Friday, August 28, 2009

I'm Not Alone

When the wind howls louder than before
Are my ears the only one’s that hear
As it whistles through the tiny branches and it’s leaves
Does the song and tune it brings
into my ears, the only one’s who hear the words?

When I raise my eyes to view the sky
The clouds form figurines that dance in beat
With the tempo of the song brought by the wind.

No, I think not, for my feathered friends
They too, soar in rhythm and their wings
Also in tempo with the wind.

I find a smile comes o’er my face
Knowing I am not alone
As the space between us
Is fondly shared.

The Search We Share

For most of my life I have searched for that slightest glitter of light that might shine upon the pathway that leads me onto the steps of a doorway, when open, is the entryway where Love resides. I have long before found some semblances of its existence through stories told, from poems read, music and songs that have played the strings of my heart.

If a child when born is cuddled by its mother and a kiss is felt upon it’s brow by the father, the breath of love is fortuitously bread into the nature of its being. From this the child is born and perpetuates upon its own the same. Sometimes, a child is born but little of its father or mother is known, the eyes then capture little of loves embrace. When the warmth of mother’s breast is never felt nor the arms of fathers strength, so then, unbeknownst to that child, begins a journey searching for that warmth, for that embrace. Amidst life’s challenges, in darken caverns and sometimes blinded by the sunny days bringing about feigned emotions, ceaseless is the search throughout the many bends of life’s path, for that fabled warmth of love’s embrace.

The melody to the song of love one can only hum, for until one finds and learns the words, the song cannot be sung. Once the words evince from lips, then one can sing that song a fortuitous child shares at birth of a fathers presence and the suckling of mother‘s breast. It will know the tune, share the words and sing along with others, throughout this mundane sojourn.
Love bears its face around many turns, sometimes benign and sometimes feigned, it entices those who stare into its eyes capturing but a moments glean. It hovers o‘er innocence of a denuded soul, one who’s wandering desire is forced to embrace it’s presence not knowing of it’s fabled hold and walks along side the stories told.

I’ve witnessed this most recently, pleasantly and most poignantly, it’s presence before me in an irony and for so long the paradox of its absence is now disclosed. Fearless of Life’s partner, Death, I remanded the breath of my life unto another’s hands, as I did only one time before. This a chance to correct a malady attained from the many trails I have walked and now taken a wear, a toll upon my limbs that once in youthful times could jump high and race freely like antelope and deer. Before the sleep was place upon my eyes they gazed upon the presence of my two brothers and my wife, standing quietus before me, that internal sense of longing and sought Love was sated. At that moment, as the metaphor rings true, the door flung open, the words of the song became clear, into loves eyes I unabashedly leered, sang the song whose words within me I now carry dear. At last, Mothers love and that of life is born within me never to be sought again because of absence.

Sleep came fast but soon awakened, refreshed, a breath of new life. I search no more.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Uncertainty

Uncertain
 
A shadow casts upon the light and a darkness follows me throughout the day from where and why I do not know. I try to understand the contrast of the dark and light but all that I can see, is vague and indiscernible. This world of which I exist in gives calm and calamity equal time. The cries and smiles although seemingly opposites sometimes are both expressing joy. Then there’s cries of pain and sadness which gives rise to my confusion. Those with much want more while those with little only wish for little. The irony is that, more, for those with much is comparatively little and those with little, little is much. Those with much care little about those with little and those with little have much in suffering and pain. Does this give reason for the shadow that is cast upon the light to what seemingly is a world whose creation of a deity is to make what’s wrong, right or a world where all is justified through chaos?

My Pain Now Sleeps

My Pain Now Sleeps

Outside the window
Cold the day
Falling sparsely, snowflakes
Look for a place to land

A sharp unceasing pain
rides on my hip, the right one.
The left now ceases from the same,
now a prosthesis.

This pain seemingly recedes
When my lower back
commands attention.

Never did I think at fifty eight
My day would be challenged
To walk, to sit,
Cursing, socks and shoe laces.

Thoughts descend within my brain
How to end the constant pain.
Overriding guilt, though, of my complaints
Others, so much more distress to claim.

Mother’s tears for sons and daughters.
Dead soldiers
Unknown civilian lie unburied
In a land of hot sun and sand.

Father’s anguish of job loss
No longer ‘warmth of “home”
His homeless children.

Lands afar, toddlers search in mounds
Garbage and decay
flies hover but never land.

