Birdsongs
by R.E. Slater
1
Youth was a time of deep
reflection
2
of what was, and is, and
was to come,
3
but also a time of
silently mourning
4
each rapturous day
passing its silence –
5
full of doubts and fears,
reprises and surprises.
6
My boyhood seemed lost
in a forever
7
remaining special to me
o'er long years of
8
trial or failure,
marking an innocence
9
and marvel I still cling
to unsurrendered
10
in fidelity to passing
days of yore and legend.
11
Where childlike wonder
too easily arose
12
against the lengthening
shadows of each
13
passing day listening
its many birdsongs
14
of voices heard beneath
the cooling willows
15
of my dark wander across
its gathering lands.
16
Beheld in the grey
shadows of evening starlight
17
singing in their
choruses new rhythms and balances
18
measuring time as an
aloneness ranging thick about
19
me, enfolding my soul
within its whispering deep,
20
considering all that I
knew or wanted or wished.
21
Whose long grey shadows
cast dismal cold visages
22
ensnared upon the tangles
of old wizened trees stretching
23
in their lengths across
the grey hillsides of frolic I once loved,
24
whether rainfall or
sunshine, quiet warble or song, drinking
25
deeply of its nurture
upon my parched soul lost in the dark.
26
Remembering early
morning marches across wet summer
27
meadows drenched in
clovered dews, or burning grain fields
28
boiling in the afternoon
heats simmering beneath the loud din
29
of humming insects seeking
relief - to suddenly stop, upon my
30
forage into their
habitat, marked by broken fence lines fallen.
31
Or happily chance upon the
lone meadowlark bursting
32
furiously upon the wing
in heart-stopping flight, crying
33
its tormented surprise
in increasing heart-pounding
34
crescendos, when
all the world stood still, and I in it,
35
overcome by its
wondrous mysteries so new yet ancient.
36
And it was here where my
gazing revelations finally beheld
37
across verdant
grassland’s tumbling in the gentle breezes,
38
or lifting thunderstorms
dispelled of their black rage by the
39
gay breaks of warming
sunlight cleaving the stricken hillsides,
40
finding in happy
testament large mud puddles to be splashed.
41
But sometimes revelation
came by the small thing
42
when slipping into aged
barns o'ercome by weary time
43
housing silent, ancient
clutter, to find rays of streaming
44
sunlight slipping
through dirty window panes bestirring
45
rising dust particles in
slow circle, lift, and gentle fall.
46
So that now, as an old
man, come full circle from
47
youth to youth, into another
age full of fury and awe,
48
lived in a wounded world
still too little understood,
49
gained by years of long
study, then loss, stripped of
50
the many good things
once so familiar and near.
51
Into a worn world
needing a touch of the divine
52
bestirring its sober
wanderings in lifting wonder
53
like childhood
gazes upon youth’s early fellowships -
54
so fair, so beautiful to
behold, beyond the onslaught
55
of life’s pained
hardships striving its fey beauties.
56
There, in my heart, I
still carry this altar’d peace
57
held deep within the
recesses of a gathering soul
58
so in love with life’s
mysteries, its majesties, and
59
glories, unmuted by
human hand yet impassable
60
to all but the kneeling
supplicant come to bow.
61
It is this inner child
now guides my long years
62
as both friend and
companion, giving rest to
63
an aged heart amidst
divine bounteous gifts
64
still heard playing
across the quieting winds
65
of lifting
birdsongs awakening each new dawn.
66
And it is in the burnt
fields of my heart I still
67
recall morning’s sublime
choruses nurturing
68
a presence against
all coming later to haunt me
69
when evening descends
its shadows splashing
70
my soul in starlit
wonders streaming the earth.
71
Sensing a new day’s
rhythms and balances arising
72
across a weary evening’s
lengthening grey shadows
73
ushered from afar by the
woodland owl's awakening
74
greeting starlight and
moonlight gathering together
75
rising fixed in the
cradling heavens far, far above.
76
To see the heavenly
lights reborn in stupored gaze
77
unmoved like each new
dawn daring to draw breath
78
so still, so alone, my
memory of those glorious days
79
when youth awakened to
creation’s glorious songs
80
heralding legends
from afar within a parched soul.
81
Indwelt by days of
fellowship with heaven and earth,
82
rung in on evening
vespers to days of wine and song,
83
woven within life's
goodness and pain, bemoaning
84
nothing lasting - but
all that is true and good - made
85
eternal in the heavens
by everlasting decree and will.
86
These are the guideposts
and compasses I seek
87
drawn daily from a
wandering spirit casting afar
88
to cast a spell like the
spells I’ve been cast within
89
overwhelming the senses,
overtaking the spirit,
90
steadfastly yielded to
the renewing graces of life.
R.E. Slater
October 30,
2015
revised
November 3, 16, 2015
revised
January 7, 2016; May 29, 2017
@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved
