Great Ones

Great Ones

There are many great ones on the earth

Not because they are known

Not because they are wealthy

Not because they are influential or powerful

But because they care

Because they love

Because they live life the way a human being lives life

Loving one another

Loving those that cross their paths

Whether that be another person, an animal, or a tree in the forest

These people are the ones that quietly move about

Changing the earth one moment at a time

They are never applauded

They are never written about

Most may be never noticed

But they are seen and known

They are honored and praised

By the lives of all, by the land

Let’s give these folks a hand….

2/23/19

Beautiful

Beautiful

Life is beautiful

Whatsoever is beautiful is life

Transformation is seeing the beautiful

In the mundane

I love eagles soaring

Hawks seeking

Falcons diving

All of these are majestic and powerful

All would agree to their beauty in the skies

Yet today the raven

Drifting in the wind

Falling, dancing, flying

In all of its blackness

In all of its common ways

It is beautiful

I would have missed it if I had been seeking otherwise

The beauty I see, this magnifies

By billions fold

I’m not sure I can handle all of that

And I’m not quite sure I’m supposed to

Life is beautiful.

2/2/19

Hope

Hope

Today I felt the heavy pain of the land

Entire forests burned, charred

Entire mountains with blackened scars

The leaves of the valley oaks dulled orange

Not from autumn skies

But from death

Demise

Destruction

Yet then there is this

An angel in the skies bringing life

Color

Salmon and periwinkle

Coral and slate

Her arms outspread to tell us all

All is not lost

In fact, Nothing is lost

The light shows nothing but goodness

Displaying it clearly

A clarion picture of sweet restoration

Suddenly all the pain turns to hope

Hope lifts up joy

Dancing together to the sounds of new life

The flowers are coming

The forests are coming

The animals are coming

Light and life, they are coming

Nothing can stop their singing, their songs

We have felt the dark stinging of smoke for so long

Yet here we are in the crimsons

The blue

The incredible hue

Of sheer beauty

Everything will be restored

Better, even better than ever before

The songs will always carry over the waters

11/3/18

Daffodil

Daffodil 

I don’t like it when creativity will not come

I sit here staring at a screen

Having thousands of things to say

That all seem to mean nothing at all

I think too much

I wonder what difference will it all make

Unfortunately it seems the answer is always the same

Nothing

But can that be true?
Can a pebble be thrown into the sea

And not a ripple be made?
Can a butterfly flap it’s wings

And it not be felt far, far away?
Or is that even what I am here for anyway

To make some sort of major upheaval

Maybe I am a daffodil

I come forth quietly on the waves of warm sun

I spring forth for a time

I show forth beauty

I cause someone I don’t even know to smile

I’ve fulfilled my worthwhile

Then I go back into the earth to replenish the next

I have touched

I am a part

Of Eternity

2/7/18

Eighteen Theme

I hadn't written any poetry yet for 2018, but today it simply began to flow and I just went with it. I think the theme of 2018 is going to be rest and restoration, and what brings that about is beauty and joy and delight. So, I hope that this piece will get your year started off in a great direction, and may you know all that is good in this upcoming year. :)

Eighteen Theme

I have felt a call from the ancients

To come and see where I came from
To join in and listen to the songs, the prayers

The sayings, the wisdom

Things that were thought long-forgotten

But, no, 

They still live deeply within our very souls

I hear the bass tones, stirring

My heart cries out, “Go there, go there now!”

