Returning to this world
of terrain and shape
from the timeless,
I absorb the morning
like a hungry traveler,
drinking in new light and cool draft.
I move arms and legs,
listen to a crow busy with the news
and put on the old harness
to enter the day’s furrow.
The soil grows harder each year,
long rows bent to the shape of the earth
as I walk along behind the plow of memory.
Perhaps today I’ll undo the traces,
find a fresh path across the meadow
to the clear creek running,
not sow or reap but cast my lot with the birds,
with badger and browsing deer.
Perhaps I’ll trick the dark form waiting
at the end of this long row,
leave the dream to cross the moving water
and climb the hill to paradise.
This is one of my favorites! The detailed weaving of memory is just beautiful
Beautiful, Don. Putting on the old harness to enter the day’s furrow is such a loving way to describe the act. I love the heavy, worn kindness in this one. I share it.
Beautiful!
“Perhaps today I’ll undo the traces”,i.e., let go of the past…eloquent,,Don!
I like this, Don. Just plain resonates.
The opportunity is always present to find a fresh path. I love this photo of the “cathedral in the desert” representing the freshness and beauty of what you describe. My heart resonates with this one.
Beautiful Don. It captures the newness that I am feeling.
Don, I agree with the comments. Through a striking, lucky turn of events, Nancy and I are responding from Japan, where we will attend a wedding in a few days. The tone of your thinking in the poem is in harmony with examples of the haiku and other poems we’ve been seeing in trip guides.
Love this Don, sad and hopeful , beautiful!
I love how you have captured the great adventure of life so beautifully, Don. This one is a keeper………thank you so much!
Don — In “Climb the Hill”, you metaphorically depicted, in poignant and richly artistic fashion, the wide range of elements RE the remarkably similar, internal, “soul-level” experiences of many “wounded healers” — whose dedication and fervor are honed to serve others, after experiencing their own wounds cleared, and lives restored, at the hands of “wounded healers” of their own) — to help save my life, for example, in the face of an extra-rare, chronic, unknown, unstudied, autoimmune disease, involving:
— a near-death experience; — a brain biopsy — three, months-long therapies — (physical, occupational, and speech) — prescription drugs, medicines & vitamins, numerous Yoga, T’aiChi, & Acupuncture sessions, and specialized dietary needs.
I am grateful that you, Don, (as with any and all of us), are not alone in our experiences, and that there is understanding in us for others, based on the salient points of our own individual experiences, challenges, and responsibilities. Thank you, Don …
Oh my, Don! I sense the entire sweep of human life incarnate, and I am drawn irresistibly across the moving water, climbing upwards to Heaven’s indescribable beauty, returning once again to the timeless from whence we all have come.
Thank you Don, for another fine poem – fulfilment through you of the wonderful instruction, “Freely ye have received, freely give.” You enrich us all. db