A Pathless Land
I have not found the answers seeking truth,
nor even formed the questions halfway right;
the mysteries that tempted me in youth
are still in shrouded mists hidden from sight.
The path under my feet begins and ends
a single step from where my legs touch ground;
and sacred destinations? Well, my friends,
not more than a few moments rest I’ve found.
And yet, I would not trade the journey made
for any great reward from gods, or king.
I have become a very different man
than had I come here leading some parade.
It seems that fumbling, half-sure wandering brings
experience beyond all dreams and plans.
11 JAN 2005
12.2.03
New Love
Each love, when new, burns with a lusty fire;
it feeds on what it finds without regret,
and warms the soul upon a glowing pyre,
not thinking on those things not happened yet.
Wrapped in the arms of amorous delight,
amazed as each discovery unfolds,
two lovers wait, expectant, for the night,
and in the embers nestle ‘gainst the cold.
They fan the flames and wonder in the heat,
providing fuel with each excited breath;
and when at last they lay as one, complete,
their ashes, like the Phoenix, know no death.
Ah, new love, if it lives through this event
Will be a fire whose source is never spent.
02 DEC 2003
for lj user dougs
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Finding the Ocean
I have lingered long by the endless shore,
voice lost to the surf, that infinite shift
that pulls itself from the littered ocean floor
and upon which my thoughts float free and drift;
for many years I saw only the edge
of it, against the long horizon’s line,
and heard, in the haunting seagull’s solfege
a wistful song that sounded much like mine.
I could construct a raft, I thought, and tack
against the wind and storm, to other shores;
perhaps there I would find what here I lack –
a quiet port that the busy world ignores.
But now, upon the distant coast, I see
A figure in the wind that looks like me.
10 JUL 2003
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