Poetry

Part 4

Smooth Slopes
To Ski
Artists
Apology
Feelings
On Our Friendship
Almond Blossoms Ravaged
Time
Willows
Fatherhood

Smooth Slopes

No new inches this night
The day had been warm
A wind springs up
The temperature falls down
Crystals of ice form everywhere

The sky is pale blue
The moon hangs like another world
In clear early morning sunshine
And air is crisp

The Rockies spread out in every direction
The valley laid out fifteen thousand feet below
Countless white flakes have obscured the stone
And the sense of danger grows stronger

Skis glide gently to the edge of the slope
The crystals crunching ominously underneath
Heart beats faster
Adrenaline builds
Head buzzes and muscles in a fever, twitch
Itching to fly

Slap
Whoosh
Swish
Here we go!

The precipice falls behind us
The groomed slope beneath
We fly faster
Tips pointed down
Speed picks up
Carve left
Edges bite the hard surface
Carve right
A small bump
We’re airborne
Knees compress
Quads flex
And we land
Trees shoot past

There are no deep thoughts here
The mind has become a machine
Simple, it navigates the dangers
Decisions made in split seconds

One mistake and this could all disappear
A tree, a rock, a thousand feet down the cliff
That divides the world only two pole-lengths away
And it’s breathtaking and heart stopping
And we wouldn’t give that feeling up for anything.

To Ski

We are skiers
We travel the world in search of new slopes
New snow to carve
Cliffs to drop
Trees to scare

It is the energy of life’s impermanence
That propels us
And the threat of losing life
That renews our energy

Danger surrounds us
And we crave more
Some are puzzled by this
This risk and gamble with the gift of our mothers
But we do not fear
We embrace

Artists

Beauty becomes beauty at the hands of artistic impression
Filling our souls with passionate obsession
Your creations inspire and invoke great emotion
Any magnificence that exists by your hand on the outside
Is only a reflection of the brilliance that radiates from the inside

Beauty becomes art in the revelations of experience
Gazing in awe I am dazzled and my heart swims in wisdom
I write engaged in turmoil of the soul.
The heart wars with the mind,
Rationality versus passion.

Apology

She’s the doll I had the unfortunate temerity to harass
Making nothing out of myself but a bloody ass
I can see her exasperation right there next to her frustration
Watch out! This relationship falls into disintegration
How did I become so boorish and crass?

Feelings

New fallen feelings
Like a blanket of snow

On Our Friendship

As I stride down this woodland path,
Listening to the chatter of the birds above
And to the song of the woman beside me,
I wonder.
What, I ask myself, is the colour of friendship?

It seems to me to be the colour of that brook
That bubbles and babbles and flows on by.
The water is pure and inviting,
A source of life for this forest, making it tall and strong.

Is the colour of our friendship green?
Like the pine boughs overhead
Reaching, stretching, climbing towards the sky
And Beyond.
The pine is a beautiful tree, but covered with sharp needles.
Know where to walk and how to pick the pine cones
Or you will get pricked.
Through the rough bark trickles a sticky substance.
The lifeblood of the pine is sap,
That when exposed to the harsh elements hardens,
Becoming a stone of preservation that lasts into eternity

Perhaps our friendship is the colour of the cerulean sky.
It has no beginning, but then again it has no end.
Sometimes a fluffy white cloud passes on by,
Sometimes an dark and stormy cloud follows behind.
Bringing a rain of tears, each one a different jewel
Sometimes falling – and we feel cold.
But warm winds always come
Sooner better than later.
And sunshine smiles find us once again.

We pause on our journey and sit upon a rock.
Is friendship this pale gray I see?
The granite is hard and unforgiving.
An unexpected fall,
And for a fleeting moment, it hurts.
The stone is not impervious to tears
It may take time, but sharp edges are turned smooth
And minerals are washed away to form something new.
Yet the stone is an ancient thing.
A million years have gone by and it is still here
And it will be here, a million years in the future.

We rise and resume our stroll.
Is red the colour of friendship?
Through a shaft of sunlight we see two red squirrels scamper and play.
High above they throw themselves from branch to branch.
My breath catches as one slips and falls.
By a single paw he clings to the fragile bark.
But before tragedy strikes the other is there.
She grasps that paw and pulls him to safety.
My worry becomes relief once again becomes worry,
She falls backwards as the branch breaks under their combined weight.
But he lands safely on the next branch below and catches her.
She saves him, he is there to save her right back,
And they walk away leaning on each other for support,
Him ready for her, her ready for him.

Our steps follow the bank of the brook and I glance down once again.
Yes, that brook is the colour of our friendship.
For I can see the dark green reflected in it waves,
Right next to the cerulean of the sky and the granite’s gray,
And the red squirrels flashing here and there.
Sometimes that brook whispers, sometimes it roars.
Here it flows fast, now here it has slowed down.
Seasons change and though the brook was covered with ice and snow ,
Winter has passed and it flows warm and free once again.
Abruptly it comes to the edge of it’s bed and cascades in a brilliant waterfall.
Spray and droplets catch the waves of the sun,
Refraction forming a Rainbow.

