Singing River

https://songsfromtheriver.com/2020/06/13/singing-river/

Voice

Voice:

https://songsfromtheriver.com/2020/06/07/the-voice-2/

Raven

https://songsfromtheriver.com/2020/05/24/raven/

Life Signs

short and sweet today!

https://songsfromtheriver.com/2020/05/17/life-signs/

Figure 8's

New post up!  https://songsfromtheriver.com/2020/05/13/figure-8s/

Thanks for stopping by the blog :)

Quantum Leap

New Post Up!  Quantum Leap

https://songsfromtheriver.com/2020/05/08/quantum-leap/(opens in a new tab)

The Short (completed)

Because Blogger has changed, I'm going to simply post the links to my blog when they are published. Thanks so much for following. Today's post is:

https://songsfromtheriver.com/2020/03/15/the-short-completed/

The Still (Agates)

The Still (Agates)

I sit quite still on what is left

Of an ancient and mighty foundation

A rock that used to be hidden

Unknown

Part of a vast landscape

That is now pulverized 

Into sand, into agate

The waves keep on advancing

Year after year

Day after day

Moment after moment

So I sit here and pray

By just enjoying the sunset

Enjoying the spray

Listening to the sounds of the destruction

Listening to the sounds of creation

There’s an incredible symmetry to it all

I hear the ocean’s beckon call

I answer with the most vociferous of silence

I answer with the most ardent of still

I see the colors, I sense the will

To just simply sit here alone on the foundations

Wondering where my foundations have gone

They’ve disappeared into the ocean’s song

Leaving behind the sand 

And the agates

2/5/20, kdc

https://songsfromtheriver.com/2020/02/15/the-still-agates/

End of September

End of September

This is the summer that is never ending

The autumn came 3 days ago

But only on the calendar

The days are still warm; hot, even

It seems they are waiting for something to change

Something to change before they will change

Sounds so familiar to me

I pass by a local maple tree

Its leaves know it’s the end of September

The last time I felt, I don’t remember

The meaning or the beauty of it all

I think the answer to my levity

Is I am focused always, forever, on me

That is such a finite pool to draw from

Though I sense the waveforms of the eternal

The autumn came 3 days ago

But only on the calendar

These days still warm, still far from tender

Are waiting for something to change

Sounds so familiar to me

9/24/19 kdc

Chase

Chase

Chase beauty and it will find you

Give out love and you will find it

Watch the palm trees sway in the autumn winds

The change of seasons is coming , as it always does, 

And everything is new again

Stop trying to measure the meter

Stop trying to match the rhyme 

Stop trying to know all the secrets 

Listen to your heart speak, sublime

The winds make the waves on the waters

Directing them where they will go

The waters make sounds on the borders

This is the edge that we know

Yet the beyond is calling

9/16/19

The Races

The Races

I sit on the back porch

Night

Cool breeze stirring in its freedom

The crickets chirping all around me

An occasional change in their rhythm

Rarely a change in their rhyme

The waxing moon rests above

Saturn in her gracious clutches

Peace, tranquility, good

This is the realm beyond time

Off in the distance I hear the roar of the engines

The race is on

Another car goes down the road

Roaring

Fast, furious, growling

Loud

Obnoxious even, trying to drown out nature’s sounds

Blistering speeds

Conquering time

Driving on for that one precious millisecond

What a perfect picture of our world

In a hurry to run in circles

Raging on to get nowhere in particular

Enslaved to the clock

All the while the earth rests in quiet peace

And will continue to do so for a long, long time

Just listen to the sounds of the rock

The crickets are chirping all around me

There is so much power in the quiet

9/7/19 kdc

Life's Essence

Life’s Essence

We think we’re so smart

Yet we really don’t even know what life is

Sure you can boil and pipet

You can microscope and experiment

You can hypothesize, theorize

We can discover

Oxygen, carbon dioxide, glucose

Neurons, mesons, electrical processes

DNA that tells us everything

Fourteen complex reactions for every photon

Processing it into vision

A hammer and nail, tapping morse code

Turning it into electricity and then to sound

We know all of this

Yet we can throw it all into a bucket

And not have one nanogram of life in the mix

All the ingredients

Simple, complex

But not one ounce of spirit

All of this material can exist in a corpse

But cannot regenerate itself anymore

So what is life? What is it for?

The scientists and philosophers have their own ways of knowing

But I like the poetic answer:

We don’t know

But it surely looks and sounds and smells and tastes and feels

Like love

8/24/19 kdc

Resilience

 Resilience

Everything beautiful about you

Has been cut to the ground

The lines of the years now on your face

You feel like you are just one small disgrace

In a great big universe of order and shadow

But I see something

I see where everyone thought you were dead

Yet you are alive

You are branching out again

You are alive

You are wondrous

You are resilient

Grateful

Grateful

Ah, for so long I have tried to be the poet extraordinaire

But, alas, my books just sit on the shelf

Not going anywhere

I made all sorts of excuses

It’s the modern day

No one reads poetry anymore

There has to be a video

There has to be a meme

Vacillating from one to another extreme

I have finally realized

I’ve tried too hard to be someone I’m not

Do that for too long and your soul will rot

To the point where even you notice the smell

The stench, the pain, there is no gain,

The wrench

That finally breaks the bolts from the tightening

Then comes that feeling that is all too frightening

The feeling of panicked disarray

The feeling of floating in outer space

Knowing you’re a million light years from anywhere

And nowhere is where you’ll always be

Sure that floating feeling is free

But freedom without any boundary is nothing less

Than death by lonely wandering

And that death is very, very slow

How do I get past this vaudeville show?

