THE WHY OF THE DAY
I awoke and again
was afraid.
Of the day to waste,
to wonder why
I couldn't, wouldn't, be.
Ticking lone time
to consider
my lack of worth
or sense.
Then my love came
dressed
in hiking boots and bra
with coffee smelling
of bannered bazaars,
two tap-dancing dogs
sniffing,
one green-eyed cat
twitching.
All of us in bed
curling, crowding, purring,
while a purple finch
sang life-or-death
sassy.
Then I knew,
told her,
told them,
they told me,
we told us
the why of the day.
Donald Marsh
marsh@cruzio.com
(To receive one of these free original poems emailed each Monday, contact Donald Marsh.)
Atlanta, GA
The seed contains the pattern and essence of the tree. In germination, white threads of root tendrils thrust their way through the seed husk, seeking moisture and nutrients in the soil. The energy of life bursts from the seed crown in a sprout, reaching to be met by the warmth of the sun.
Tender sprouts are at risk from devouring mouths and harsh elements. They are easily uprooted. Unprotected from cold winds, many perish. Over time, the survivor forms a defense of bark and entrenched roots determined to stay. The treetop may rise above a canopy of foliage to partake of the sun's blessings.
Humans are complex beings. In a metaphorical comparison to trees, our psyche has many layers like tree rings, and our outer lives compare to the branches, bark, twigs, leaves, fruit and seeds. We have interactions with the outside world, the sunlight and rain, the earth, the winds, lightning, parasites, diseases, knives of young lovers and axes of woodsmen, the pollinators, nest-makers and scampering squirrels.
We sometimes think and behave as though we are a leaf blowing in the wind, as though the leaf is who we are. Many people operate in a leaf consciousness, without real life and power, easily pushed about by circumstances, unaware of their grounding in the strength of the tree.
Our real self is the nature and fullness of the tree -- our real self is the treeness. What a difference it makes to function in the full consciousness of our being, and to recognize our connection with the forest through the underground River tapped by our roots.
Gary Smith
guide@atl.mindspring.com
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Section C: .................................................................. March 15, 1998
Carmel, CA
Something I woke with I wanted to share in my early morning tribute to the letting all of us BE who we are.
UNTITLED
I love your wild places...
Where the freedom within you and
wilderness of your possibilities
are not caged in compromise;
where the true essence of you
knows no limits;
and the fertile texture of your soul
remains enriched forever unconfined.
Like daylight being lifted from the horizon,
by wings of flying geese toward uncharted land,
your heart has no map.
This new day, I again fall open in wonder,
as spring flowers in sunlight,
to the splendor of you unfettered.
Within the echo and embrace of our intimacy,
I am comfort to your freedom...
music for your dance.
I love... your wild... places.
I also woke with this on my breath.
TIME
What is time to a rabbit?
To an elk...
in the cadence
of it's own breath,
drifting hypnotically
across snowy night-meadows?
To an owl...
within it's soundless-swoop
upon a critter in high grasses?
Where does time hide...
In an artist's passion...
In the groan of pleasure
that springs from a lover...
In the center of a child's laugh...
Or in the moonlight
mirrored back to me
from your smiling eyes?
As my enraptured heart
shepherd's me,
through an eternity
of glorious moments,
time waits...
for someone else
to call it's name.
Gary Ibsen
dining@redshift.com
Soquel, CA
AS COWBOYS
Day's end cowboys
squatted on wire milk crates
upended
on bootheel ground
nodding one another
tomcat permission
beer cans offered
as blindman
begging cups
Cowboy dumptruck
septic tank pump
backhoe bronco
congenial
in an alley
behind a Quonset hut
after work
They tune torque time
shake heads softly swear
over cars pickups
children
hang doors frame windows
rewire
friend's home for grass
for dinner
for wine
have love and trouble
with their women
Then have their tired redolent
hilarity
day's end
in an alley
one more ritual ride
Jesus they say over and over
Jesus Christ
in an alley
as cowboys
Lazy brown bear sway
to their pride
to their scorn
to their dream
Accomplished
one step behind
on time payments
of who they are
of what an alley
they have
WHEN I WAS A CHILD, I SPAKE AS A CHILD*
Her face--
powdered pale,
skull capped
in cloche hat,
Kewpie doll red lips--
has haunted me
for over sixty years.
