from Voca Me (4)

  * * *

“I hear a recurring note’s trace

  upon the air, but can’t for long

hold that sound as I race

  to catch up with the song.”

“It is eternal no.  The no

  is eliminated, so . . . 

and we are only yes.  I know

  this this.  Is this this also?”

“Today, the swaying tree made

  the wind make birds fly, swell

hearts, and songs of rejoicing fade.

  When it stopped, the birds fell.”

“If the combining of will and decision

  is the valence of faith—the choices

of the past acting upon one’s vision

  of the future—what are these voices?”

“I stood alone in a field of snow

  and watched a tree shatter the sun.

A voice said, ‘This is all you know—

  a dream and its interpretation.’”

“Sedated on the operating table,

  I ceased to be, or to be to be.

Duration after death is a fable,

  I later reasoned.”  “But is eternity

time?  We think it with our eyes.

  You did awaken after all.

What, moveless, countless, lies

  beyond the clockworks of your soul?”

  * * *

“There is a charm in the taste of tea,

  which makes it seem an ideal form,

that in repetition reveals the

  charm of tea to be the taste of form.”

“Every day I tried to find

  one thing through which spirit

that was my heart or god or mind

  could speak and make me quiet.”

“Welcome, Blossom.  Pink petals—

  pale, pale—white, shrivel

around your spent stigma, settle

  into earth without a shovel.”

“Continuum is continuum—

  at each vanishing point exist

space thought time vacuum

  exhaled upon a single axis.”

“The sun a rock among the canyon

  faces, rapids deafening quiet;

tracklessly, I wade.  The hidden

  shadow trembles.  Swifts riot.”

“The breath left my body for the clock

  and held it stopped.  When wind and rust

dissolved the clock . . . and our deadlock,

  my breath inhaled the air and dust.”

“Sunshine floods the room and red

   birds flash across the window frame.

There is no ease in joy.  The dead

  relax.  The mind dances like flame.”

Note: This is two self-contained sections

from my long poem Voca Me (latin for "call me").

It is one of my "voices poems," in which

each stanza is spoken by a different

voice. More sections to follow.

Villanelle

The moment passed and I forget

The reason why or what I meant

In the exact instant I let

It go like a blank letter sent

To someone I don’t remember.

Even Now is an old event,

Both a flaming and an ember.

To hold, even touch, is to burn

Like September in December.

It takes but a second to learn,

What no-one else will ever know,

That all I am will soon return

If I stand not still but think slow,

Say nothing, and as if asleep,

Allow myself to come and go.

Instead, I cannot help but leap

Ahead to what’s to come and let

My self reach for what it can’t keep,

Moments I already forget.