As we walk on by that waterfall,
We laugh and we talk.
I lean on her and she leans on me,
And we stride onwards.

Almond Blossoms Ravaged

Tender lips an almond blossom
Petals unfurled curled in creamy sweetness
Those frosty eyes raw crystals
So delicate so intricate so elaborate
Their obscured depths hinting
At undiscovered country

When across those rosy plains a tears fall
They are of utter purity and immaculate nature
Like the melting of a glacier bubbling forth
Releasing airs of emotion
Until now not breathed by man

She is woman
She is Nature embodied

The hands of man were not totally unexpected
They are her children, after all
She knew they were different from the others
Rougher, stronger, and wherever they touched
The world changed

At first, man was gentle
He came to look, he smelt the air
And he treated the land with respect
She gave him what he needed
She gave him life
She promised him happiness

He was given much and in time he might be given more
Maybe he would be allowed to climb the mountains
If he respected the rivers and the forests
He could earn
The key of trust and journey to the Heartland
He would be allowed into the Sacred Valley

But man wanted more and he wanted immediate gratification
Give me the Valley, he shouted
No, was the disappointed whisper
So man became filled with anger
No-one denied Him anything for He was stronger
His machines were soulless but powerful
Lifeless yet able to defeat Life
He brushed aside the blankets of green
With his claws he laid waste to her family
Sweeping them away without thought
Stop this, she cried,
You’re hurting me!

I do not care! I am the Lord and everything before Me
I do with as I please.
He penetrated deeply, roughly.
Brutality is too kind a word for his actions.
To liken Him to a rabid beast
Is insulting to beasts.
He penetrated her valley,
And the rivers ran with the blood of the land
Tears gushed forth
And the land was rendered barren.

It took only a moments in the great scheme of things.
A moment and He was born.
A moment and He ravaged her
She has suffered at the touch.
The Lord has beaten and subjected her.
Man has raped His mother

Time

I am told the space-time continuum is a sphere
And that we sail upon its surface
If that is true, then time must be continuous
For a sphere has no beginning and no end
We were together in the past
And I leave you now, but
We’ll be together in the future someday
Maybe I’ll be with you exploring the galaxies
In some fancy flying space ship.
Maybe we’ll lie together in the trees as monkeys
Before man began
If we look far enough ahead can we see the world being born?
If we look behind us can we see where it ended?

Willows

Weeping willow tree
Budding leaves fresh and tender
Unfurling into spring

Fatherhood

Not all fathers are wonderful
Some beat you, others leave you
Some can live their whole life with you and tell you they love you
But when you’re nineteen, tell you they are sick of being that father
And that they wish that they had never had children
Simply because you had a stubborn unwillingness
To strive in a school system you didn’t believe in
And now in your late teens he can’t imagine where you’ll go in life.
Because your father was stuck in his own lousy life
He cannot grasp that your life could turn out differently
Now he wants his children and wife gone so he can find a life he enjoys
But hey, at least he says he likes having you around as an equal

I have wanted to be a father almost as long as I can remember
I want sons and daughters for both knees and both arms
Happy voices everywhere
Hand in hand with my beautiful wife, I shall teach them
Teach them sports and languages and art
Teach them to love books and the outdoors
To love each other and others
Not to strive to be better than anyone, but
To strive to find your own personal best

These are pipe dreams I’m told, silly fantasies
He says I’ll never have this
Because life has a way of being unexpectedly ugly
I don’t believe it
I believe that I can make out of life anything I want
I want to dance the tango on my seventy fifth wedding anniversary
I want to have a great big family Christmas every year
I want my wife to hide the Easter eggs
So I can search for them with my children
I want good memories and laughter and love
I want my legacy to be wisdom that lasts generations

Doubt me if you will
Sneer in disdain at such foolish ambitions
Optimism is one of the keys of life
Lief is a hallway lined with countless doors of choice
Many people are unable to unlock many of those doors
Because they refuse to believe they exist

When I reach my one hundred and thirtieth birthday
You come and talk to me
We’ll discuss my life
I will judge whether I was happy or not
Whether I regret not trying to make myself part of the greedy elite
Whether I regret my family like my father before me
Whether my will states that I shall be buried next to my loving wife
Whether my children consider me failure or success
Whether I have any regrets about not sacrificing family and friends
To run the proverbial rat race

I hope at the end, I’m at our cabin
My wife and children barbecue a dinner of fresh caught fish
While the grandchildren and great grandchildren
Run and play in the yard
The sun sets slowly over the forest onto the lake
A rosy glow bathing all
A glass of wine in my right hand
A smile on my face
And everything is perfect

I think it’s a good dream, a noble dream
So I will make it come true

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