floating bottle on relentless shores
A dawn in every darkness rises
Like a house with many unopened doors

Only you hold the hidden key
Reaching inward, the locks set aside
To free my spirit within this wind
Floating together, where desire resides

Earth and sky depart, then intertwine
Consuming thoughts emerge anew
Other hearts in the other skies are beating
But not as strong as mine, for you


Dans tes bras c'est mon destin



OSI#124: Overt

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Passage


Cades Cove, Smokey Mountains, Tennessee, USA


Pathways into blue skies
Beckon unknown destinations
Memories guide the journey
Like a soft, heartfelt melody
Within a brown-green ribbon
Touching the ground

Emotions given freely
From the heart also travel
Flowing between us
From loves tethered bond
Binding our journey
Within the forest of life

There’s a path that’s taken
A fork speaks in riddles
As divergence from clarity
Staring toward the future
Indecision seems to languish
On anxious tiptoes

Into the fading distance
The choice that’s made
And the path less traveled.
The assurance of what is
Surrounding an unknown embrace
The doubts of what could have been


OSI#123: Roads