Of course all the science behind my brow

Just rolls its eyes in a slumber

A slumber induced by the intoxicating opiate

Of pride in the midst of ignorance

I have long since began walking toward the sound

I have just started to place my bare feet upon the ground

So that I can feel the touch of the earth,

The Sea

The Stone

Many would say all I do is roam

But there is a roaming with a purpose

To know what is sheer delight

It’s been a while since I’ve been out at night

Not to take in more of the same

But to look to the skies

To hear my name

Whispered through the eons of time

I can’t hear that unless I listen

I can’t see it unless I look

The sounds of the Merced river, brook

Still bring serenity to my aging ears

I put on peace and take off fears

So I can continue on the journey

I don’t want my life to be lived on a gurney

Being pushed and pulled 

Torn and worn

I want to live it on my bare feet

I might not get there very fast

I might not get there at all

But I will have seen the shades of fall

Turn my heart into an amber orange

Living in the colors is what really matters to me

And to live in the colors 

I have to see with my ears

Hear with my eyes

Be always expecting the gift of surprise

Be always expecting the gift of delight

Be always expecting the night and the light

Beauty Among Us

 Beauty Among Us

Amongst the earth

Amongst the stones

Beauty blossoms

And carries on

The truths that we all know within

A simple saunter, a gentle whim

Is often the only thing we need

It’s good to know

It’s good to succeed

Yet the only thing we really need

Is to love and to be loved

Love is really our only way

And love always shows up in beauty

It always shows up with hope

Amongst the earths

Amongst the stones

Amongst the anger

Amongst the drones

Beauty blossoms

And carries on

There is always a beauty amongst us

Violet Still

Violet Still

We rest here

Violet spirits amongst steel gray chains

The interlocking of humanity

Amongst the confines of metal earth

We seem so ethereal here

Because we are

Bringing beauty to a place of woven barriers

These so called borders

That do nothing but impede our way

Yet our beauty will always have its say

Our majesty will always point to the path

Of life and love and tragedy

Of pain, of joy, of comedy

All of those roots that feed us life

We shine for now, now comes the night

We are still

We are still

Everlasting

Philosophia

Philosophia

It seems I’m always trying to write the greatest poem

The world has ever seen

Yet to me that is quite ironically impossible

When I know what nothing means

This postmodern world is a quagmire

Of needs and wants and thoughts

But no one knows the reason

Why for anything at all we’ve sought

I’m often trying to tap into beauty

In a place where it’s said not to exist

A place where cold space has the answers

A place of hard, brutal fists

I’m not trying to dry and depress you

I’m not trying to give you despair

But if there is no known standard of beauty

Then there is not anything, anywhere, there

And what sort of world is that?

What sort of place would that be?

It almost makes sense to ignore the facts

And let imagination set us free

I know that all seems irrational

But what the heck else is art for?

For if there is no existence of beauty

Then what ever is there here to live for?

Love can list a thousand things….

Trivial

Trivial

Without the daily occurrences

There would be no poetry

We all look for the grandeur

There is nothing wrong with that

Except we tend to miss the glorious 

Within the small, the tedious, the mundane

For wisdom plainly speaks

The greatest goodness is in the earth

It is the poet who discovers it

Then attempts to reveal it through simple paper

Simple pen

A tree gave its life so a greater beauty can be expressed

A simple paper

A simple pen

Just one more simple thing 

Hiding in the winepress

Awaiting the announcements of the angels

Awaiting the arrival of hope, of power, of truth

To cause discovery to come to be

Restore

I wrote this poem for a patient of mine. She was an infant with a terribly progressive terminal disease. I guess you could call this poem a "statement of faith" if you wanted to, but as a physician I despise when it seems that illness wins and my patients and their families lose. So in light of what most would call a hopeless situation, I decided to do the only thing I could do: write hope. 

I read this poem again tonight as I was going through my journal, and I felt like I needed to share it. I feel like there are lots of people who need hope, and if you are one of those, then this poem is for you. If you know of someone who needs hope, then please share this poem with them. I think it makes the world a better place when we take something born out of great tragedy and pain, and then help to turn that around for great good. Thanks :)   . 

Restore

The very things meant to destroy your hearing

Will be used to spread the sounds of heaven everywhere

The very things meant to destroy your vision

Will be used to reveal the colors and the beauty of God

The things meant to destroy your soul

Will bring healing to the nations

God has spoken, it is true

Those things brought as destruction against you

Will be the very things that lift you higher

Higher than one has ever been before

So keep looking for the door

Clover

Clover

Isn’t it amazing

That in the midst of nowhere

God places his nicest beauties

In the places where feet trod, unbeholden,

Stomping the life out of it all

Completely unaware, uncaring, of the life being crushed

Yet right there is where His beauty lies

Right there is the place where I can decide

To keep on crushing with these weather-worn boots

Or to stop and cherish the moment

I think I’ll stay right here for a while

Catastrophe

Catastrophe

This land of mountains high,

Rivers deep and cold

Formed by volcanoes, earthquakes

Violence and storm

Such beauty arising from the ashes

Such green grandeur

From the dark of the black

So what is to come of this drought

What is to come of the quake

The shaking of all our foundations

This threat to the heart of all life

What is to come of it?

