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

Creatives

Creatives

Artists are  a lot like God

They come up to a great nothing

Blank and void and empty

They begin to see

They begin to draw

They begin to paint

Layers at a time

At any given point

You can hear the whispers from outside

“What is that?"
“That makes no sense”

And the ever present and inevitable, “Oooo, that is so ugly.”

Yet you are not done

You are not done at all

More tones, more colors, more light, more depth

A song, hummed in quiet peace

Artistry unfolds

Magic happens

When the finished product appears

There is nothing but awe in in the whispers

So it is with you

7/21/19 kdc

Pressing

Pressing

I need to write

I’m not sure why

All I want is to touch the sky

Yet all I do is squirm through the earth

I don’t want to hear all the caterpillar metaphors

I see what happens to the earthworms

Food for birds

Drying out in the hot sun

Dying on the sidewalks

Eating, eliminating, pushing on, dying

This surely cannot be what this parable is all about

I try to scream, I’d like to shout

But the sound doesn’t go past my canines

I sit here and stare

I’d like to wonder,

But I sit here and stare

I hear the sounds of children

Running, playing, talking, meaningless chatter

But everything means everything to them

Maybe it should be that way with me

Instead of worrying what is worth my while

Coming to the conclusion that all is meaningless

Maybe I should assume all is worthwhile

Embrace it all with wonder

Even those things of dark charades

All of life is simply a game anyway

Except there really are no winners and losers

That’s why the whole thing is a great mystery

For those of us seeking nothing but answers

We swim in an ocean of disenchantment, disappointment

For those who simply love to live

They splash in rivers of delight

What is the secret to leaving night?

I forgive myself and all who have known me

All who have left me out to dry

I hear the sounds of splashing waves

7/18/19 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