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Deciphering the Dearest
These thoughts can come from a grove of trees
when the wood rants and raves in a wail
of old stories: the voice of the Pasture Pine,
where once the people wandered along their Way
to the summer’s fishing camp on the Atlantic coast.
Words rising out of the branches of maples,
escaping from the knotted “Oh” of the birch tree knot,
needles tapping out the Morse Code memories
whole under shushed chapel canopy, the chorus of angels,
of sorts, call me to sit, heart in hand and empty the hanging
cones of thought directly onto the pages I ply.
Even the grasses and mosses pose questions
to the derby headed cattails in their wading
and there is surely an answer, a response so subtle
only the poetic heart can hear. Through their very roots
comes the hum of a holy song that stirs the water,
ripples to the far shore where I sit and soak in the musing.
Rain, softly striking the page of the earth for rhythm,
recites a soliloquy that is remembered by the leaves
and quoted over and over in the post-storm drops
to be taken up by the soil and scribed in greens
and full-blossomed punctuations as earth stretches
to find the source of the song that I pen to paper.
A coyote knows the angst and anguish of never finding,
always searching for the bemoaned evening shadows
that hold feast and famine. This suffering brother
addresses himself to the moon and sends his thoughts
screeching off the sheer edges of bluffs where the wind
picks up his phrases and carries the hopes of his heart
to that Great Mystery that gave us all voice.
Burning tongues of dry lips of autumns flags
speak to the soul of an empty skull and open heart,
waving banners of caution to make haste,
to capture the moment while it is here,
before some fall we may not rise from.
I am poet. The world brushes against my cheek,
whispers in my ears, sends me messages in vapored mornings,
and, I, standing, alone in churling whitecaps,
can decipher the intimate messages to speak the truth
with bound voice that is only loosened when called to answer.
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