Tag: change

Parting is always sorrow

Parting is always sorrow,
Fear of uncertainty,
Discontinuity.

These ducks that have made their home
Here are the most beautiful 
And precious creatures I've known.

I've depended on
These days we've shared together;
Who says it has to end?

The fears I have for the future.
Granite's adventuring,
I believe he'll return like George.

Even so, Cory 
Misses him. As do I.
Will they miss us?

Nothing ties them down,
Inspiring as it is frightening.
We're united by chance.

How could we let them know
We're leaving but will return
To visit them forever?

What compact could be made
To tie our souls to this place,
Returning after time?

I think I'll be visiting
More than twice a week.
Easing into absence.

I can't bear the idea
They might feel they've lost us
Or grieve the lack of us.

Will they start to think,
"Did they move on;"
Well, won't we have?

We've both lived in so
Many different places,
Why not animals too?

Darling Granite, we miss you.
We miss your happy laughter.
We miss your squinching eyes.

I do believe you're safe
And probably not far,
Likely with Patch or Millay.

We've become accustomed
To your familiar smile
And gentle friendliness.

You've been here the longest
Of all the ducks we know.
Your presence is joy's communion.

Always and forever
We will search for your profile
On the grass lounging serenely.

You will always be
Cherished and remembered,
You and all of our friends.

Our hearts have expanded domains
Grown from Granite; from Marble;
From milky-eyed Mama;

From Armor and from Helmet;
From the fly-by-night girls;
And from poor little Miracle.

I swoon for animals;
They understand hello,
But never know goodbye.

I think of Lefty the mallard:
Against all odds, born
With a malformed wing, he thrives.

Lefty and all our friends
Who make this place their home,
Aren't we of them too?

This place, this time, this pond
Has found us all together
In our liberty-laden lives.

I think of Franklin and Percy,
Loyalty and Norm,
Steve and Zebra and Mama;

Helmet, George, and Edgar,
All of whom had left
And yet returned again.

This is what we have chosen.
We all may come and go,
That's how I know it's love.

I know that we'll come back,
And so I do believe
Granite will too.

***

Just yesterday Millay
Came swooping down to greet us.
We instantly knew each other.

The little outline of white
Around her beady eyes;
How she ran to us;

Her single tiny squeak 
As she jumped onto the grass
All confirmed it was she.

She said hello then flew off.
I'd bet she's seen Granite.

Fragments 2

Wasn't great today
But what is there to do,
Lay down ready to die?
Leave it like days do too.

***

Playing up the sham,
You know it's such a shame;
They'll make your name shimmer,
But only when shown tame.

***

Living through changes 
But we remain unchanged
In love, for the danger 
Lies in growing estranged.

Reflections on how I got here

"Beware this reckoning,"
Glares a spectral pair of eyes.
Blood quickens in frozen veins,
Stricken as though paralyzed.

Leering back from inside 
The mirror, a crack which grows
The distance facts drift at one's
Insistence; then slackens, slows.

And crawling over shards,
Wounds are all to show for wants
Slicing black weals of static
Lack of any real response.

The daunting pain of silence
Spawning deranged interviews—
A prison with no orders,
Visions thrown to trinkets' truths.

Worst is when it's within 
The first sentence of doom speaks.
Overpowered by black bile,
Loathing and foul wrath it wreaks.

The dreadful sensation
In the head made manifest:
Seizing trips that mark the sick,
Squeezing grip of panic's press.

Heaviness dimly drapes
Every limb, as though submerged 
In water's lips; every move
Murmurs, stripped like a soul scourged.

Beneath this awful weight,
Seething, clawing to maintain;
While fearful of this deep hole,
Here the soul can greatly gain.

It's a cage, and no skill
Engaged will, it confounded
Me; but blessed with room to pace,
They dressed patience around me.

Basically life support
Is the grace the dice produced
To hand me a family
Withstanding my sorrow's sluice.

To think they looked at hell
Without blinking, it took more;
More than courage, more than faith,
The surge of strength love looks for.

Looming death, fate diseased;
Assuming the weight of both,
How they faced it despite dread.
They allowed my glacial growth.

They paid for my prices 
As I laid, a dying mind,
Withered body torched in hate—
Delivered by a fortune's find.

They believed in a time
When even I am able,
Condoning this path to shed
Loneliness's black label.

It was pure chance to meet 
Him, to endure and advance
Past privation and piss-drunk
Starvation's soul sunken stance.

