Traversing Oceans

Traversing Oceans

Often I’m writing poems

Even I don’t understand

The words just seem to flow from me

Like water from the hand

Though there is some deliberate direction

There is always also splash

The life seems just to splatter

It stains the crimson sash

I often love to drift along

Sail the open seas

And somewhere in the midst of it

I find out who is me

So try a little sailing

Open to the winds

You just might find your deliberate course

Becomes subject to beauty’s whims

There truly is the place of wonder

8/29/18

Crest

Crest

Waves of anger and depression

Slapping against my being like gray waves

On a black sand beach

Too hot to walk on

Too dreary to sit and watch

So I’ll move along and check the swatch

Of this new satin and silky fabric

This stuff that is supposed to hold it all together

This stuff that brings happiness in any kind of weather

Oh look, the moths and the worms have left their say

I cannot speak, I cannot pray

Or I can but I’m afraid of what I will speak

Everything I’ve loved, I seek

But have found this place of dark derision

I have come to the point of stark decision

Do I jump into this mosh pit that I can see

Or do I wait for these things I cannot

This waiting is hell, it seems to go on eternal

This silence is torture, this noise is infernal

When all that my soul longs for is a sound

A sound that casts all to the ground

All that is not beauty, down

I still cannot hear it.

Maybe I should move

Maybe I should change my place

Maybe I should change my face

Like all the other superstars

Maybe I should join in the farce

Known as jaunty superstition and hype

Known as virtual expertise, so ripe 

Is the fruit of all our monstrosities

Painted to appear like lovely charities

We mock what we cannot know

I look to the mountains and see the snow

I long to know its cold, pure light.

I have wandered far, I have wandered here

I have left the wheel and refused to steer

The course that every other person seems to go

They ask and ask, I answer “I don’t know,

I have no idea of which way to go

And I’m not sure anyone else does either.”

I pause for a moment to enjoy a breather

And everyone else perceives it as ignorance

Simply because I am not speaking

They leave me standing there with the answer in my soul

So, that’s ok, I’ll just walk to whole

I’ll just meander myself off into the distance

I’m told I need a guide, a companion, a help

Yet all of these have seem to go their own ways

I look to stars, I lift my gaze

I decide to follow the whisperings of the wind

This wind, the last of my unseen friends

Begins to dance along the river

This place is good, my spine does quiver

In the knowing of nothing at all

In the understanding of almost everything

I feel a song, a dance, I sing

To a song that only the dogs can hear

A song I know and love so well

A song that makes the gray waves swell

Until they crest into a blue-green sea

The Shore

I often wonder if I am a wave on the shore

Wanting to go just a little further

But there is something that says, “No more”

And I just quietly go back to where I came from

Mingled in with everything else like me

I wait for the power and the force of the wind

I determine that I will try this again

But this time I will not do so alone

I hear the sound of the boat that groans

Against the force of the coming gale

I now am riding with the breeze

I determine to reach the heights with ease

And I am carried even beyond my sight

And notice I am filled with peace and delight

I am resting in a place much further on than I expected

And it all came from the place where I rested

And waited on the wind

Wow, I might have to do this again…

K, Duane Carter 8-28-10   

Greatness from the Mist

Greatness from the Mist

There is a greatness coming out of the mist

From the unseen realm is coming an ocean

An ocean of Goodness, Love, and Strength

Such as the world has not seen

But it will want to see it again and again

It will suddenly appear

A rumbling roar will pierce the air

And no darkness will ever stand it there

It will be heard before it is seen

It will turn the desert into green

And make rivers out of dry land

It will restore the salt to the people of earth

It will bring new life and bring new birth

And nothing and no one will be able to stop it

It will be deep, deep, and deeper

And the climb to the mountaintop will not be steeper

For the way will be smooth and flat

Wine in the skins, oil in the vats

It is coming, I tell you it is coming

I tell you it is here

He is here

K, Duane Carter 5-3-10

The Ocean Often Speaks

The ocean often speaks

But are we still enough to listen?

So also speak the moon and stars

And the morning dew that glistens

Deep within God speaks His sound

In mystery not contained in books or shelves

And what determines if we hear or not

Is our focus on our selves

A mind that dwells on self alone

Will not see Light nor hear it speak

A life that dwells on God and love

Will rise up to the highest peak

The ocean often speaks…

Are we still enough to listen

And allow God’s tender early morning dew

On our hearts to gently glisten?

K, Duane Carter 5-2-10