In the end, it's Hopelessness that kills

"And then we came out  to see once more the stars."   Dante


When we came at last to see the stars
we struggled  in vain
to gain hope.
We tried to gaze in wonder,
pride-filled in the proof
that God  held our civilization
above all others,
to read into radiance
the nod and wink of
Divine Approval,
acknowledgement of our status
as unique and favored sons.
We struggled to grasp at straws,
to cling to myth and
ancient superstition.
And then the stars began to fall and
we tried tried tried to read  the promise
of wishes granted.
But in the end all that was left
was to cower under rocks
and primitive umbrellas,
weeping the dawn
of apocalypse.

Photograph

I saw the end of Antiquity
in the faces of men
lying murdered in the street,
in the failed humanity
of leaders of state,
in fallen museums
and desecrated mosques.
I saw the end in a fallen red kite,
in the laughter of children
now silenced.
The eye is the shutter of discord
whose merest opening
elicits the entrance

of death.

Edith

At night she sits by an open window,
waiting for a knock
that she prays will never come.
Footsteps approach, recede,
she covers her heart
remembers to breathe,
but even the shadows
have substance.

This one gone for a soldier
lies garroted in a field of wire;
this one gone for an airman
spun out in a sea of fire---
voices call, no answer
only the emptiness
of air.

(Image:  Umberto Boccioni, The Noise of the Street Enters the House, 1911)

The Ecclesiast











All that stands eventually falls.
The house my father
built basement to attic
bare-fisted --rough timber
hewn, sanded, nailed --
overtaken in the end
by the obstinance of ivy.
Vanity says the Preacher,
All is vanity.
My father was a fighter
and a giant of a man,
but nature is omnipotent.

(Image: Dave Leiker, Blue Door, http://www.prairiepathways.com/PrairieDust/)

Time folds, a
fallen tapestry
whose layers hold
happy scenes from childhood,
camps pitched on pine green,
the endless blue of cornflowers.
Wheat fields overgrown
become newly mown,
feed kings and shepherds
whose kinship shouts
in the twinkle of an eye
or the unruliness of
an untamed brow.
Courting couples
whose clasped hands
form an unbroken chain
stretching ever into eternity
and all the possibilities held
in an empty universe
and an unformed star.

Image: Marc Chagall, Bride and Groom of the Eiffel Tower, 1938-39

OIL!









Smoke moon on the rise
oil spill presages the fall
of the greatship earth.

The gods raise warnings
dire omens overruled by
dollar driven kings.

Black moon on the rise
and the gold of the sun slain
overcome by oil.

Faith














The evening of her last day entered quietly,
soughing in on feet shod in silence and purple.
She listened for the rustling of the lilac branch,
the whisper of the breeze through the silver birch.
She listened in vain for the nightingale's call,
the shrill cry of the killdeer.
Hearing none she raised her voice--
sent up a song to the Father of Silence,
sent up a song in celebration
of the silence that was
and the silence that was to come,
and when she was finished
she listened--
to the slowing of breath
to the slowing of heart.
When it was finished
she listened and waited
in silence.

(Image: Jim Strong; Empty Chair)