Listening to the Rain

The first of several abstractions of nature-I am working on a series which will appear in the Artbygordon blog

Today I'm enjoying a storm the way it should be, a heavy constant rain and the distant sound of thunder. At the beginning of the tornado season, every time the sky darkens we are threatened with gloom and doom.

Today was not one of those days.. The sky has been dark all day, the rain intermittent between a soaking drizzle to a intense down pour. I am enjoying the sound on the roof, watching the ripples on the concrete and the sound of thunder in the distance.

It's one of those introspective days, the days that you reassess and enjoy the silence and subdued light. There are no news casts warning about every twist and turn, desperate to convince us that at any moment we should seek cover.

This is the kind of storm I remember from New Jersey, a soaking rain, a cool breeze and a bit of darkness for a Sunday afternoon. Tomorrow it will be in the eighties and back to humid but for the moment I'm absolutely enjoying listening to the rain.

An Innocent Sky

An innocent sky

Stares with light blue eyes

Cold white clouds

Hung above our struggling forms

Beneath the glass of broken windows

Shattered roofs and dented cars

We stare at an innocent sky

As the fractured bits of water

Pass us by

A rainbow insists its nothing personal

And the colors form

In the edge of the streets

Beneath a toddlers shuffling feet

And the families

look up to a sky

Where insurance rises

And the open holes

Let the cold water in

Forgive us for our transgressions

The wrath of God hangs high upon us

But the sky insists it’s nothing personal

And the threat is already gone

Stare up to an angry sky in tantrum

The storm has passed us on

A poet through open doors

Lament of a Landscape

I walked with you in a landscape

The sky was black and you didn’t notice

Being young

Remember finding crawfish on the golf course

Remember walking slow,

Walking fast

Do you remember when walking

Was the hardest task

I walked with you in a garden

It was beautiful

And we ate plums

When other fruits were soured

And we would plant the seeds

And count the flowers

And we would never look over the fence

Only for turtles and the snakes

and the hidden places they went

Your smile would light my day

And calm the storm

I promised I’d keep you safe

And free from harm

And now you run on cliffs,

I have since lost my step

And I can barely throw rocks to a mocking tide

Or fathom where your journey went

I stand on a crossroad

Watching the flowers unkempt

And the plums never sweeten enough

Time insists it will give you back

But time I will never trust

So I stand across this landscape

The sky was once so blue

Can’t we lay in the grass for a while

And talk about the stars

And the sky

I promised I’d  keep you safe

I promised I wouldn’t cause harm

But I can’t reach your precarious perch

Or fathom where you are…. 

On Dying and Nature

We keep the body in a steel box

Keep it safe

Hanging on to its limbs

As the universe sighs

Keep our fingers in the soil

And the doves are the only things that fly

We keep ourselves

Clinging to the rotting ground

What a sad way to die…

Instead the cocoon

Its skin releases the beautiful wings

No stone to keep a place

We have stars and beautiful things

The universe breathes deep

Keeps us

Open and alive

Leave the weight of flesh and bone

Behind

The vice of science

Insists

That the heart must keep its time

And the universe replies

Out across the distance of everlasting sky

Leave the ash and all the weight of the body

Behind

Peace, freedom out through an open violent sky

What a beautiful

Sacred way to die.

Finding Walden

It exists out there, behind a thin veil

That keeps us

Wasting, hours and days

All of our passions bartered and given away

It waits out there beyond that pale white sky

I could go today

If not for the attachments

Like wires in the hospital room

Keeping time with a dying heart

Doesn’t need to be too fast or too far

Outside

Across that thin skin that keeps us

Living day to day

Escape

No ransom, no attachments

Flying across the sky

With no need to settle down

Sad, the stubborn solid ground

That calls me even while I rise

Insists on predicting my demise

But the white sky hides

A life I always dreamed was mine

I will find it, I have found it

All a matter of time…

Conception

You were beautiful in there,

A beauty with such great fragility

It made all of our grand structures

Seem dull and Pointless

You moved in there

We had our cameras watching your every move

We decided if you were even alive

Or if you were anything more than a piece of clay

A raw spark that we could keep, discard or give away

Time and our useless rationalizations meant nothing to you

In there

That small space that was shrinking every second as you filled it

The tiniest fingers

The closed perfect eyes

Fighting for your life

No room for doubt, no malice nor forgiveness

Life without compromise

A space in that room

Where you wouldn’t remember

Not until we told you

How you kicked and how you fought

And how stubborn and insistent

You were…being born.