Now, shards of sun rays pierce the grey
Through window pane
Landed snow flakes now glisten and
The constant pain upon my body,
Now in in comparison and reflection,
is quieted, desist of complain.

My Tree

My tree

When first I sat before this tree
It’s trunk was no wider than my arm;
That was when I was three.

Today I drove by to visit it
And it had sprawled so large
It’s trunk now makes two of me.

The house whose steps I knew intimately
No longer stands
A parking lot for the school
The nun who once taught me
Has been outlived by this tree.

Driving down the street where
little bare feet once had raced,
And a loving maternal call hovered o’er,
“Marcos, time to come eat”.

The voices on this street, now long gone
Vietnam’s Hell stole a couple;
Two, ascended to motorcycle heaven
One to a knife held by a friend

Some souls may also still come
Visit this old tree
From where and how far
Who knows, not me.

One day after my birthday, two years ago
The soft maternal voice had quieted
The call once hovering o’er this street,
“Marcos, time to come eat”.

I think on my birthday
Not too many days from now
April twenty fifth
I shall once again come
And visit this old tree.

Breath of thought

Breath of thought
 
Fifty seven years in this space and time of mine, I’ve now walked and grazed upon this earth’s terrain. I cherish the gifts of smell and touch, the sounds of Nature’s song and heartfelt renderings. These vicissitudes of the shared travels with love of family and friends I hope will have not been for naught. By this I mean, that as my mind travels along pathways that reach beyond the mere mundane, in a constant journey of inquiry as to whether all this that exists will have relative value in the realm of what may exist beyond, in perpetuity. Will this mortal sojourn, this path of inquiry and my choices of consumption via word and script bring me closer to the comprehension of the esoteric, to wisdom, to the truth? Availing myself of human desire , entails by my nature, the perpetuation of self and cognizance there of. It is a desire to travel beyond the temporal and my constant pull upon the strings on the wisdom of the wise, is my attempts to breach the secrets of the spirits that ride upon the wings of the creator. Will my desire at least unveil the face whereby I may look upon the windows of the eyes and wander into the depth and breath of truth and what may be life’s abode.

My wife's fiftieth Birthday

July 31, 2009
My Love, my wife, my friend,

There’s a softness, a gentle tender warmth that emits from her smile. Her eyes of powder blue with lashes that sway upward like a whitecap ocean tide just before it wanes onto its sandy destination. Knowing, what seemed not too long ago these well preserved and softly molded high cheeks, now have given birth to the subtleness yet surreptitious “crows feet”. They peer along side the edges on the corners of her eyes. It speaks, with poignancy, time that’s passed yet how so quietly it has touched upon her brow, the years. I stand here staring at the face who has shared so many fond moments in my life. Without her presence I wouldn’t have been so introspective which unfolds and defines the value of my life and providing so many pleasurable moments. When one feels good with love in their heart the eyes see more lucidly, the ears gather the “yin” synchrony of natures sounds and the “yang’ of silence, the pleasures of taste and touch become so keen which gives rise to a joyous smile like a Sun and which attracts those that wish to enjoy its rays. This is what my wife gives me today on her half century birthday.

Lydia (Officially my niece only two years ago)

It was her big green hazels eyes, lashes curling upward never ending.
She was quietly observing the adult faces staring back at her.
Evincing was a charming smile seducing all who would dare to look at her.
Rarely crying as most toddlers do, I stare at those
green hazels.

Now a gentle smile precedes a slender face gently framed
by straight brown locks of hair.
Her once baby fat has transitioned into a curvaceous womanly form.
Her smile still seduces all who stare and her verve never ceases as she
Prances about like fawn at play.

We now visit and see each other in family functions or
when her schooling allows her a brief reprieve.
Her energy and smile still seduces and entices
those whose pangs of life has reduced their smiles to frowns,
she turns them back around.

Recently she peered back into our lives
Visiting us, staying in our abode and
Sharing the morning wake up coffee and sweet roles.
She cheers us with her youthful anecdotes
with a smile and and that spring of step.

She now leaves to resume her college experience.
To play, laugh and cry with roommates, assembling more anecdotes,
Sharing and giggling about last nights gathering with boy ‘friends’
And lamenting upon yesterdays exam.

The radiance of her smile, the prancing spring in her step,
those hazel green eyes with lashes that curl toward the sky,
Hopefully will never leave her.

My smile comes in watching her, a daughter my wife and I
never had, become a gorgeous and wonderful woman.