A crimped pie-tin face,
mascara eyes pan shallow,
staring off,
bone lonely,
over a hot fudge sundae
isolated at a Five-and-Dime
counter.
Mommy-- what--
that lady-- what about her--
she's so sad-- no--
my mother mirroring,
staring off-- no, she's just
thinking.
*First Corinthians, thirteen
Donald Marsh
marsh@cruzio.com
(To receive one of these free original poems emailed each Monday, contact Donald Marsh.)
Atlanta, GA
THE RIVER
Each part of creation, of the material universe and the spark that perpetuates life, can say with all other parts, that in our essence we are the River. The River is a symbol of whatever you believe about the Spirit of God and His creation or about biological and spiritual evolution, or however you express your understanding and experience of the greater life. This is the expression of the River through one writer.
I am all rivers, moving from what is to something greater. I am pumped from the heart of the Universe through the circulatory system of all cycles and seasons and back into the heart center.
My essence is conscious potentiality, pushing and throbbing into the cells of matter, bringing new life, new awareness, new forms and combinations, into material existence. I am at once a river of sparkling light and a river of flowing, silky gold ‹ fully alive, fully aware.
My waters meet the roots of trees and plants and are drawn up to the stem, bringing life into every fiber. In the tops of trees I greet the sun and through evaporation am carried into the clouds, to repeat the cycle. I am the cycle. I am all cycles and seasons, renewing and moving forward in a vast River pulsating with the force of life. All history and all prophecy are contained in my changing waters, and in my center I am the eternal now.
I am the underground river-awareness nourishing the roots of the humanity forest that grows in the field of matter.
I am the underlying current of thought, expression and insight that flows through inspired art and literary works, the gems that link together to form a continuity of growing consciousness.
More than the images and feelings evoked by these words, I am the essence dwelling in all potentiality, the urge to express new forms.
I am the flow of all that has been, is, and will be.
Gary Smith
guide@atl.mindspring.com
(Learn about resources such as Transformers and Vision River Guide from the Vision River Home Page.
Gary Smith is the Internet developer who first put Creative Edge on the Web!
Transformers is an online directory of people who are bringing forward the ideas, technologies, practices, products and services that are changing lives and contributing to human advancement.
Vision River Guide provides in-depth profiles of hundreds of current books relating to life purpose, with information designed to help sort through the maze, guidelines for discovering life purpose and tools to support actually living it.)
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Section B: .................................................................. February 15, 1998
Seattle, WA
Susan and I are not sure what prompted our son Spencer (Age 7) to write this poem. He just seemed to like the rhyming of the words. As far as we know, it is not about anything in particular. Spencer's poem seems to reflect the ebbing and flowing of his usual day. His delight in writing it was only exceeded by his parent's enjoyment in discovering his talent.
OVERNIGHT
I sleep on your bed
as long as I live.
And look out the window
from my bib.
And awake in the morning,
and eat breakfast and fly
into the daylight.
The daylight of sky.
And in space to the sun
I'm having some fun.
And back to the earth,
Close to my birth.
Spencer L. Cyr
I wrote my first haiku the day after we visited with you. When we went down to the beach on Sunday, we saw several whale spouts. We also watched in amusement as a 6' log and the surf played with each other. The log simply rolled back and forth on the beach with the surf. Here's the haiku:
Craig Cyr
Here are two of Susan's poems.
OCEAN IN LATE WINTER
Oh, vast reservoir of all human tears,
----I come again to leave my offering at your doorstep.
You ably hear my sorrow
----And fold my tears into
All there is.
Great rocking cradle of time before time,
----Hold me today.
You throw yourself about my ankles, when I dare get close,
----Reminding me of all I know.
Urging me to not forget the lessons of salty waters.
You are in me,
----And we are both moved by the moon.
OCEAN IN AUTUMN
Beach running .
Under red-flowerered cotton dress,
a jubilant bare body.
My own ample bottom jiggles loose and free.
A subtle, just-enough sort of nudity.
Only I know of sea breeze in happy, private hollows,
----Usually bound by pink cotton, white lycra, elastic strapping.
Full breasts jump for joy.
Sometimes I bring tears, but
----Today I sprinkle laughter over sea foam.
Beach sitting.
Energy of wind and breaker sound play with my dresstail.
Sunlight glints off white thighs, wild and flying hair, upturned cheeks and teeth
----sending to the morning moon an ancient prayer of gratitude.
