"Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words, and a book of art. Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony." - Sir Kenneth Smith, Great Civilisations

"I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine." - Leo Tolstoy

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again. - John Updike

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it." - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti


[Note - If any article requires updating or correction please notate this in the comment section. Thank you. - res]


Monday, November 16, 2015

R.E. Slater - Birdsongs



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

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