Seven Deer

Seven Deer

Pervasive quiet

A glow in the eastern sky

Before the sunrise

The warmth of the windless air

The warmth of a dusty road

A bird sings in code;

Perhaps we don’t understand

The way of nature

Attending a long lecture

Regarding evolution

Waves by the ocean

Slowly transforming the coast

Transforming a pier

Seagulls suddenly appear

As the sun dissolves the fog

A passive prologue

To a thickly scheduled day

Of obligations

Heart-felt associations

That draw us into the world

Like a flag unfurled

Blowing in a constant wind

Next to the town square

An old car needing repair

Rusting in the parking lot

Something she forgot,

When she was a little girl

How she felt secure

How illness was quickly cured

By the concern of parents

How they paid the rent,

How they cooked and served her meals,

How they bought her clothes,

How they helped though indisposed,

Though they were very busy

Trapped in the city,

Trapped by fate and by karma,

By astrology

As the planets glide slowly

Singing their songs in the sky

Planet earth relies

On the seasons of the sun,

The wheel of the year

The Spring Equinox is here

By the stream are seven deer

The water is clear,

On the bank a well-worn path

Where young students walk

That is where they smile and talk

As they’re strolling hand-in-hand

They think life is grand,

That this will last forever,

That time will stand still,

But for better or for ill,

Though they thought that this would last,

Love becomes the past,

Even grasses do not last,

Even mist dissolves

As the second hand revolves

On the public courthouse clock

It’s time to take stock

At the local statue store

Deities galore

Gods and Goddesses implore

That we put an end to war

Turning to the four

Directions, finding a place

In the stream of space

An angel flies, filled with grace

Above the field of the past

Where our hopes, at last,

Join with dreams and hand-in-hand

Create our future

A dance of many creatures

On the ground and in the air

Where a white-maned mare

Gallops on a field of stars

While the planet mars

Steadily observes the cars

That fill the rush-hour highway

The night of payday

Two friends heading to a bar

Feel the fist of cold

Even though they are not old

They pull their gloves on tighter

The snow looks whiter

Than the snow from last winter,

Maybe that’s because

The snow was thin, it would thaw,

Mixing with exhaust and dirt

Where it would convert

Into shiny slick black ice,

Slippery, like vice,

Slippery, like promises,

Slippery, like last week’s cash

Or the drugs he stashed

Behind his favorite books

Where no-one would look

As the ancient moonlight shook

The foundations of his dreams

All his hopes, it seems,

Did not work out in the way

That he hoped they would

Like some badly knotted wood,

Like a garden that turned dry,

Like a friend whose sly

Words covered a deception

Like a poisoned meal

‘Come on, it’s not a big deal,’

As she turns and walks away

The sky’s touched by gray

By a subtle hint of light,

A prelude to dawn

He wakes in bed, then he yawns,

There’s the first frost on the lawn

As crisp leaves hold on

For another week or two

Prior to a storm

Whose wind totally transforms

The way that the garden looks

The flow of a brook

Carries a discarded chair

Planks of rotting wood

Like words we’ve misunderstood,

Given half a chance we could

Have made it all good,

But that was not meant to be,

Like one lost at sea

Or a cup of bitter tea,

Or a song that’s badly sung,

Or a bell that’s rung

Fading into the warm air

Of the afternoon

With the cherry trees in bloom

Outside of the living room

They’ll soon come to doom

Shaken from their branches,

The simple fact is

Years have passed and now I’m old

Like a moss covered oak tree

That she stops to see

Next to the new masonry

The shadows are long

As the sunrise sings its song

As the new grass grasps the light

Seven larks in flight

Disappear behind the sight

Of the dancing white

Cloud formations, the polite

Children at kindergarten

Watch the new fountain

That was finished yesterday,

That was donated

By a man who was fated

To always feel insecure

To not know for sure

What he should do or should say

And that was the way

That he lived day after day

So he became reclusive,

Someone elusive,

Like a sound that’s barely heard,

An unuttered word,

Like the moon behind a cloud,

Like a letter never sent,

Like a fabric rent,

Like a rock beneath the snow,

Like a dream that I

Can’t understand though I try

To unravel the meaning

It stays unyielding,

The mist of time concealing

What we are dealing

With, like incense dispersing

When the morning Mass is through

And there are a few

People sitting on the pews

Quietly in prayer

‘Times like this in life are rare,’

Two old friends are hand-in-hand

Like the cliffs they stand,

Monuments to endurance

As the seasons change

Like a fluid mountain range,

Like cool fog above a stream,

Things swirl, planets dream,

Things swirl, it’s the first frost’s sheen,

Things swirl, stars careen,

Things swirl, they are inbetween,

Things swirl, the wind stirs the trees,

Things swirl, falling leaves

Skitter past a silent fox

To a fence that blocks

A path to some glacial rocks

Lying at the farm-field’s edge

Near a shaggy hedge

By a new development,

Sixteen new houses

Empty, and the problem is

That no one can afford them

Words from an anthem

No longer seem to inspire

Like an off-key choir

After the divorce she’s mired

And the kids, though grown, require,

Because things are dire,

More assistance, more support,

Than she expected

Life is tough, things neglected

Have a way of coming back

Dark, the road is black,

The swift outline of a bat,

Slowly thunder claps,

Somewhere a twig snaps,

A feral cat eats a scrap,

Time bends, there’s a gap,

An angel looks at a map,

He must arrive at

A cop at a speeding trap,

On the street a missing cap

Like other things that

Disappear without a trace

Cities that vanish,

A conjuration banished,

An ancient sea now deceased,

An apartment leased,

A full eclipse of the sun,

Days of joy and fun

When we used to play and run

On the shore of Elbow Lake

August was a break,

A motorboat left a wake,

On our vacation

We would joke and would mention

How the night was filled with beasts,

They were friendly beasts,

Seven deer and fireflies

And the white-barked birch

Seemed to shimmer and give birth

To stories both new and old,

Stories always told,

Stories that I never heard,

Stories without words,

Stories that seem sometimes blurred,

Stories that the moss will tell,

Stories from a shell

That sails on the stream of time

Past all that is here,

Past all the things that appear

Beyond all that disappears