Susan M. Cyr
craig-cyr@att.net
Soquel, CA
METASTASIS
My oldest brother in a voice
chipped by pain, granulated by age,
electronically intimate in long distance,
wispy with a certain knowledge,
naked in late-night in-bed truth:
"He called it something sounded Greek.
I asked. Told me. Twice. Slow.
Anyway, what it means is that,
well, there's a good chance
I just won't be anymore."
I instantly put him
safely back in time
to when he had that dangerous smile
through black eyebrows
and was building a kayak,
the two of us warping its ribs
in tensile ballet swoons.
Then kayaking the colonial canals
of Trenton north to Lambertville,
gliding silent slumpbacked under
weeping willows in green streamers,
my brother holding the double-bladed oar
sitting erect a flying Wallenda,
Siamese twinned by the canal's
mirror silvered cutting surface.
The two of us safe and young
in kite-tail dragonfly summer,
motionless in a feather-bowed boat,
the loitering disreputable air
painted thick hanging coats of humidity,
drifting stately with the perhaps current
near punked reeds. We are primed intent.
My brother moves slow-oiled and tilts the oar
and the water-oar image shimmers.
We hold steady barely panting,
piratical in open mouths.
I hold a cavalry sword athwart.
We are the slit-eyed electric snake hunters.
Water Moccasin skins for naked girl's garters.
"Almost just had it."
His voice weary cinder steps
back to the hospital-bed present.
"Said it, repeated it after.
Doesn't matter I don't remember.
What matters is what it means.
Means it has spread. Everywhere."
Months after the call, after
the vacuum implode of the funeral,
after the sick sleep-laden smell
of gardenias, after the neat specified grave
dug by machine, after the following cars
with their wipers weeping, after
the routine of life binder-pressed down,
I began seeing him again. Everywhere.
At the back of a crowd of finance ministers
gathered at Sao Paulo in a wire photo;
on the television as an on-looker
at an accident in Orinda
the camera catching his kayak profile;
ahead in a crowd on Dolores Street,
the slope of his shoulders, the nape of neck
unmistakable as he rounds a corner;
in a car going the other way near Watsonville,
his tan forearm draped out the window.
In my dreams, waking late or early,
remembering a rueful Latin-lidded smile;
finally encountered face-to-face
passing an unexpected mirror
and knowing in responsibility
and surprise, that something
of us all never really dies.
Donald Marsh
marsh@cruzio.com
(To receive one of these free original poems emailed each Monday, contact Donald Marsh.)
Pataskala, OH
I wrote this after my sister called me one day: She said that she had just gotten into a very violent fight with her husband. I wanted to call the police on him , but she was scared and begged me not to. So, felling very helpless, I just started writting.
UNTITLED
Somewhere they turned on us
they wanted us to suffer
How much pain can we take
will we be victims forever
alcoholics abusers they are all the same
generation to generation have we no shame
letting them take our lives like its all a game
Games with your mind but please not your soul
for once family lets get control
Choose who you let in
you have to take charge you see
Realize abuse is not your destiny
Stand you ground be firm and strong, you have to remember
They have tought us one thing, life is not long
God has given us alot of choices you see
and we have always had the key,
realize we are not one but We
and maybe in time, We in spirit can be
FREE!
TREE OF LIFE
The tree of life is love:
The branches are every aspect:
Forever growing and thriving
to reach thee ultimite source of
light and love.
I have a whole book of poems I've written over the years. I wrote the tree of life for my
mother last christmas. I drew a large picture of a tree: wrote the poem in gold over the top of it, Then made a twig frame with vines and roses going around it. I've never showed them to any one other than family.
Kerrie Cook
KERRIECOOK@prodigy.net
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Section A: .................................................................. January 15, 1998
Carmel, CA
After fixing a cup of tea, lighting a candle and returning to bed for awhile
.....listening to John O'Donohue wax poetic on prayer in the dark--this little poem came.
UNTITLED
In my morning's freshly awakened
and still pillowed mind,
wrapped in honey-colored-cotton-sheets
smelling of springwildflowers
and the scent for another wonderous day,
I am a harp and violin
to his lyrical Irish cadence.
Gary Ibsen
dining@redshift.com
Soquel, CA
Who are we? I'm always struck by two things: one, who we think we are contrasted with who others feel we are; and, two, the idea that there is an immutable "self." It seems to me that on any given day at any hour I am a different person to different people.
