“It is the nature of stone
to be satisfied.
It is the nature of water
to want to be somewhere else.”
– Mary Oliver
We walked on windswept dunes,
over flower-strewn meadows
where the sound of birds
and flowing creeks
gave the air its beauty.
You asked “what is the meaning”
and with you I remembered
that beauty is its own meaning,
and it is for beauty that we have come,
and for beauty that we lie down,
and for beauty that we hunger
and do not rest.
And when we rest it is for beauty
for that is our nature.
The way sandstone
folds around us,
the faces hidden
in the shapes and hollows.
The music of the sea
and the way the wind
rises in the trees
and sets the island atremble.
And again the why
and again the meaning,
on hummingbird’s wing,
starling’s flight
and the complaint of crow.
We see hands of the invisible
behind every leaf
as our bark sloughs off
and our bones slowly crumble.
We speak to the stars
and to them we drink deep.
We’re not afraid
of winter storms
and their terrible darkness,
of the fire ant’s bite
or smell of the tide.
Or the waves pitch and toss
that loosen our stomachs
as we ride out the sea
and the clouds as they smile.
Wherever you travelled
you changed the earth
by the gifts of your sight.
In debt to your shaping
when my time comes,
beauty I will remember
and to beauty let go.
photograph by Sandy Brown Jensen
Reading of “To Beauty I Let Go” with music by Snowy White.
Spring flowers rattle the caves,
provoking the apostles
to take up their pallets of sorrow
and leave dark comfort.
Trees hide in the rain,
fearing the cold; as crocus
and daffodils join the chorus
the noise of flowers disturbs my sleep.
Pulling on the coat of forgiveness
I stagger toward the light,
shocked into wakefulness
by plum tree flowers.
Wind-driven rain soaks the stone mountain,
ice bound rivers break from their bonds.
Trembling with cold I walk out on a ledge,
and look down into the valley of forgotten promise.
What can I do but leap from my refuge,
made bold once again by the flowers of spring.
photograph by Dennis Brown
Reading of “Noise of Flowers” with music by Chet Baker.
The gravity of your smile,
lighthearted yet muscled
with the blessings of sorrow,
keeps my satellite in orbit,
my rage against the machine
tempered and refined.
Chasms of belief threaten us daily,
yet as engineers of love
we span the dark depths
with bridge after bridge,
exhausted but unbroken.
No steel and wire
of mechanical contrivance,
rather light-bodied filaments
constructed of cosmos,
tendrils of soul
that extend to the stars.
Reading of “Engineers of Love” with music by Van Morrison.
I won’t outlive the sea,
not one drop of its salt depth,
not the old growth trees
nor the stone beneath my feet.
I am a guest to this banquet,
a pilgrim at the bazaar.
I fought madness and money
and though my bones grow brittle
still I grip the tools to carve these words.
The tide flows on,
mountains stand in silence,
and here I breathe, for just a moment,
passport stamped for the great beyond.
The stars we follow
have written our names,
the ones we’re given
on journeys with the sun.
The one your mother knew
when she regarded your face
outside and breathing,
that your father held
and surrounded with light.
The name of your soul –
flies with the spirit,
the gypsy through time,
an explorer of space.
The one I knew
when first I saw you,
full of passion
and hungry for life.
Cast off the baggage,
your heart space open,
we’re made for this music
and together we love.
