The Dawn Shall Come

Just a quick blog post. This one is a poem dedicated to history, in general. Found originally written on cured banana skins nailed to voting booths in Honduras.

The Dawn Shall Come

Take heart, weary watchers;
the dawn will rise through the rain,
perhaps on the bleak slopes of winter,
or on the white fields tossing with grain.

Have strength, little guardian;
the house was not built in vain-
whether divided in rubble or high on a rock-
the sun shall shine on it again.

Find courage, prophets of ruin,
your cowardice is not all to blame;
the wheels of God turn slowly,
but they will raise up the sun once again.


Aye, we stagger on a heady drought,
The tears of Lord mixed with the blood of his saints,
what precious wrath we drink so fast,
draining the cup until we reel and faint.

How cheaply we sell what others have bought;
how quick we are to scorn the past,
we sacrifice that which is not ours to give-
we discard the bronze and display the cast.

If only our treasure not tarnish or rot,
if only our idols could wake up and live-
the house we defend not totter and rend-
If only we had stayed with the One who forgives.


Oh, what songs the wind shall sing-
through this massive eagle's bones!
Oh, what silly pointless things
will be figured from our stones!

Would that this world not stumble towards midnight,
would that these rocks cry out for us all;
if only we'd cherish our last bit of sunlight;
and see that our pillars topple and fall,

But those whom He punishes I know that he loves,
Just as our hearts break and then mend,
and when we beg for his blood to rain from above,
I know that the dawn shall come back again.

A Call to Cleaner Airs: a poem

A Call for Cleaner Air:

Can the gulls see the air?
Can they taste their element, can they perceive what man cannot?
Do they skirt the smoggy winds, turn back their wings from polluted things;
decadence, decay and rot?

Do they in their haunting cries,
report and beckon, review or surmise,
what path through the air is purest, or the cleanest of the lot?

And we, who stand too heavy to fly-
watching them wheel in their gaseous sky,
can we hearken to their instructive cries,
and find what the Ancients sought?

Dare we on our dusty pyramids,
reach desperately from our peaks of thought,
and try to grasp the cleaner air; bind it as a selling fare,
to be parceled, weighed and bought?

Will eyes watering from smoky streets open in surprise,
if they see the untainted goods we pulled down from the skies?
Will hands long numbed for a heartless thing
stretch to receive the caresses they bring,
and feel at last with ecstasy, the air that on free things fly?

Can we meet a sickened soul, hear his rattling, damaged breath,
and with the gift of our cleaner air, restore his heart to health?
Can we blow the smoke away, from the mirrored room of our world,
and stretch out at last a snapping flag, a message bold, unfurled?

I do not know.
Maybe the gulls see nothing, perhaps only through survival they fly,
perhaps the cleaner air is an illusion, a fairy tale, a lie...
Come with me, let us venture, let us cure the world with the sky;
we have only one way of knowing for sure, and that way is to try.

Sincere apologies, and some haikus

My goodly readers: all of you have my deepest apologies. My life has been somewhat-more-consuming than I usual, and I confess that my blog has not been highest in my priorities. Whether or not this will be the last confession and the last break from my weekly posts, I do not deign to declare.

I have just finished a rather absorbing book called 'A Song For Nagasaki', which I recommend to all who have the time for such jewels. The book clearly demonstrates what makes humanity great; and what can equally bring it down. Anyone, regardless of nationality, should take some time to read and reflect on this impressive work. But back to the second half of the title.

For those of you who have not heard of the suffering of the people known to the world as Yazidis, I suggest you utilize our ever-resourceful internet to learn more about their courage. And for those of you who already know about them, several of the following poems are dedicated to them.


A girl with a child;
On the news, from far away,
she looked like my friend.

Banners fall and rise,
sometimes black as a dark night;
raging against the sky.

Men scurry like ants,
ruthless with hate and weapons;
they seem small to us.

In summer fear spread,
In autumn courage fought back,
How will winter fare?

Jewels

If all the tears of yesteryear lined up to be wiped away,
They'd flood the earth and salt the ground and turn our sunshine grey.
But rather than build higher barns each year, to store our tears away,
we throw them up for God to bear, and wait for what he'll say.
Yes, each wet-streaked tiny handful, we offer up each day,
He takes from us, and keeps for us, in Jerusalem far away.

In some obscure sense of things, I don't think they shall ever fade;
but every tear shall be crystallized, kept on velvet, kept with jade,
placed on altars, revered, displayed-
And the saints will stride, like Solomon, with these jewels, all arrayed.

Every little child's cheek that feels a slipping tear,
shall feel the touch of he who holds his servant's blood most dear,
so know that he comes to wipe that tear, take it- store it away,
So that when gone are pain and fear, we'll find these jewels saved.

