Clouds settle on the sea
and blanket the tree tops.
The wet drip of the forest
drums on the cabin roof
while eagles pace
from perch to perch
along the coast line.
We need the rain,
the land already dry
months before summer.
Within the mist,
the pinnacles of the city
are far off and unheard.
Life force rises
in rough-barked
fir and cedar
while my soul drinks
from deep water
like a songbird on wet soil.
A young tree grows
from a crack in stone,
rabbits feed on new grass
then return to their burrow
beneath a brake of nootka rose.
I’m living on food
that doesn’t come in a package,
on drink that won’t be bottled.
As the clouds lift above the sea
my spirit shakes off its grave clothes,
an ancient past finding form
under the rain-filled skies of communion.
photograph by Willard Walch
Reading of “Skies of Communion” with music by the Kinks
Good Morning, Soul Brother! I’m sending you a personal poet-to-poet thank you for this latest beauty you offered to me today..
Thanks, Don. I am often aware of the communion in the moment that naturally happens with many of the people of the world when gazing at the sky on a moonlit night. We all live in the same sky.
My spirit shakes off its grave clothes”-the end of winter!”
I love this lovely poem of yours particularly this piece:
I’m living on food
that doesn’t come in a package,
on drink that won’t be bottled.
As the clouds lift above the sea
my spirit shakes off its grave clothes,
an ancient past finding form
under rain filled skies of communion.
Well done brother.
Les
A poem that could only be written outside of a city’s “noise and ambition”🙏🏼❤️
I find it interesting to watch your poetry change over the time you’ve been doing vocal recordings. More and more, the lines are paced to your own natural thought patterns. You’re phrase stacking, watching your end words, following the through line of meaning, finding the dismount that satisfies you. I can hear it. We are all becoming truer to our inner voices, paring things down to essentials, just as it should be.
Truly spoken Don — the grave clothes must come off in these latter years; even as did the swaddling clothes come off in the formative years — an Ancient One finds new form naked under a true sky — “Get thee up, eat and drink; for there is a sound of abundance of rain.”