IN MEMORIAM 2000
[to those who have passed]
[to those who have passed]
Remnants
March / 2020
Any flower will do
It opens its delicate petals to the light, the warmth
It stands tall in the center of the chaos
That nature seems
The trees, stones, shrubs, and bony charred remnants Of fires past, mingle
Water, from inside the earth, falls
Moves, by gravity, down to the river far below
A snake, the river moves through the canyon
The curving flight of the Phoenix
A million years of time within an infinite expansion
A reflection of beauty, evolving in space
Metaphysics- back to the questions
Was I, before my birth, coming back to life
And away from death?
Is death oblivion?
Is it a metamorphosis?
Death is life
And life is death
Below
March / 2020
Near the top, along Angeles Crest
Before Chilao, at Charlton Flats
Below the tall pines, a walk
Before the snow
Past a small but fast stream
And Kathleen, with the wolf flute
Echoing in the air, fresh, haunting
Below, the Coronavirus creeps
Stalking everyone
Who comes within its path
Up here all is empty
And filled with life and death
The snow comes slowly, at an angle
Flakes
Frozen tears of light
Charred trees as a backdrop
The two of us, like characters in an Antonioni film
Could vanish
And walk into another light
Or be given the time To touch the rain
In the here
In the now
Rain
April / 2020
The bamboo, the Gingko, the oaks
Their green, a new shade
Wet and soaked
Drenched and smiling for it
That’s what rain does in April
Despite the Beast, the virus, the pain
And the deaths
Spring is springing
The rhythm is in the rain
Hidden roots, nourished
Seeds finding the light
Pass the threshold of Earth’s surface
The dead now depart
Invisible passages
From distant shores
Lead to the fields of Elysium
Beyond the River Styx
Afar
Plaintive melodies
Sound
Seven notes embedded
In the rain
For all who have left
Weave through the Milky Way
Pure light and sound
The rain whispers
Vida breve
And all is renewed
Owls
April / 2020
The owls haunting language
At 3 AM
The hawk, midday
Swoops, takes a low flight
Through the trees
The heat dries the throat
Death sits by the gate
A blood red stone head
Waits for a pulse
And through the trees
Clouds form
Out through the window
A hummingbird sits on her nest
Ten years returning
The power of memory and genetics
Through the trees
The winds flow
The sculptures, stone and wood
From original seeds
Stand their ground
A pulse is ringing
A high pitched drone
Hovers into the night
So many remains have been cremated
So many lives erased
The river Styx cannot be crossed
Until crossed
The Elysian Fields seem light years away
For now
The Gathering Crows
May / 2020
They sit high above
In the gnarly treetop
In the deadwood zone
The chatter is intense
Dark silhouettes at odd angles
Gliding to their destinations
Of the Corvidae family
They cluster together
Episodic remembrances, timely
Recollections, of moments past
Bring them to hover
Above the random violence and chaos
That men exhibit
With blackened capes, the women
Flee beneath the trees
Running to their destinations
The Human family
Scatters
Awaits
A coronavirus hell
As the sunset burns
Amazing colors
Blot out the sky
Above the clouds, they wait
Demented victims
In search of a lost horizon
On a journey, to find
The beginning
The gathering crows
Glide to their destinations
Land in a darkened oak
And perch
Trees, an epitaph
June / 2020
Some easily outlast us
Oaks go for hundreds of years
They are so patient, strong
And quiet
We, so fragile
A minuscule virus
Can do us in
Trees give us so much
Shade, oxygen
Are enough
But also calm, beauty
Majesty, wonder
Trees
They come in such varieties
We do too
I wouldn’t mind being one
(Peneus once turned Daphne, his daughter
Into a Laurel tree, in order to escape Apollo’s advances)
The tree was later carved into a lute
Robinson Jeffers, the poet
Once said
That after death you could find him
Deep within the stones
You’ll find me
High up in a tree
A good place to be
Remnants
March / 2020
Any flower will do
It opens its delicate petals to the light, the warmth
It stands tall in the center of the chaos
That nature seems
The trees, stones, shrubs, and bony charred remnants Of fires past, mingle
Water, from inside the earth, falls
Moves, by gravity, down to the river far below
A snake, the river moves through the canyon
The curving flight of the Phoenix
A million years of time within an infinite expansion
A reflection of beauty, evolving in space
Metaphysics- back to the questions
Was I, before my birth, coming back to life
And away from death?
Is death oblivion?
Is it a metamorphosis?
Death is life
And life is death
Below
March / 2020
Near the top, along Angeles Crest
Before Chilao, at Charlton Flats
Below the tall pines, a walk
Before the snow
Past a small but fast stream
And Kathleen, with the wolf flute
Echoing in the air, fresh, haunting
Below, the Coronavirus creeps
Stalking everyone
Who comes within its path
Up here all is empty
And filled with life and death
The snow comes slowly, at an angle
Flakes
Frozen tears of light
Charred trees as a backdrop
The two of us, like characters in an Antonioni film
Could vanish
And walk into another light
Or be given the time To touch the rain
In the here
In the now
Rain
April / 2020
The bamboo, the Gingko, the oaks
Their green, a new shade
Wet and soaked
Drenched and smiling for it
That’s what rain does in April
Despite the Beast, the virus, the pain
And the deaths
Spring is springing
The rhythm is in the rain
Hidden roots, nourished
Seeds finding the light
Pass the threshold of Earth’s surface
The dead now depart
Invisible passages
From distant shores
Lead to the fields of Elysium
Beyond the River Styx
Afar
Plaintive melodies
Sound
Seven notes embedded
In the rain
For all who have left
Weave through the Milky Way
Pure light and sound
The rain whispers
Vida breve
And all is renewed
Owls
April / 2020
The owls haunting language
At 3 AM
The hawk, midday
Swoops, takes a low flight
Through the trees
The heat dries the throat
Death sits by the gate
A blood red stone head
Waits for a pulse
And through the trees
Clouds form
Out through the window
A hummingbird sits on her nest
Ten years returning
The power of memory and genetics
Through the trees
The winds flow
The sculptures, stone and wood
From original seeds
Stand their ground
A pulse is ringing
A high pitched drone
Hovers into the night
So many remains have been cremated
So many lives erased
The river Styx cannot be crossed
Until crossed
The Elysian Fields seem light years away
For now
The Gathering Crows
May / 2020
They sit high above
In the gnarly treetop
In the deadwood zone
The chatter is intense
Dark silhouettes at odd angles
Gliding to their destinations
Of the Corvidae family
They cluster together
Episodic remembrances, timely
Recollections, of moments past
Bring them to hover
Above the random violence and chaos
That men exhibit
With blackened capes, the women
Flee beneath the trees
Running to their destinations
The Human family
Scatters
Awaits
A coronavirus hell
As the sunset burns
Amazing colors
Blot out the sky
Above the clouds, they wait
Demented victims
In search of a lost horizon
On a journey, to find
The beginning
The gathering crows
Glide to their destinations
Land in a darkened oak
And perch
Trees, an epitaph
June / 2020
Some easily outlast us
Oaks go for hundreds of years
They are so patient, strong
And quiet
We, so fragile
A minuscule virus
Can do us in
Trees give us so much
Shade, oxygen
Are enough
But also calm, beauty
Majesty, wonder
Trees
They come in such varieties
We do too
I wouldn’t mind being one
(Peneus once turned Daphne, his daughter
Into a Laurel tree, in order to escape Apollo’s advances)
The tree was later carved into a lute
Robinson Jeffers, the poet
Once said
That after death you could find him
Deep within the stones
You’ll find me
High up in a tree
A good place to be