I do not know, I do not know

This seems to be my favorite answer

More and more popular it becomes by the day

I’m told to read, I’m told to pray

Yet silence has forever greeted me

I wish I could be more upbeat

Instead of this deadpan sullen

Yet there are days where these perceptions must come forth

There are nights where the soul is broken

There are lives in which living is not seen

I think it’s time to find the green

The life that comes from seeking light

But I’ve said that all before

It’s almost become a daily chore

Not the majesty and the mystery that it should

I sit and stare at a piece of wood

Waiting for it to save me

Can I find true life within a tree

Is it living

Or is it dead?

These voices go on and on inside my head

I could probably go on like this forever

So before I drone on into a cumbersome blather

I am simply going to stop

To say

Thank you for this day

kdc, 6/8/19

Dead Amongst the Living

Dead Amongst the Living

I’m no longer writing poetry

I’m not sure why

I sit here on the front porch

Looking at the sky

And that is all I do

These thoughts are many

These thoughts are few

I just don’t know who I am anymore

Stillness can be heaven

Stillness can be hell

And often I cannot

Will not

Tell the difference

These dichotomies have created judgment in me

I don’t want that anymore

But this place where I sit amongst a sandy shore

Feels very unsettling to me

All I wanted was to be free

And all I got was imprisoned

The train blows shrill across the chasm

It’s a warning instead of an announcement

But he seems to be having fun letting it loose

Over and over and over

I look down at the struggling clover

That is surviving this summer heat

Nothing else here questions its existence

Nothing

So why do I?

Why do I sit and stare at sky

And wonder why it is I’m here?

To sing a song, to drink a beer

To play a game, to work a day

To walk on and on in this merry way

That leads to both great joy and brutal heartache

I hope that those that attend my wake

Will be there to have fun when they greet me

kdc, 6/2/19

Etiology

Etiology

The source of all my troubles is comparison

Comparison always leaves me wanting

Or it leaves me full of pride

It has never placed me in the streams of peace

Never has it put me in the fields of love

Never has it let me sleep the night away

In dreams of wonder and awe

Everywhere I go now

I am judged and compared

I can’t sing like the one on the radio

So I forever stop singing and meekly listen

I’m not beautiful like the one on the gilded screen

So I don’t place my ugly anywhere in the world

Even where it is desperately needed

I can’t write like the laureate 

So I drop my pen

The poems are never born

I can’t dance like the ones on the stage

So I am still

Winds of joy never move over the earth

In other words

I compare

And I die

We wonder why there is such a despair in our world

It’s time to live

It’s time to stop comparing

To stop quitting because I don’t “measure up”

To hell with your ruler

To hell with your rules and measures

I am me

There is no other like me

Never will there ever be

I was planted in this world to grow

That is exactly what I plan to do

To grow right where I am planted

And not worry about the weeds around me

Or the weeds within

I will look to where the sun is

Ever growing toward the light

I will sing

I will laugh

I will dance

I will be who I am

And Life will permeate the earth

I will no longer compare

3/17/19

Rose Garden

Rose Garden

There is a real hope

And it hurts.

To lean into it,

No, to dive full on into it

Is the destiny of humanity 

But there within its living form are so many thorns 

Painful, hideous thorns

Disappointment, disillusionment 

Failure, rejection

These are the thorns on the roses of hope

And they are perilous, 

So perilous indeed

So what do I do?

Do I merely admire from a distance 

Or move just close enough to know the scent?

Or do I take the biggest risk

Put my hands in the midst

And grab hold

Not just to grasp it for me

Maybe never just for me

But in order to give it to another

My hands are bleeding 

It was worth every pain

2/26/19

Winter Blahs

Winter Blahs

It’s difficult to write poetry

When you’re dead inside

Everything is lifeless

Everything is irritating

I’m not sure how that happens

Feeling irritation when you’re dead

But that’s when it seems to happen the most

Every little thing

Is like a huge boulder

Dropping on your toes

Over and over again

In some kind of cruel repetition

I hate writing things like this

I hate words like hate and cruel and irritation

I don’t want those kind of contrasts in my life

I don’t want that dark background

Making some supposed light seem brighter

I simply want to enjoy the sunlight again

I simply want to feel the air against my skin

I simply want to feel, feel something

Besides all of this negative bombardment

All of this shrapnel of violence irate

All of this smoldering backwash of hate

I want to feel something besides this

So maybe a death is quite necessary

Maybe a death to all of these things

Will bring forth a life where everyone sings

Everyone plays

Everyone dances

In love and war and long romances

Everyone is who they are to be

Not stuck up in this hollow tree

Hearing nothing but the sound of me

2/18/19

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

Right

Right

I wish I could be confident

I wish I knew

The only thing I know

Is that I really don’t know

But I guess that’s a starting point 

That’s knowing a something

I look at the sunrise, the sunset

In an analytical way

What angle is the best to capture this

What will be the moment of best color

All the while I never really experience the moment

That is a parable of my entire life with God and others

That simple picture

Though staggering and painful and downright sad

Is simply the truth

It’s why I am not confident at all

Only my left brain is working

My right, in the stillness, is asking for just one chance

To let me know the great sunrise

1/30/19