The Poetry Marathon

Sifting my dreams like I’m panning for gold

Or precious stones in a stream.

It’s mostly debris I find,

But now and then, something valuable.

By this time, I must rely

On the plane beyond time,

For here where we are bound by physics,

There are no treasures left;

They must all come now

From another realm.

I was in a sacred place that had changed.

I struggled to take my shoes off.

I sat down in a different place and lo,

I saw you, heard you singing

Where I didn’t expect you to be.

I could not believe eyes, ears.

But it was you, and you seemed amused.

Now I am walking down a path, that changes,

And changes again.

I am dropping berries, my shawl is slipping.

I pass by those who know you, but I do not stop.

Somehow this journey is solitary,

And I know it.

I’ll take you to the walled city,

Just north of here.

Where better to go?

I’ve been saving these coins for a lifetime.

They have no value to me,

Only interest,

But in your sweet hands,

They become everything that will keep you

Flourishing.

I will turn you loose in the walled city,

And you will feel alone

But I will be closer than close,

All my senses alert to you

And what you need.

I will fall from Heaven

Just to deliver you.

There’s nothing that I wouldn’t do.

War ground to a halt.

It was a bloody war.

And seemed like it would never end.

Too much ammunition.

Too much at stake.

But peace was declared,

Armies disbanded.

There are tremors of the old conflict

In the minds of old men

Who can’t forget what was normal in youth.

All others, though, have adapted

To amity,

To goodwill.

The children of today’s children

Will read in dusty books

Of warfare, of sides drawn,

And it won’t make sense

That this was ever so.

Grass and new forest will cover

The deep scars in the earth

Made by so many bomb blasts.

Day has dawned.

There is comfort in this, somehow.

The cat is looking for breakfast.

He is early and gently enthusiastic.

The diurnal world will now come to life.

I will slowly take my place in it,

Slowly,

In as many hours as I can avoid it,

Because it is still the hour for yogis.

And though I aspire endlessly to be one,

I will not appear to be one this morning.

I would be happy to be a poet-saint instead,

Even just a little bit.

I found a cache of hours

Behind glass that said,

“Break in case of emergency.”

It was an emergency.

I’d played the grasshopper again,

For I was no ant.

I broke the glass.

I took those hours,

To avoid failure,

But there was a price:

My well-being.

After all,

Nothing is free.

Surfacing briefly like a cetacean,

I breathe and go back under.

Sometimes I would breach for fun,

But not now.

No.

There are things in the deep dark

That I must find.

Things needed, for nourishment.

Half the brain sleeps,

And then the other half.

And always, stay swimming.

When we are fully awake,

Another time,

We will burst up joyfully,

Slap down with heavy grace.

But now, the deep is calling.

The deep, where sunlight fails to reach.

Where did you go?

All those times I called for you,

And there was no reply,

You were right in the room,

Holding your tongue.

It felt cruel,

And I began to feel

The waning of my love,

Like the dying of a flashlight.

No wonder I couldn’t see a thing.

But why, I wanted to know.

Why this?

And still you stood in silence.

It felt cruel

To deny the mind its pedantic need.

But my heart,

My heart was listening.

My heart speaks your silence fluently.

We climbed out a window and lay on the roof.

The Universe sprawling out above us, in all directions.

I fell in love long ago with the silent silver streaking

Of shooting stars.

Fragments flaming, falling.

The crisp pinpricks of distant suns,

Some daring to be blue or orange to a human eye.

The black spaces in between, so full of what we cannot see.

Once I saw a comet, its tail a smudge.

It sat there, as though it were ordinary,

As though it did not come from the icy edge

Of all that we hold dear.

And once, an eclipse of the moon;

It turned blood red before my eyes.

It did not disappear,

But sat there disquietingly

In its rouge.

It’s like after a robbery

Of a grand house.

A life is there, but pieces are missing.

They took almost everything.

I am left with so many odds and ends.

And the important things,

I go to where I kept them,

And there are just empty places

Where they sat and assured functionality,

Efficacy.

Now I wander empty corridors

Where paintings are missing.

I am looking for things I need.

But they are gone,

And will be gone still tomorrow.

There’s no getting back what is lost.