Momentum in the Surrendering

If the essence of travel

is like a bottle

on the floor of a moving bus,

it can encapsulate

a momentum in the surrendering,

how every curve in the road

repositions its

temporary home.

With the imagination as a source

and destinations unknown,

there’s a pause over a glassy surface

like the reflection of pines

from a chair on an empty pier.

See them penitent in this light,

pressed against the sky

and in crystalized moments

the breaks in the clouds

 fall back into place

on glacial lakes.

There are simple rituals of control

in a fractured life,

the boiling kettle

that begets tea

in a green leafed kitchen,

Tai Chi that steeps the internal

in a laundry beneath

the backdrop of mountains.

There is something sublime in

running of hands

over ridgelines and the curves

that follow the currents

of continuous movement.

Like the trains

who by track and tunnel

deconstruct images

that huddle beneath passion, variety.

Through these windows

the inevitable takes shape

and life gives it strength

by the knowledge of the end of the line.

A momentum in the surrendering,

the landscape’s haphazard design.

From a veil of dark,

from whatever meaning

can be divined

from memory’s spark

in a field of fog,

the commingling of shades,

journals and coffee stains,

the night blending into day.

Along these borders,

dreams and swollen rivers

a life blood is

sourced from a common ancestor,

the past is only passing through.

Adapting but never arriving,

embracing but never evading

the ever-present chaos

sewn into the stitches

of a fabric unraveling.

This rite of passage,

the unfinished fragments

of letters and old poems

from a life mostly forgotten,

is shown to have its own momentum

not in the surrendering

but in seizing the moment.

Songbird

What is the measure of mortality

dangling on the end of a string

that hangs in the wind

against the weight of the sky’s

great nothing?

Is it listening for the sound of a songbird

echoing

in the dark and ever so faint?

Like a streak of light,

elusive, stranded

a lock of hair

standing out to show its age

a white bird buoyant

against the expanse of mountains

no longer caged by time.

You can imagine

spirits assembled around

the sunset statues of capital,

wings illuminated,

the waning light

unfurled like a cloth

coiling through banyans,

canopied in song

rooted, acoustic

this world a vibration

descending below

the horizon

like the moon and its ritual glow

I mistook for windows

when obscured by buildings.

I went to open the curtains

of my eyes

to let the sky in

to let a songbird fly out

before vanishing into thin air.

Everything fades

like a dream into the consciously aware,

these luminaries that pass before us,

the moon, the waiting clouds

what can be measured

by the light that is left behind?

An Expectant Exile

An expectant exile

in circular patterns,

a clasp in the necklace

fastened by chance and distance.

What is left unfinished,

an art that is never completed

in the endless reel

of this motion.

The tide receding

the stars fleeting,

pinned like sea salt

on the slick surfaces of sky .

The expectant exile,

journals in the blanks

left on the trail.

Words weathered,

soaked through with rain,

the wind turned pages

in the book of changes.

A deep ancestral resonance,

chanted into the grooves

and in mountains

a distant profile

textured in stone.

Sunrise over Ka Iwi

the coast of bones.

Black are the remains

of an ancient flow,

like charcoaled veins

for a jagged running

narrative to time.

These silent sentinels

revealed in first light

at the border between worlds.

The edge of the sea was

an armor over the distant glimmer

perceived from the ridgeline,

a single drop in the universe

to nourish the thirst

for horizons.

The expectant exile

of sturdy trees felled

from far away forests.

The storms turned to driftwood,

made errant to currents,

to wash ashore

on far away beaches

with the lullaby of soft violence

that shapes these expressions.

Gods carved in effigy,

their likeness

carried off to war

or kept at temple entrances

to ward off the restless,

even harbor those protective

in places of refuge.

Shifting seasons,

Ua Koko,

the heavy rain

brings blood in

the tragedy of rivers.

Their curving knives

down clay hillsides

filling artesian springs

with an ecstasy

that sings through the rock

of expectant exile,

when clear waters are expelled

into the brackish grasp

of the unknown

who cast it adrift

to begin again.

