Weathered
Soft and slow sunrise
layering color and texture
on a cloudy parfait horizon
topped with one moon berry.
I woke up with a longing for
and the memory of
a less crowded planet.
Are these gathered clouds
considering an afternoon storm
before surrendering the sky?
Once, I could roam for days
on the backroads and trails of the Southwest
without a human encounter.
This morning's magnificence
retains its potency even while fading
into muted daylight.
My restlessness back then
an urge to move
as much fleeing as seeking.
No telling what coming weather will bring
nor who is influencing whom
from above or below.
In less than one lifetime
everything so utterly altered
and the only promise:
there will always be mourning,
and glory, somewhere.
I once wrote about a quick and sure voice in my head I've come to trust and how I didn't really know whose interest it served. But, it pointed me in a direction, decisively, and not knowing any better, I'd go. I guess nothing bad has happened to me when following it so I've continued to do so. Truth be told, all that I have called serendipity has come when on the path dictated by that inner voice.
In case you're curious, there was no conversation. It mainly signaled "yes" or "no". Sometimes not even that — only a nod towards one way or another. I believe it has even accompanied and steered me in the kitchen, freeing me from the need for recipes or even a plan. It just picked out a precise amount of whatever is available and combined, prepared, and presented (so far) more than tolerable results.
Funny, I've never been able to tell what gender or age was revealed in this voice.
"How long have you been there?" I've asked.
I've never heard a reply, but I suspect the answer is "Always". Only I wasn't always listening, or if I was, didn't want to share any credit for those few really good choices. Of course, I also had no one to blame for my poor ones.
However, lately, I'm not only having a hard time concentrating on what I set out to do, I'm hearing voices telling me what to write! It happened just the other day when I distinctly heard "D'jeet" nudging me to a lost memory. And, I swear, it was a woman's actual voice!
To be honest, the morning when I almost locked Susan out in the yard, my initial thought was it was my own intuition that made me double-check the lock, but I think it was something else. I know some people believe in guardian angels and such, but I don't. I've always thought it was a maturation process about learning to discern which intuitions to trust and which to ignore. There are certainly loud and insistent voices out there easier to hear, but when one watches for what allows the flowers within to quietly blossom that is the sound of what to follow. Or, at least, that is what I've always thought. Now I'm wondering if I'm being influenced by something outside of myself. Or, is it in me? Do I need to call someone about this? Ghostbusters?
Spell Check Booby Trap
If words could change a thing,
would they not have already?
Oh, I know: "In the beginning was the word"
but ever since that first Tower of Babel
what is spoken mostly reveals how we're broken.
And yet things do change
relentlessly so.
What urgings, not from words,
guide our days?
I have worried a problem for months,
even years, digging for solutions
eventually found.
Grateful, there was always a way.
Sure, some intuition or intelligence
certainly served, but without the beast
of persistence, what purchase had they?
Shovel, muscle, and grit
often decided it.
Yet, still I toil with language
as if one day I might get it right,
as if I might stumble upon that word
that started it all
In an endless creation
with everything already said
everything already in motion
what is possibly needed from me
other than my love and devotion?
(*I write in verse sometimes to both discover and express the truth in a feeling too complicated to explain in other ways. I'm not always successful, but these poems carry much of what I want to say without bludgeoning a reader with long pedantic essay. I suspect these poems are no more convincing than my narrative, but I get pleasure from them. And, with me writing without the guidance from a publisher or an editor, they keep the word count from burgeoning out of control. I know, some readers skip right over them.)
(**That last poem did not answer my questions, but it reminded me of how things can work out, or how secrets and mysteries are eventually revealed.)
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