The Sounds Of Bells

I was foolish enough

To expect a jingle in your eye

When I walked into the room

Instead I got the old

Bottle cry.

Let’s you agree to share my wallet

Garnished with a helping of lies

After all, that’s what makes

The world go ‘round, isn’t it?

Your world.

If my world had not been so long a desert

If I had not strayed so far

I might never have heard your false bells pealing.

Nor seen sweet water in the sands.

Now, go with my blessings

And not a curse

Because even you have taught me well

About loneliness, wavering lakes

And the sounds of windy bells…

Where To Look

 

 

“My mentor, Gottfried Muller once said to me, “Thomas, do you want to know how to look into the eyes of God?’

‘Of Course!’ I answered.

‘Then look into the eyes of any other living thing,’ he said.”

--Thom Hartmann “The Last Days Of Ancient Sunlight”

 

 

Yes, I’d grown cynical

Lived a life so long wherein

I searched for Him

In every church

in temple and mosque

Read a thousand tales

In a thousand books

Sank my mind

Into the lost valleys

Of philosophies, of physics theories

Trying to catch a glimpse of Him

Through lenses, windows

The bottom of a glass

And in the winds

Of lysergic journeys

Fell long distances

Rose to vaporless vacuums 

Sat cross-legged under sweet trees

Humming the Mandala of Om

Counting breaths, searching Yarrow stems

Laying prostrate on red rock mesas

Beseeching the curtain be parted

And peace be granted

To my groping heart.

 

I’d grown cynical,

Starved, fruitless and weak

Spirit parched

Past all love, I thought

Until

One day I turned to gaze

Into the eyes of

Another being

And that’s where I found Him,

Staring back at me.

 

 

Intimations of Autumn

("Early Fall View, Palo Alto Baylands" by David Saltaire)

It begins now

although days are still heated.

It begins in deep night

where the cold coils and waits;

it is there in the morning

where the crisp snap of air

makes me reach for my jacket

the light one I bring out

with one missing button .

 

I feel it now

in the ruddy sun’s setting,

in the damp under  trees.

in the midnight it’s creeping

in the rush of water 

soft, in the old meadow

in the business of birds

and soft, timid mammals,

geese huddling, planning

ancestral arc of migration

 

 

I feel them now

as they test heavy wings

in the still of the cooling,

sapphire skies

growing restless in flight

I feel them weigh time,

watching the hours

without knowing they do this

but, soon they must fly.

 

 

Yes, it’s coming in echoes

from summers now past

when in spirals life winds

through it’s course, once again.

I don’t go to meet

what’s coming for me

but I won’t resist the

pull of its will;

I’ll go where I’m led,

with philosophical grace

and pass through the valley

of fall’s unsteady light

to the palace of winter’s

dark, icy might.

Oh, yes,  it is coming

from this very night.

 

 

 

Impress me, she said

 

Who knows what will impress you?

a massive building shining

implacable in the sun?

Something soft and furry, perhaps

or a diamond, or a war.

I could conjure one, with plenty of death

and heartache-- or speak of love instead--

how one afternoon, for hours

I gazed at the myriad expressions

on a lovely face.

Perhaps money impresses you

or, an original Warhol

or furniture, or the glint of gold on your wrist.

 

 

I don’t know. I’m impressed myself

with the desert silence, a cloud

the freedom of animals,

the daily poems in growing grass,

the patient trees. What impresses me

is the savage push and pull of the sea

the ancient shine of stars,

the lonely position we hold, suspended

swimming with life,

shouting into the sky.

Your Poem

One day
all your resentments and anger will dissolve
your daily concerns
will vanish, breath on a mirror…
your prejudices will no longer torment you
your skin color will have lost meaning
your gender will mean less
the things you had gathered to yourself
will pass to other hands
it will no longer matter what you were
wearing or not wearing
your hungers will cease to trouble you
sex will no longer drug you with desire
your hopes and dreams will be at an end
your opinions will be silenced
you will cease to stumble
you will know only the past.


That day
your worth will not
be measured by what you collected
but what you gave away
It won't matter who your friends were
or who your daddy was
but, who remembers you with a smile
and why they loved you.