The Color that knows no Border

The essence of travel,

like a luminous thread

in the recesses of memory,

unravels again

after years of neglect,

for it has not faded.

Its radiant color knows no border

in the confines of categories

or in the dark closets

conveniently tucked away

with letters and photos from a parallel life.

 

There is wind behind the doors you would pry

the sudden brush burnt scent

of foreign fields and infinite sky.

The rush is immediate

and time is flipped on its side.

All your notes on motion scatter

like prisms of decisions,

east or west?

Best the flicker of inspiration

that always leans towards the far flung places.

 

Once that tide turned,

all that was constrained

is drawn out by the moon,

a cool depository of longing,

leading the retreat

into phases of falling.

The life left behind

each night is deconstructed

and getting further away.

The illusion of brightness

only highlights the reality of distance,

for change was continuous

and none could get too close

to whatever we were seeking.

 

The boundless wind makes haste on the ocean

initiating waves

like raised lines from the empty page

distorted by fingers

that try to tighten and contain

belief that there is form to disorder,

something to be worn of the unseen,

draped  like an ancient sweater

over the shoulders of the highway

that runs unencumbered on the periphery.

It sounds like surf next to the machinery,

a tempting break in the repetition.

So you’ll make an abrupt transition

towards the outskirts of that city

and the wilderness that runs the length of the past.

 

The parkway is traversed by twisting two lane,

stark against the season’s shift to amber,

I think it was September

when the sudden flare paints a forgotten corner

of what you’d remember,

forming the backdrop of further forays

into conscious embrace

of the unknown all around you.

The slow burning blue ridge

turning with every corner,

like the foliage,

we’ll make our way south

towards that place in the past

longing for renewal.

These cycles in the essence of travel,

infinite, immutable,

where one color ends another will begin.

With the Deep, an Alchemy

There’s an alchemy

between what you relieve

and the unknown that receives.

Seek to see (sea) what would symbolize,

pools from wet feet

mythologize the deep

with careless streams seeking re-entry.

Gazing out

the Moks were still as sentries (centuries)

sphinx-like and stark against the sky,

crouching tigers

protecting what they would harbor,

all the dark secrets

weaved into a carpet of moon

bejeweled

the light that levitates

imbues the surface with significance.

The night,

through drunken illumination,

reveals its spirit through creation.

Patient waves of inhalation

break eternity against rock walls

briefly revealing

the watchful pause (paws)

submerged entirely.

Let it slip to the coral bottom

like loose fitting rings,

the fleeting moments

sucked into a shadow,

released through blow hole mist.

Recover a Grecian urn

of all that is often missed

in the passage of time.

Through inspiration

construct this edifice to the sea,

something impermanent

something enshrined

while currents in a turbulent boil

sweep all that storms relieve

into the alchemy of the deep.

Waving Idly From Afar

Like the wind

I work my way through the tall grass of the crater.

A place of rare emergence, it is named for ‘ihi ihilauakea’

who between drought and flood

sleeps under the hardened mud

and in the languid shade

dreams are draped like a clover lei

in this dry and wordless place.

The thorny brush scrapes the canvass,

its rhythmic sway

is the sea that lifts a finger

to paint and texture the horizon far away.

Like the path

I am worn by generations of footsteps.

Boots dusty from the factory

contrasting starkly

with the starched white wedding tunic

fitting like a luminous shell

dropped from  greater heights

to speak of sacrifice

and the miracle of being alive,

within the crevices of myriad choice,

a clinging crustacean

against the immensity of waves

drowning out the tiny voice.

Words were meant to be an offering

but the sky makes short work of my ambition

as spray begets beads on lava rock,

more sweat is necessary.

I lift my eyes to read

the careless cursive in a pattern of birds.

Cryptic signs from those lost at sea

come to me at dawn.

My makeshift empathy

is tattered by the wind

but still waving a thin, forgotten banner

faded with time.

Best to replace messages with rhyme

flagpoles with fishing line,

to see what can be drawn from the deep

instead of waving idly from afar.

I couldn’t claim any of this as my own,

elusive silhouette against the sky,

paper cutout to the hillside,

raised shade in the veil of clouds

just passing by.

