Moving Pictures #1

The physics of travel
suggests relationships
often overlooked:

What blurs stays opposed,
what holds clear, in sync,
tallies the miles against loneliness.

Off the Grid

turning, a face in the wind:

as if there was nothing left

that the earth could hold,

no need or want that

couldn’t be found some

place else, some sky:  far.

-----

we meet here, daily

it seems you wait for

me around this corner,

near the tracks, near

fields that rise & then,

again, fall—or, rather,

are taken down:   cut

short,   like a life that

served & in going gave

["Off the Grid #1" US-59 Spring 2010]

where were you this

morning when I looked

to the lines for your

sign & found nothing

but someone else’s

power surging into

morning light?

-----

this too is a made place:

dreamscape, without

grid or track or high-

way, no need for

wheel or wing, but

only mind, eye, &

sleep: here, where

 irregular is nothing,  

we travel together,

flitting, fleeting,  &

until all has flown.

when I wake, will

it be unmade, dis-

integrated, lost?

will I be permitted

a return?

-----

there is little left

to say that hasn’t

crossed a line

somewhere, or

that a mind won’t

soon send across

space to rebound

near me as a

figure of glittering

text: moveable,

removable, &

mostly un-noticed.

there is nothing

new under the

sun, but your

wings as they

gather upwards

& away: allowing

shadow to reach

across the span

of your farthest

points, between

you & I, between

acceptance & need.

Moon / River

Moonset with Partial Eclipse
Atchison County, KS
26 June 2010, 5:42 am

________________________________________________________________

Sunrise with Cresting River

Missouri River at St. Benedict's Abbey

26 June 2010, 6:20 am

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Missouri River

River Road, Atchison, KS

26 June 2010

Goodbye, Lawrence. Hello, Summer.

[Frames / Kaw, May 2010]

[Too Many Books, Two Little Boys, May 2010]

Sunday Drive

Morning Fog, U.S. Highway 59

In the morning, before the sun is high and hot enough to burn away earth's excess water, I slide my way south, following the bends of the road, watching the curvature of the eastern horizon as the orange disk slowly ascends allowing day to ease me out of my temporary monasticism and back into a world of needs & gives.

Mornings when the fog hovers the road & ponds & puddles, I am reminded of the final stanza of Poe's early poem, "Spirits of the Dead". Before his twentieth birthday Poe penned these words:

The breeze, the breath of God, is still,
And the mist upon the hill
Shadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token.
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries!

These lines have always haunted me, as does this particular farm pond, sunk down below a dead end road that leads somewhere that will never be known. This morning I could not drive past without stopping to capture the haunting mist before it disappeared into its own mysteriousness. 

Web and Barn

                [Inspired by “Dwellings” a photograph by Angelia Perkins]

Relying on frame and curve,
knowing about impermanence
and loss,
the maker is a temporary tenant
dwelling within line and arc,
only as long as filament
can hold the heave
and sway.

Her abandoned dwelling,
not quite in ruins,
glistens with rainwater
in front of a fading relic,
depending on accident
and an imperfect geometry
that once set a whole
community to work.

Sharing more than geography
and season,
an acre’s ephemeral neighborhood
reminds: 
what lasts will not last forever,
and what goes away is worth noticing
before being lost.