One day
this will happen to you
the only thing left of you
will be your poem
rippling like an echo
radiating outward
until it becomes part of the background
a movement, a pulse
vibrating forever
woven into the delicate
fabric of the universe.

Know this
and live your poem
let it ring clearly
let it celebrate something
help it to light the truth
it will be here a long time
it will be what’s left of your beauty.

The True Vine

(Passion Flower Vine and Buds by David Saltaire)

Perhaps you are a mirror
for the poor and despised man
to show him the nobility
that he carries deep within

if he cares to see.

Perhaps you are a lover
of all the pitiless and blind
from your tower of open pain
measuring with telescopes

the mercy of the sky.

And maybe you are just
another wavering illusion
on horizons of parched sand
pulling along the hopeful

giving meaning to the void.

Perhaps you were drawn
from the bright nucleic acids
of our yearning to be something
more than mere survivors

on a cinder from a star.


Or, maybe
you just are.

She

("Angel With Lantern On An Old German Christmas Ornament" by David Saltaire)

Oh, if she ever comes around

like the sun upon my bed,

oh, and then the field of gold

will lay on green and tender joy.

Now, if she ever visits me

the sky will be so blue

and I’ll ride the clouds like her,

I’ll be rain and ocean, too.

In the heart of everything

there’s a longing to return;

to see the mighty river rush

to join the mother sea again.

My time will always tumble, turn

mine will return once more.

You will see my face again

in the space between the trees.

Oh, now here she comes, now

in her gentle quiet way.

Yes, she waits to lead you out

through dim valley to the peak.

Somehow, you were afraid

now it’s all charade--

things you left behind

fall into bright dust again.

and, when she wakes you, then

lotus or rose, or dandelion.

true gold you’ll know again

as you stand by her right hand.

Oh, and when she comes, now

robes of diamonds, midnight blue,

I will rise and come to her

joy and triumph on my brow.

Diagnosis

(Image: Heart of Palm by David Saltaire)

I see your poor heart
bleeding, beating, torn
underneath the opaque skin
of your words.
and there’s that one word
a dry patch, whitened and dull
itching, marked with desperate nails;
it needs healing.

There’s only one cure
for the pain of such scarring--
you shrink from it
because all cures can potentially, sting
but you need it.
it seems fiery and distant
but it’s closer than you think,
it’s better than you know.


Although you may have to go far to find it
blooming from tiny leaves of green
it grows in airy soil
and, god know, it’s very rare--
well, when you finally get close
it will open like a soft white rose
and you’ll see your own face
staring back at you with shining eyes
and that’s where the balm is.

(Notes: written in response to another person's poem. The poet wanted feedback. Looking at it again, I may have been writing to myself as much as to the other person.)

Intelligent Life

("Hail in the Desert, Northern Nevada")

Do the heavy clouds

Mutter their tears and glower?

Well, and if they do

Sweet sage answers with

Kind and liberal breath,

And so does the dirt

Proclaim itself with flint and dust

On a rainy day.

The Quail race, heads forward

And beside them tiny chicks

Flutter and bounce like feather balls,

And so, outside our evil world

They move to their own

Beating of hearts.

So, too, the snake coils

Under sheltering rock

Lizard scrambles, looks over his back

And darts into brittlebush.

The innocent datura

Luxuriates in soft trumpets

And grows it’s fatal fruit.

Above, the Hawk soars

On solar winds, below

Ancient stars, all

Enmeshed in the hunting of time.

We know all this and yet…

And yet somehow, we still can

Call our lives civilized

And say they’re the benighted ones.

Worth only the subjection of pens

And the yield of the butcher’s blade.

Ah, but let the lay of the land

And the current of wind

Expose this ridiculous lie.

The native ken of the reviving Fish

The patience of the creeping Newt

The watchful eye of the Rabbit

And the yip of the Coyotes

Proclaim a thousand nations

And histories beyond our understanding.

We think ourselves so bold and knowing

But where does intelligence lie?

Oh, muttering clouds who hold

Our so many lives

In their vaporous hands

The sun beyond, who’s mighty beams

Rest quiet and modest upon our fate,

Perhaps they know in their ages

What was really meant

When a lonely, wise wanderer

Spoke to every heart and soul

The words prophetically ringing

In my ears today…

The meek shall inherit the Earth,

Someday.