I did not obstruct the wind

but lent an animated note

to its continuous hymn.

I did not construct the unknown

but bent my craft to its every whim

before letting go.

Clear Isle

For those who the beacon was a beginning,
coffin ship sailors,
for many it was simultaneously an end.
You’ll have to decide
letting the unseen guide
and manage the rest.
Even amidst the trials of travel
one is blessed.
With wind in the hood
and rain dripping from a pack,
pause in your tracks
above coves and inlets
and behold this wayward stroke,
the road making its way
through a grove of spring gold,
this draft of the unknown
is told to the sea
rippling below Baltimore
where thoughts foam
where momentum of will
can roam all the way to Clear Isle,
where not much is said
between the whisper of wind in the grass
and the hush of the calm sea
beneath the tranquility of its landscape.
Distraction seems shaved from shear cliffs.
The spirit remains to walk bends in the high pastureland,
known to the sheep and their wizened expressions
of pastoral eloquence,
the quiet, immediate to access,
to ask “Have we changed or receded backwards?”
Towards this backwoods in time.
Time, that stood still as a Yew tree
the steady boughs
through which the wind at night manifests itself in howls,
where nothing determines or obstructs
the land from the sea,
where the Fastnet Beacon decrees its light
to flash across the sky in illuminated intervals
like lightning enlightening utter darkness with caresses,
furtive expressions of something haunted and otherworldly.

Clear is an island of amorphous green,
seeming to punctuate the extremes,
thatched stone and endless sky,
scenes to include the migratory
who thrive along edges,
beyond walls and expectations
we anticipate crossroads and come and go.
The essence of our nature is continuous, eternal,
but parallel paths seem choked with doubt,
muddled by pursuit
of power and influence,
it is a river running red until drought,
it is the ego’s omnipresence fed the marrow of dreams,
its shadow is larger than it seems,
constructing its fascade,
wall by wall,
we’ll rebuild it,
brick by brick
after every fall,
nothing remains permanently
whether completed
all will dissolve,
all is cleared here,
in the wake of impermanence and dissolution,
I cast a clear eye on Clear Isle.

The Old Pali Road Part 2

The Liminal Veil
The Old Pali is spread liminally
throughout the pages
of some great mystery.
Like a cave comes the curve of the next corner.
The drive of curiosity,
the momentum, the velocity
of feet, wheels and thoughts
careening to a motion of their own.
Pulled into wind-blown trees
to greet the unseen,
to embrace this draw,
the magnetic motioning claw of the unknown.
Down its throat you’ll go alone,
with raised skin
with a sensation
that cannot be confined
to the comfortable coffins of reason.
Expanding belief, this brief revealing,
another bend, another curve,
the suggestion of a fantastic swerve
through the imagination.
There’s a collective remorse that spews forth from the Pali,
the aftermath of a skewed course
witnessed in the charred remains
pinned to the trunks of trees.
The paranormal silhouette of shadows
and banyans that strangle out the sunlight,
dripping dappled on the two-lane.
Leaves and ash are dragged by passing cars,
slowing to take in the crash,
gasps the wreckage attracts
to leave tire marks in muddy cul-de sacs
and flowering mementos on makeshift altars.

There’s quiet echoes of something whispering
“Cover me in blacktop, bone and blood”
on the backs of leaves and the bark of trees.
It is full of scars,
the headlights of mangled cars
as  it twists into the dark heart of the island,
layered with violence and trauma.
It is here on the Old Pali,
left between night and morning,
that hairpin turns
plunge into oblivion with no warning.
More than simply a road,
there is something left of the jungle
and the invading arbor
as roots and massive trees
break the concrete.
Much relates to the briefly seen,
running riot in the corners of the eyes,
in rear view mirrors the overhanging vines
lingering in light shafts
that illuminate the blacktop
contrast with cool shadows.
The smell of rain and cracked seed,
soiled wetness
sticking to dense barriers of green.
The sound of a stream running somewhere underneath.
The scrape of leaves,
vagrant and small,
led down a wind-blown hall
that speaks of an immeasurable crack
in the high peaks
perceived through breaks in the canopy.
The Old Pali holds all of this mystery.