A poem for all the watchful eagles

Just this afternoon, I was walking down a somewhat secluded mountain slope, when a military plane flew over my position and discharged an air drop. I at first was somewhat hesitant to investigate the package as I may well have arguably strayed past the decaying fences that mark the limits of Area 51, but as no one, terrestrial or extra, approached the delivery, I finally decided it must be for me and went to investigate. I was not disappointed. The following 'poem', (so to speak) I arranged in no particular order from a series of telegraphs inside the air-drop. Whatever their meanings are, or why they were delivered especially to me, may remain a mystery for quite some time.


For all that is bright and beautiful,
for all things sane and wise,
for all who and kind and merciful,
let us clear for them our skies;
We can bring down wrath and fire,
we can sling down roars and smoke,
we can drop them food and blankets-
but can we give them hope?

We soar on celestial azure heights-
blessed to be free by God above,
we watch the world with an eagle's eye,
we descend down like a dove;
we claim the fortunes of the stars:
Fifty, dreams come true,
we plough the nations for fertile wars,
and spread our fearless tune.

From lofty, pristine eagle's view, we watch the world unfold:
fire, fear, ambition; strife,
we drop a crate, or take a life,
'till the smoke, with terror rife, proclaims that a war is told.

"What gives us such authority?"- we reason, from on high,
"why should we fight a stranger's war?"- we preach, while children die,
"who are our friends and who our foes?" we bluster to the wind,
"and why should we have hearts at all?" we muster, in our sin.

Oh proud, haughty, imperial eagle,
weep not for a crumbling Rome.
Shed not your tears for a witless land;
(lest they run from sea to murmuring sea,)
and salt the fields and flood your home, no.
Weep for those who know no flag,
fight for those who have known fear,
uphold those whose shoulders sag,
drain for them your lifeblood dear;
  
If those that loose their lives for love,
gain them back a thousandfold,
let us fight to stop this flood,
smite and strike their stranglehold;

Let rather our eagle fall for mercy, 
than be fatten, plucked, and encased in gold,
Rather we crack our talons smiting slave chains,
than watch as innocence is killed and sold.

Black against Blue

Dare the ancient azure sky above,
whether in cold contempt or gracious love,
defy the flags stretched black against her,
fluttering ghastly, to consume the world?

Though this cloud but dot our horizon,
barely the size of an outstretched hand,
it shall come grasping, groping,
 to smother and choke; to seize the land.

Let us not be idle against this darkness,
let our hearts not be cold to pain,
let us stand with our backs to the sunset,
face to the growing, gaping stormfront,
and face unblinking the slew of rain.

We must not let that thirsty desert,
shaded as it is, by swords,
to cast its lengthening, sharpening shadows;
Do we think it will be stopped with words?

The Street is Mine Tonight

As the title above states, this is not a poem. Apologies to all who may have gotten excited about the return of my poetic side, as far as I know it was last spotted purchasing a first class one-way air ticket to Costa Rica.

This is a rambling. It is the bizarre half-hearted sortie of my cold reasoning brain to create something attractive. For those of you who are in need of poetry in a desperate way, I prescribe Longfellow or Emily Dickenson.


The Street is Mine Tonight

The Street is mine tonight;
I alone share its company,
with the asphalt, with the gravel-rocks, with the street lamps burning orange in the dusk.

I listen to the comforting rhythm of my feet-falls, like the beating of a mothers heart,
Soft rubber on hard asphalt, two feet on a single road.
Ah yes, the street is all mine tonight, mine alone to cherish, to share with none. I alone see these dusky treetops, alone I smell the summer air. No one save my two pattering feet- afterthoughts of my wandering curiosity- serve to break the silence.

Perhaps it is a selfish love. Can love be both selfish and righteous? May I dare command: "Thou shalt serve no other wanderer, oh Road, thou shalt echo my footsteps only, shine your lamps for my two eyes alone?"
Can I hoard this sacred twilight, gather up the hazy purple air as treasure to be counted, stored?

Even as I wonder, the dusk fades into night; my manna melts as it passes its due hour. For a brief fraction of every day, God showers this dusk upon me; he takes it away lest in my greed I store up baskets of worms. I cannot command the evening air, I cannot silence the smallest cicada, hush the faintest buzzing motor from the distant highway. The purple trees do not fade into black against the stars at my bidding, the ochre rime of the sun's passing does not give way to the deep of space at my call.

I have been rebuked, and the rebuttal is just. I have no right to hoard this dusk: I am not alone.
The street ends and I turn and head back up my hill, my back to the purpled shadow of the sun. A blur of motion catches my eye, I look heavenward to see the picturesque silhouette of a bat, swerving wildly to eat his fill. By the time I reach edge of my forested home, the guardian street light has completely filled his hollow in the trees with orange light. Everything is painted in bold black and orange; two dimensions, like a manifesto.
I eat my manna. By the time I reach my door, my daily portion has already melted into night.