A bucket carried to the well
Might find no water there
Or find it poisoned like the air
After the first bombs fell.
Until the world turns its crust
Until it turns the waste
Until the world is replaced
Until we turn to dust.
But my surprise is joy each day
With water -clean- I fill
My bucket, crops, and family
until the last until.
As surely as the Daffodil
Doth prey opon the Bee -
As truly as the shaggy Dog
Will chase after the Flea -
As certainly the Termite is
Seducéd by the Tree -
So long the Days of summer to -
At last - devour me!
The drive-in with hospital staff
Is the best place to eat greasy calf.
If you'd like some trouble,
Then ask for a double,
They'll give you two patties and half.
Discovering our names had been defaced
Inside the Book at Narrow Gate, we cried,
But Peter Watchman would not find us space
Within and left us in the air outside.
Constructing there with rusty nails our shacks,
We raised a shanty town for souls unkept.
But hoping still for peace, unpacked our sacks;
We laughed and shared our dreams until all slept.
Awakened! Blinding angel builders come -
We cower, covering our ears in hands
For hammers deafen to convert our slum.
And hark! Hear Peter Foreman give commands:
"Aid, sleeping craftsmen, our advancing wall!
Make Heaven's suburbs; live in holy sprawl!"
Blood fills arms and legs
Warmed by the sky and awakes
The first mosquito.
The day was broken east and over you,
And I imagine, broken in you too.
You darkened by the ash of your once house,
Your once friends sprinkled by the broken dew.
In Oregon I saw a tree too bright
To be a tree - it shined but shaded nought
That I could see - of it I try to write -
I seeking diff'rent places for these thoughts
Than memory which fades til glimmers cross.
One story struggling for some fame, or peace
When others fall back, not destroyed, but lost,
So individually each is released.
Each failed hope about to die: return!
To cauldrons where new passions are reborn!
To fuel the ancient fires where dreams burn!
Know you're by nature's and by my truth torn
And tossed into deep chasms to bestow
Imagination's all-consuming glow.
The sun's eye coyly peeks out from the sky.
Imagine its lips forming flirty grin
Reminding us it must soon leave again.
This dawn is just a tease - and I know why.
For tell me how this morning can be true
If we see such dark deeds in this bright night?
Prepare yourself for consummation's sight,
When only love is left of all you do.
The sun will truly rise high to kiss earth,
Unblinding light consume the shadow's reign.
Behind our eyes, beneath the rock and stain
Will break the one true dawn of nova's birth
The first and final morning we will face
Is when the sun extends this last embrace.
This is enough
To pierce vision's rutted armor.
This is enough,
That water's grass light shines the bluff
Above full barges. Be blind or
Shed these sights to see again, for
This is enough.
By the time this message is posetd, I will be on the long road to McMinnville, Oregon, for the MAA PNW conference. We're going to dine with the Spruce Goose! I'll be giving a 15 minute talk on poset operations and spending the rest of the time trying to figure out what the speakers are going on about. All of which means no more bad poetry from me until after my return; though Mark is welcome to join in!
*that's definition 1, by the way.