The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

-Robert Frost

Ocean Memory

Some men sleep on storms like mattresses
Ascending waves like Jesus speaking, “Peace,
be still.” Theirs are the virgin forests, great
Cisterns of light, gathering these sun-leaked days
With open arms, falling beams, successive dreams
raising color from their dry ash,
watered by tears and steam,
the industry of an idea and a word in coalition.
The abolition of permanent position comes
forsaken by popular conviction.
Drown in the misty river of song and sound
the conch, like Triton tearing down the dawn.
Hear the mystery of man,
spirit stuttering, the tongues of angels uttering
the story of the day God draped the clouds with
understanding. Fears are shadows of past life, an old
man kicking in his coffin like an infant.
And if you hear the footsteps of an instant,
you are mistaken; the last drop of blood was taken
years ago on a dark hillside as time stood still.
Wake the walking dead with mindful stories of
loves and glories forgotten to the golden figurehead
that stirs the pale protégé of night,
breaking light the sunrise, granting
our freedom from whitewashed tombs.
Wombs, be free! Worlds, be free! Words, be free!
There are yet men who love the land and
bend on hands and knees in the fields of ignorance,
sowing thought in fallow minds. The sign of the times precipitates
these deeds as surely as burning skies spawn hurricanes.
These are the living dead, the walkers of waters,
the dreamers of dreams, after nightmares
subside and the cool of the evening blows back
the grey curtain of the sky.
Let weakness be given over in our eventide.
Let children whisper secrets and be
Free, unwilling to hide in themselves
any longer, their divine wind the cry of storms,
deafening silences of these cavernous loves let loose,
shafts of sunlight sweeping long over valleys,
shadows of death and veils cast off.
With the crash of thunder in the hollow cavern under
The misconceptions of this world they speak
percussive hopes from lips wet of kisses,
Wishing for sun and dancing for rain, denying death
And the doubt thereof. How did rejection of
questions and honesty become as laughable and injurious to
the status quo of seeming compliance as neon to sunlight?
In defiance of white paper perforated
edged existence in all its manifestations and
coming by narrow roads to truth,
Stone circle irised men knew it well, soothsayers all,
Forming in stanzas and histories the great perspective
Of timeless space, in thought delivered and redeemed
By spilled love across the foundation of all that we seem.
Broken they the stars purposed to steal us from ourselves
For the sake of selfhood, brotherhood, independence,
Sanctity, peace, love and understanding, demanding
only that we lay down self-sufficiency.
I suspect we’ve known this all along,
that death begets a song, the children of the strong
named by loneliness of victory and the self same apathy.
So what’s in a name but the model of a man,
the open palm of an outstretched hand, a
hope and a dream, a seeming fate
to be claimed or thrown away.
Greatness has an ocean memory,
and advents with the passing of a day,
Leaving will to be determined by the forgetfulness of is.
So in this moment live,
For yesterdays, forsaken; for you, forgive.

Stories

i have a burning desire to tell a story, to speak a name and let it grow, a tender shoot like christ. i want to narrate this world so seperate from fiction, the bright spoons in a drawer, the wandering lonlieness of telephone wires in long slow droops and the memories of sentinel trees who have seen the ages of men pass and feel the burden of ancestral life in the same joyful ache that now rocks my mind to sleep.

An Old Irish Blessing

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be ever at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face.
May the rain fall soft upon your fields
and until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

On, Joy

i have found that the greatest joy of my childhood was learning how to read. there is something sweetly and intimately magnificent about reading. these ancient lines on a page, the feel of perfectly weighted paper, the tension and release of realization as meaning springs from nothingness- like your favorite part of your favorite song, each letter, each word, the rise and fall of monumental greatness in the smallest of things, the weakest of sounds. those holy times, on summer afternoons with the back door open, early spring cold rain and blanket-wrapped by a fog covered window (finger-painted smiles on glass for free), winter nights on a deserted sofa in the living room- as the smell of dinner filled that old tiny house- as the world stretched out before me, my eager eight-year-old mind already reaching after it. and now, these uncertain days i find again my old friends have gone before me, knowing these hours many ages past.

A Lesson From a Long Poem

a long poem will teach you patience, if it is well written, in much the same way as a tree. perhaps this is why the modern man is such a poor writer of long verse and an even worse reader of it. those closest to raw nature can make such admirable audiences of those few patient partners left that in my modern way, i rush to hatred of speed, forgeting to be patient.