My family props the sky
Up while hammers drop on nails;
And my head has turned up for him,
Ready to earn grace's grails.

Am I a wretch reborn
By a lucky catch? Of course;
Without either my life's in
Doubt, but strife still stalks its source.

His presence builds me up
A pleasant hill to defend,
But misaligned spheres can soon
Find my spirit brought to bend.

We've grown this better sense,
Sown medicines, worked what found
Subsistence, a miracle
System sheer as sculpted sound.

Our one-room made of smoke,
Blunt and bespoke, fleeting home;
In a flash what saves me could
Crash like waves of frothing foam.

I cannot guard, protect,
By forethought or by power,
Against illness, accident,
Killing events' furled flower.

There's much I can't make kneel,
A touch could steal all I care
About. My dear, meekly tread
And scout ahead. Best beware!

Fragments

Ask stupid questions,
How can you request
A serious inquest 
For a jester's bequest?

***

Prepare for losses,
Expectation lessens;
Then make actions listen
To life's painful lessons.

***

Staring at demise 
Can tighten a dream's seams.
Resilience made demure,
Repentance hope redeems.

We are nothing and nothing more

We are nothing and nothing more:
A thought perhaps, a breath of air,
Contingencies that shift and tear.

Strong or weak or rich or poor,
All are the same who know the fare,
Know we're entitled but to tour
A thought, perhaps a breath of air.

Those who are solid find their core
Is as part of a fleeting share
Of something renewing; so why care
We are nothing and nothing more—
A thought perhaps, a breath of air,
Contingencies that shift and tear.

After the Loss of Miracle the Duckling

The sun descends before a mere
Mortal could ever fathom when,
And that's what fills humans with fear.

Black, indelible ink; the pen
Proscribes loved and unloved while I
Feel the true fear of change again.

These nearly-limitless things vie,
Each one of them so small at birth;
Yet some it sees fit to deny.

Lives inestimable in worth,
Newly born; why do some survive
While others get but days on Earth?

Why is it while they were alive
The bloody blade reaped thereupon
And nothing done could help them thrive?

I hear the doleful singing swan
Echo my thoughts. I must praise.
Even after, new young will spawn.

There will be more ducklings to raise;
Even those we've lost will be kept,
Remembered my remaining days.

And beyond when my windows wept,
They have their niche that they've occupied;
I'm a moment to intercept.

In all my childish, misty-eyed
Attachment I forfeit most sense,
For this is how they've multiplied.

Citification built the fence
Which separates and shelters me.
Life becomes unreal and intense.

Competition is anomie
To one with precious much to lose;
Life and fear in synonymy.

Such is the case for one who views
Constant struggle through rationale
And the tragedy it imbues,

But how could an animal scowl
At the fate of life, its one gift?
They don't see things as fair or foul.

They only know the life they lift
From the seed of their forebears' soil
And the changes of seasons' shift.

They're not averse to earthly toil,
Their being, both parcel and part
Of their place in this mortal coil.

As such there's never loss of heart
For them when tragedy befalls
Their life, the ever-forward dart.

An indomitable will calls
Their spirits onward with elan
Uncomprehending of our galls.

These ducks have but a single plan,
Which is to be what they will be
And to nurture their little clan;

To follow their ancestral tree
With peace wild and docile at once,
My darling ducks, this family.

So even when misfortune hunts,
I trust these ducks will persevere
Through both dreary and merry months.

They could be my teachers of cheer,
Wary for their safety and yet
Unknowing existential fear.

They simply take what they can get.
They remain happy and content,
Though looking out for any threat.

They're unafraid how much is spent,
It's all for life and it's all fair.
That's how nature builds its ascent.

A million generations' wear
Strengthens the very DNA
Which brings all creatures up to bear.

Very little controls the sway
Of fate. But, as their parents had,
They grow confident with each day.

It's like their souls are armor-clad,
Uncrippled by softhearted pain
That never fails to drive me mad.

Nature is indifferent to strain.
Prepared for total loss, it gains.

Replaceability

Peril? Let me tell you what's perilous:
The idea of replaceability;
At surface there's nothing to tell amiss,
But in its irrefutability
It necessitates culpability. 
In our societal lust for progress,
The strong force the responsibility
Down the line onto the many cogs less
Powerful or advanced than these august
Lords of capital. Then when they're displeased
They dispose of people as a process.
That's how they attained the power they've seized.
And sadly it's true, inevitably 
Someone comes to fill the voids that we leave.