A far greater beauty

Maybe a miracle of such great unknown

That few of us ever know

What really did happen

As we tend our gardens in peace and hope and love

Thanksgiving 2016

Thanksgiving 2016

Sometimes it’s simply good

To relax

To do nothing

But listen

Listen well

Listen to classic Christmas songs

Enjoy the sound of rain on the rooftop

Hear the joys of warmth from a fire

These are the things that make life, life

The things that aren’t gotten with violence or storm

Or maybe they were

Maybe my moment of silent repose

Was paid for by another long ago

Maybe it was

So in all of this perusal

Of what was and what could have been and what is

I will be thankful for the stillness

Thankful for the one who withstood calamity

So that I could be a poet

In the here and now

She's Stil In There

She’s Still In There

Can eternity be buried by the sands of time?

Can the beauty ever, ever be removed from the rhyme?

Can the birds ever be silent at the brightening sunrise?

Can the soft eternal blue ever fade from your eyes?

Never, for you are still in there

Can life’s winding path through mountains and stones,

Can the pain of the heart, worse than the pain in the bones,

Can these silence all that is golden, even quiet the woods

Can the mystery of you ever be quite understood?

Never, for you are still in there

Could I ever know the ever deepening depths of your soul?

Could I ever feel a heart that is happy and whole?

Could I ever live a love, a life that’s divine?

Could I ever see a life, a love that’s sublime?

Always….for you are still in here

K, Duane Carter 3/28/15

Sense Eternal

Sense eternal

there seems to be a place where I live

yet I cannot seem to dwell there

I cannot seem to breathe the air there

all the while smoldering in this sordid heat

and dryness, dark and dust

I live in a land of angels and oceans

Streaming rivers, birds in flight

Mists dancing with the mountains

Where words are never enough

You have to breathe in the beauty

For it just becomes a part of you

I feel it in the depths of me

I know I am there

I can feel the colors, the sounds 

The movements of the symphonies eternal

yet I can still smell the dust, the heat

Instead of running through golden fields of wheat

I simply sit here and yearn for more

I refuse to live in an unending chore

But rather dwell in the beauty

Knowing that it must flow forth from me

Water for the trees

Healing for the nations

Joy and hope and deep libations

Of all that is good and real

there seems to be a place where I live

I simply have to dwell there

or maybe rather let it dwell in me

K, Duane Carter 6/29/13

Sun

Sun

I ride by the mystical mountains

upon a purely white, God-breathed note

I slip into His eternal chambers

with a single bright sound that He wrote

I allow my spirit to return quickly to Him

without shame I no longer hide

as I move into the fire of His sun

He moves me into this mythical ride

The myth is more than just happenstance

The truth is simply too much to flee

The throes of His love are simply too much to grasp

Until I realize their grasp is on me

I ride by the Mystic of mountains

resting on this purely God-breathed note

I lie here in His eternal chambers

being the song that He wrote

K, Duane Carter

Presents

Presents

I sit in the presence of golden and shadows

While my soul it does the same

Yet there is something wondrous about the light

In all of it’s amber revelations

That speaks of infinity, and, yes, beyond

A presence that is always there and always love

Even as the earth turns her face away

She is still met with warm and gentle kisses

Even though the light does fade

It truly never does

It is always burning, always bright, always beautiful

Nothing in this world can stop it

Nor can anything in any other world for that matter

I sit in the presence of the golden and the shadows

Knowing that even in the midst of coming darkness

The light is always shining on my face

K, Duane Carter 1/10/13

Glimpse

Glimpse

I have seen a glimpse of angels

Right here on the porch

This morning eternity was in the creek

Meandering through time’s torch

While those of the highway overpass

Went by toward their destinations

All the while they still went by

The creek moved still in contemplations

It always has, it always will

So I rest here in my chair in the sun

The hovering came, watching my watching

Then came a display of the bright heavenly ones,

Which I happened to simply catch in a moment

Yes, it was more than mere reflections

But it was much better than a nothing, naught

It was a marvelous resurrection

I didn’t need an answer, 

I didn’t need to know

I simply needed beauty

To remind me it was so

K, Duane Carter 6/30/12

Midst

Something about this picture reminds me of me

Formed by volcanic activity

Rocks and desolation everywhere

Yet

Signs of life breaking out in the midst

Water, though frozen, is present

Promising more

More life, more goodness, more refreshing

All of this covered in the cloud

And even in the desolation

It is beautiful

K, Duane Carter 6/21/12