There’s a fragile wall that withstands the wild.
Along this hairpin border,
civilization loosens its grip year after year.
There’s a veil between the imagination and the material,
labeless, luminous
like a match against the blackness of midnight
and the heaviness that crowds in from all sides.
The lips of the road foaming
at the corners of its mouth after the rain.
The walls are forming letters,
like messages from the dead,
scrawled in moss.
The ominous presence of giant trees
embrace the huddled shapes underneath.
Tears running down trunks
as if the forest was weeping.
Hung up in mist, there’s an infinite sadness
that manifests itself to the sensitive
passing along the road that sorrow built,
passing beneath those peaks and misted quilt,
which is a doorway to the spirit world.

Only a Beginning

Into the Abyss

The sense of loss

pushes in upon the edge of thought

altering the fate of lines,

the rings in a mandala’s design.

How many deaths do we endure

on the way to the center?

How many breaths restore

a sense of balance

for a mind spinning in circles?

Unmoored introspection

glancing out or looking within

whatever the predilection

that distorted image at the end of the portal

completes our reflection.

Thoughts, impressionable words torn from books,

lifted from venerable drawers in the earth,

bloodied, soiled, pulled from the root,

hung on the walls

like a bouquet of moss

drained of all hope,

memories, frail flowers

gone up in smoke.

 

The loss of a child invokes the deepest sympathy

but a choice of words cannot encompass its totality.

They cannot net, comfort nor comprehend

for no one will experience an end in the same way.

Words out of scope to its scale

varied is the infinite it will veil

in those living to one day embrace

a fragmentary trace of its meaning.

Words won’t be there to buffer the shockwaves

they cannot fill the emptiness

of standing over their graves

no word can capture the feeling

of glass wounds from a shattered ceiling

that transparant canopy of innocence

falling in shards

safety’s a house of cards

once sturdy as stone

now crumbling into sand

washing into the unknown.

 

Loss brings with it a sense of permenance.

No purpose to positively identify

what’s in passing.

Recurring states of arrival and departure

where endings become beginnings.

Between them we’ll suffer our goodbyes

tested by all we’ll leave behind

longing for one firm memory of cohesion

to secure as an anchor

in this turbulent harbor.

 

The shadow of loss creeps up behind

to follow at your heel.

Dodge the knowledge if you must

but inevitably it will reveal,

while it overtakes you,

 a mark on your life’s canvass

 a subtle residue in the lines

of your most guarded expressions.

The scent of loss in the clothes of closure

for the mother of the disappeared

only will cry when she’s alone.

Carefully tending to what she can control

planting a garden over the now gaping hole.

Scratch the surface to see the scars

the aftermath of fire, the runaway cars,

the silence of a vacant road

her baby discarded and unclothed.

Carefully examine her eyes

to find sharp inquiries

into all the questions “why?’

Why me indeed

dropped in deep pools of sorrow

deep pools from heavy rain

to gaze into her pain

and find your reflection.

She’s a precious flower of deception

facing sunsets, appearing strong

but frozen this flower

enduring the greying winter long

accepting change

as another season falls away

pictures fade and family portraits crack

enduring love fills the space

holding up what it lacks.

Holding on for so long

without letting go,

all the pain dissolves into itself

from the night she received the news

by word of mouth

that the light in her life

has suddenly blown out.

A once sound haven

now full of decay

 a harsh wind stirred up the surface

carrying the precious particles away

like a sudden impact

in the loose sea floor sand

everything swirling in the current

being carried further and further from land.

 

The setting sun meets the sea

giving up its deep

the sorrow from all the rivers we’ll weep.

Thoughts travelling through the tunnel into the abyss at night

reaching nothing but a terrifying insight

that the longer we live, the more we’ve lost.

We can hold a currency of words

but what does loss cost?

In terms of sadness?

Grief prayed into a cross?

Those left in the dark

long for the sun to come up again

to know somehow as they are bending

 upon the edge of night

that it isn’t an ending

but only a beginning.