PERSONA
You've buried a loved one,
gone back to your childhood
for the final austere ritual,
found everything smaller,
shabbier, sorry.
You've spent days going through
the loved one's effects,
discovering things
you'd rather not know.
Then you're beginning
the long night's drive home
through terrain that looks
like industrial New Jersey.
You're motoring back to a life
where you feel taken for granted,
where no one seems to want
to know you beyond your provider role.
No one said good-bye at the funeral.
You realize with a cresting sigh
you are the last of a line
that was once thick in tradition.
You admit all over again
you're operating
with tired worn parts,
that you can't really
account for all the years,
see so many plans as fruitless,
listen to your heart making odd beats,
taste your breath as stale
and dentured in partials.
You see a diner with its neon
as lonely and expectant
as an Edward Hopper painting.
Inside there are a few
desultory staring people. You sit at a counter
wanting only coffee
and a few quiet moments
of caffeine mercy.
You feel an urge to cry--
at the tawdry inevitability of things,
at the mean paucity of the spirit.
Then, through the swinging doors
from the kitchen comes the waitress.
An entrance: pausing milkmaid hip thrown
to one side, elbows in, palms spreading,
" Ta-dah! Vanna White look-a-like!"
A younger, less careful, more bovine
version of Vanna. Shows a sales-window
Chiclets smile. Then palms smoothing
foam rubber waist, her look is mocking,
lowered and sidesaddle.
" Card turning and coffee pouring,"
Silex pot poised. " All in the wrist."
Slumps rubber-lipped staring off.
" It's a stupid show and why not?
The customers say I look like her.
Men mostly hitting on me.
Sometimes I resent it and get like,
hey, buster, look, there's somebody here.
Then I think, hey, people smile,
and I think, if somebody laughs,"
farmyard arms spread, " Hey,
what the hell, why not?"
You nod. At the cash register you pay,
regarding yourself in a mirror.
You are, as the doctor suggests,
" Overweight."
Gray and balding.
The years have funhouse thickened
your features. You look like
so many other middle aged men.
You smile. It is a perfect disguise.
" Take care," the diner-Vanna says,
handing you your change.
" No," you say in a little smile,
" Thanks all the same,
but I don't think I will."
" All. Right." She says, fists
thumping the register, " All! Right!"
repeated cleaning the diner air.
Outside you pause to take in
the jumbled nightline sky.
You must be on the move,
in the hunt, for you know
that nearby, out of sight,
there just has to be
one
-------more
---------------windmill.
1/5/98
With the posting of today's poem, it is one year. It started with me sending poems to a few friends and grew to its current size mostly on its own. I am amazed and, hopefully, humble. Somewhere along the line I realized I was having a good time. I write poetry because I must. I also write it to be read and, through email, I've found a wonderful opinionated audience. Boy, the opinions flow. I thank you for all of them.
I don't know how much longer I can continue posting new poems, but I'm willing and hope you're enjoying.
PRAYER
in the end--
to something that may
or may not be there;
may or may not
be interested;
may or may not
be listening--
thank you
and yes.
Heroes. Do you have any? I was in a discussion in which we all bemoaned the lack of modern day heroes. Then I started thinking. Made a list, discovering I had and have lots of heroes: both genders, all ages, most every race, living and dead. And a few, like a fireman I saw once, unknown by name.
Here is a poem about one very special hero to me. I admired him much, for what he wrote about and how he continued to write, right up to his death. He was better known as Tennessee Williams.
THOMAS LANIER WILLIAMS
I thought of him as an older brother.
of which the family was ashamed
and I loved him for their shame.
Oh, he did whistle in a way
late at night made us smooth and giddy,
then dance in a way made lanterns
mean something more than papered light;
made you want it never to be day.
In the suggestive dark he danced and warbled
of all the things that aren't
supposed to be in the heart.
He would whistle and tango
just one dark apartment away,
with backstairs laughter
at thickening humid heat,
behind glowing parchment window shades,
from hot whore's whiskey throats.
And what he had and what he was
will always go on just out of sight,
and families will always explain,
and there will always be those that know
the importance of daring against shame,
the compassion in laughter in the dark.
Donald Marsh
marsh@cruzio.com
Thank you for your creative offerings!
I invite readers to share their own creative works (poems, stories, images, comment, etc.) in Letter Box On Line (LBOL). I look for work and comments I feel support understanding and encouragement of the creative process, and hence, the process of life.
The Editor
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