Tag Archives: fear

OUR ONLY FRIEND

 

                   

                        Beautiful in the world fabric, excesses that balance each other

                        like the paired wings of a flying bird.

                                                – Robinson Jeffers (“Still the Mind Smiles”)

 

                        It was all the clods at once become precious

                                                – William Stafford (“Earthdweller”)

 

Is it fear that judges so, good and evil,

or guilt for easy breath, or lackey to politic’s

endless stream of currency?

 

The creek runs full, carrying deadfall bobbing,

fat limbs lumbering like submarines or whales

to rest upon the banks when flood recedes.

 

The miracle of rain erasing tracks for fresh

beginnings: for another turn of circumstance—

that wild divergence of extremes that want

 

control, like taming wolves to lap dogs

that always fail, even in our minds though

dressed in our latest, eco-friendly outerwear.

 

The devil’s in the details that embrace truth

and trigger memory, that glorious flight

that connects us to time on this earth.

 

 

 

AFRAID

 

 

                  When I got a little older, I changed.
                                    Maria Lisa Eastman (“War Bridle”)

Summer winds breathe fire
with a bouquet of hollow wild oats
bent on chance and luck—
but we cannot look away
or ever dream relaxed.

One would think with age
and long experience, a man
would become emboldened
with skid-steer-bladed
firebreaks and phoschex

that always help, but time
has proven reason often
beyond the comprehension
of some of us who wait
for the smell of smoke.