Journey

Blogging intrinsically biases quantity over quality. A blogger can, of course, invest more time looking for a better word, more succinct phrasing, editing out typos and other clumsiness, but the urge to get something out and posted is constant. Happily, the poem below is one I've worked on for awhile and posted previously on In and Out. It's a better poem than some of the others posted here.

Journey

Here am I
in this unbounded place,
a point in passing,
a bridge between times,
through darkness, across voids,
around the great signal fires.

It takes an effort of will
to catch what I’d missed,
to see we in that space
took wing,
to hear small birds with
perfect pitch and
immaculate messages,
to conjure a thing so close
god’s eyes cross with
recall and effort,
cross with wonder and unselfconscious
neglect for appearances.

The path goes far beyond the end
of innocence and divides in the next space.
The trail has gone this way,
into the future,
precisely the path I follow now,
with music by birdsong,
if I should choose to listen, and
lit by brilliant flowers,
if I should choose to see.

Reflecting,
I stop at the odd firepit.
Step carefully around the scattered
bones. Toeing, then picking at them,
the old bones near dust. What beasts were these?
Something immense, I’m sure.
Something fierce, I wonder.
How does a place become so empty?

What has been driven before me?
A sudden thought;
what lurks behind?
A memory, perhaps. Of us.
What also wanders here?
Midst birdsong and flowers,
who will find whom?
This hunt nearly consumes me.


Gathering a bouquet of thoughts,
I consider fragrance, balance of color,
length of stem, the flowering cup.

With fresh effort,
I hear small birds
possessing perfect pitch,
singing immaculate messages.

Leaving reason behind,
the supreme, last seen, seemed adrift,
remote, flickered out in the distance,
just this side of the horizon line

The not known has gone this way,
into the future and
I am following,
backed with music by birdsong,
way lit by scattered
combustible bushes.

Tiring, I stop at the next firepit.
Step carefully around the scattered
bones. Toeing, then picking at them.—
The old bones stir.
What beasts are these?
Something immense, I see.
And without name.
How long abiding here?

Thoughts rolling like sea glass.
What has fled before me?
Who wanders just ahead?
With what purpose?
With eyes failing like mine?
With strain in the effort
of looking?

Who will find whom
around birdsong and flowers
and gathering bones
of resurrecting beasts?
What happens then?
Who will continue this hunt?
The next thought,
not really my own, consumes me,
and I am gone on the breeze. Dust.