Friday’s Passing Fancy/Poem: His and Hers

Photo by Cynthia Guenther Richardson

He zeroes in, past feet beating pavement
where discarded minutiae gather and disperse
and it all counts to him, marred or unscathed,
this matter he dissembles, puzzles into patterns
to designate order in the world’s gaping chaos.

She scans breadth of east, west, south, north,
and whole or broken it is received as cosmology,
a kaleidoscope of the universe turning before her
as lassos of time capture, scatter light so she
gleans evidence of Grace, its mercurial designs.

Physics of Balance

Our human compilations
topple until parts
align one with another,
complementary, specific
as an elemental design,
intersection meeting interstitial,
resulting in extraordinary
moments for all who begin again.

*************************************************************

Dear Readers:

This will be the last poetry offering at this blog.  I have maintained three blogs for about three years, including one for photography.

My primary WordPress blog, Tales for Life, has been almost entirely devoted to prose, both fiction and nonfiction. The numbers of followers continue to climb and is now over 11,500, to my surprise! Thus, I have decided to redevelop that blog over the next months and make it stronger.

I will be writing a poem and sharing photographs at Tales for Life as well as my usual prose pieces on  Monday and Wednesday, so I hope you might be willing to hop on over and check it out at:https://wordpress.com/posts/talesforlife.wordpress.com

I truly want to thank you for reading my poems and visiting Poetry for the Living! I hope you’re writing your own unique poetic thoughts, and will continue to enjoy my words as well as so many others.

Blessings and regards,
Cynthia

Magic Piano

Play me
someone has commanded for this piano,
as if it must be given reasons to speak up

and so they come, fingers summer carefree
or burdened by a darker weather,
notes eliciting bits of stories,
a little foolishness of the moment
from passing afternoon dreamers.

But I am left wondering who could part with it,
and what this gift holds deeper within its keys,
a kaleidoscopic lifetime of other music
trapped and long forgotten,
waiting for one more divining touch

Words Cover My Life

 

Words cover my life like skin.
Their names and places they come from
are dust and glimmerings on my shoulders,
are fragrances warming my neck, petals atop my feet.

**
Numinous
efflorescence
melancholic
circuitous
all come to me on
this borrowed breath
passing in and out
with names that hum hum.

**
Each word moves
earth beneath my feet,
these limbs walking
with guardian letters
that awaken my sleep.
Their base refuge is intergalactic
or extrasensory or long memory
that is co-conspiratorial
or we can just call it
home, the one home.

**
Such sanctity of language,
how we tarnish and tear it apart
with a punch of disregard,
a readied scythe of silence.

**
Letting words reclaim light is
nourishment to the mouth,
even within the ruin of pain,
even for misbegotten hearts,
and heal tender wounds of love
for this world we enter
then depart

this skin sounding all itself,
echoing final words for leave taking.

Until then,
words tarry;
we need them,
blood and water.

**
Words (deciphering all that is formed)
cover body, infuse soul,
life accruing life.
Some cannot bear to be touched, shaken, released.
My pen sings them toward a healing not always complete.
But still I accept and offer
every one like drops of precious tea
even in times of no flowing honey
and no forgiving rain.

Once When Summer

Once,
when summer loved me,
sky fell into water
and lake folded over
me, blue chiffon,
and you caught us,
hands like wind

A Secret Life

What sleeps here?
What curls inside voracious green,
keeps its being to itself?
I walk my walk of afternoon
yet waver at your doorstep.
What breathes there?
What makes secret of solitude
with such quiet elan?
My heart and arms lift
the day and with it, fresh belief.
What is this sun dream?
Within a universe of flowers
a minuscule life is lived
that I can feel, yet not quite know.
I pass on and you slip away like a sigh.

Snapshot: Self-Acceptance

She does not seek so much
it must be declared impossible:
words that unveil the heart,
touch a sudden illumination;
designs of boldness
flung across frail nights;
mercy’s arrival amidst the roar of life.

To be found as only true,
with essence that does not fade.
To hear the call for art and honor it.
To move with a courage that looks like dancing.
To find and hold hands that want to let go.
To climb, fall, rejoin with simplest grace
and not look back although all pasts wield power,
the world is gaining, endings are scattered
every place we cannot bear to look.

Let them say, Lord, if anything at all,
that her soul uses its wings so bears
news of the adored and ineffable Light.
Of perfect beauty that seeks no power.
Of royal names ascribed to the ordinary and invisible.
Of electric connections at all points universal
with each of us aflame with kindness.

But now she pauses, studies a picture
filed, is not blind to what is revealed, or not:
Grief strewn as flowers on a trail
of time gone soft as sand.
Two moonstones set blue and silver
like near and far horizons.
A mark unseen that holds the key.
A ghostly presence that still haunts;
a will to mine the deepest love.
Her face, unafraid even when undone.

I recognize all this and you, recall as well
what came before, ruinous like war.
And will claim errors’ pallid scars,
and faith built and repaired for a beacon,
your stalwart hope that will not ever say to life
this is done, this is enough, believe no more.

 

Another Call from Earth

The wooded places speak.
I may seem to be otherwise engaged
but this is not to be believed.
We are soulmates, trees, rivers and I.
Since the entrance to this planet,
my mind rising on wings, eyes lonely as moons,
since exquisite earth understood, answered all.

I so longed for this egalitarian air.
Mountain-terrace forests embrace,
protect serpentine waters.
Trees rustle every secret free
from limbs as I flee that other world.
Roots are what I want, and miracles;
universes and hearts are nourished by these.

The wind dances without asking.
Green and blue shadows shape shift.
A generous sky offers itself
to my emptiness like love.
Wise ones prowl and languish
along the way, invisible emissaries.
Body and soul praise every one;
we share this holy maze, this breath, this sun.

This Kiss

Kiss me he says from afar
so across grasslands of bright tangos,
seas birthing ultramarine,
valleys sequestering shadow,
mountains wildly wise if unforgiving,
forests stealing breath to recreate,
rivers hiding rocks, floating life

she lifts her head to unreachable
places, to stars with their light
who have seen it all

and kisses this night

Belonging

Sometimes the thing that doesn’t come
is that which only lost its way.
The horizon is unbroken, lit from within
and still it cannot find you.
You sit alone, pick apart
minutes ’til daybreak and nightfall
and wander without good company.
You mourn for what is not, as if
grieving for unseen blossoms
on inconstant winds.

You think you want to be found
but are impatient. You work, also must rest.
The thing that has not come still
dreams of you like honey of hunger.
It will locate its meaning
and join with what is yours.
It will find your yearning brave,
arrive on the genius
of its peaceable arrow.

A slow drift of light will wake, sleep.
When not being watched it will come:
whatever is needed will leap
like moonstones and amber into
the strong net of your welcome.
You will greet your deepest belonging.