Tag Archives: symbolism

What has the Earth to Do

What has the earth to do with air?
They seem a most unlikely pair.
Just look to the horizon, where
they touch for miles, but cross nowhere.

What has the sky to do with land?
The ground will never understand;
it may find heights, but none so grand
as air seeks without thought or plan.

What has the earth to do with air?
Look to the fields and roadways where
when mixed with diligence and care
their children grow beyond compare.

What has the air to do with earth?
It gives it life and fire and mirth;
and just beyond the sight, gives birth
to flowers that cost a penny’s-worth.

20 JUN 2007

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The hands that write these words tell lies

The hands that write these words tell lies;
their range of symbols does not jibe
with the instructions they receive
and must translate from eye and ear
through circuits fixed through years of use
to see and hear in certain ways.

When Henry Miller said the thought
that finds the paper is transformed
from its first impulse, pure and strong,
into mere shadow of itself
he was not wrong; and yet, not all
of thought’s initial pulse is lost.

Its shape is change and often blurred,
the leading edge may lose its keen;
a rock may evolve to a bird, almost,
or mutate somewhere in between.

The hands that write these words tell lies;
they cannot speak so clear and plain
without a whisper of complaint
against the mind that bids them work.

Perhaps they think to self-preserve,
in fear that should they speak the truth.
The frequencies they might proscribe
could be those suited to destroy
the mechanism’s source itself;
what good a printed manual then,
with no mechanic, or machine?

28 May 2005

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The Hawk (Seabhac)

A flash of gray against the sun and cloud,
then swift and sure he plummets to his prey;
Above the warp and woof he watches, proud,
examining the context of our way.

The puzzle is the sum of all its pieces,
he tells us, seeking balance with the whole;
And in the insignificant and tiny
are found the noble roots that form our soul.

Be cleansed of that which in the past bound you,
the message that he brings to set us free;
And reconnect to ancient ways around you
to recollect your sense of destiny.

The breadth of life within his field of sight,
this ally offers visions through his flight.

His eye a piercing shaft that splits the sky
which finds among the blades of grass his prey,
he flies above the world, a focused spy,
and sees only a fraction on his way.

He teaches us that ideals, however high,
if not tempered with vision, make us cruel,
and can breed arrogance and selfish pride
that lead us to deny the heart, as fools.

The justness of our cause, he bids us ask,
to balance, with humility, our role;
and warns that attention to just the task,
restricts our wider sense of the great whole.

One whose message is to consider more,
the hawk shows us the price we pay to soar.

from The Druid Animal Sonnets, 08 OCT 2001

for LJ user gurdonark

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