I. This Ephemeral Shade

The age has come,
the age has come!
Forewarnings of old,
shrill bells a-tolling.

They’d say
the existence of shade
disproves the sun,
and things they have made
will never be undone.

Our own standing
shadows spread,
In towering orders
‘til noontide when,
all around, in force,
immersed.


II. Dynamic Standstill

Eyes closed, hard pressed,
to the breaking of the dawn.
No more waiting
for high tide and might
to set things right again.


III. You Are Here

Oh valiant night
In gleaming veils;
Come again,
or never left?


IV. Red Sky, Morning Glory

The maelstrom is a-coming.
the red sky told me so.
Sail headlong into
bittersweet
fresh air blowing
salted sea,
and Venus’ fading kiss.

No omen to signal security,
Stars filtered by demons abound.
A victory within and a sundial
is sole surety for now.


V. Silver Spring

Fountain of light,
Silver Spring,
With towering caliber
softly trickling.

Draws my gaze
before the dawn
And beckons with musk
before the dusk.


VI. In Soliton Momenti

Newfound grace
In uncharted space
No instruments to gauge
But unmarked sight
To tell.

No relics to withdraw
No proof to point.
Depart a thousand times
until time stops.

The wave goes on.


VII. Earendel

Shine bright
sweet light
of Earendel.

Day frost and
way lost,
we call for direction
to a clear path anon.

For sheltered sea-hearth
and caravan drifters,
Shine on.


VIII. Meandering Pines

The charm of the silver forest
locked tight in a dark veil
as dusk draws in,
its fatal dagger poised.

Stars light the seaward way
but the sky is overcast.
So much distance
for obstacles to claim;
Hand and sky grow farther still.

Light gets harder to find.


IX. Rosette/This Ephemeral Light

You’d give me life
But not my own.
You’d tell me light was
mine to own -
but with strings,
yours still to tune.
And through the curtains
You’d go out.


X. Our Last Days Together

I knew it would come to this.
The red sky told me so.
Old relics turn to ashes.
No proofs to point
but points to prove,
they’d say.


XI. Time And Distance

The freefall of the hours
mark ages since the end.
Yet time is round
and space enclosed;
You are here
to a relative degree.


XII. Midnight

It is written,
so they say,
That yesterday
has passed away.

A midnight-moon night
Reflecting sunlight.
Proof to point,
for those who might.

With towering caliber,
Softly aglow;
You are here.
The red sky told me so.

There are worlds out there where the sky is ablaze,
Where the sleeping seas and rivers dream.
On the road the path can lead for many days
to where nothing is real, or so it would seem.
And somewhere else the tea is getting cold.

There are places there where the play goes communally
from the heights of love to the depths of rage.
There seems no end to this infinity
Amidst which all the worlds are on their stage.
And somewhere else a sun is getting old.

There is space out there where the tombstone is nigh
of one deceased; a stage decreased.
The splinters of a former reality shower from on high
on a world where energy is leased
from a star who mourns her sister’s lost hold.

A warm haze encircled the air as smoke rose from the campfire towards the brisk October twilight sky. The sounds of children playing by the lakeside rolled up the hill like a landslide in reverse, and the vast crystal body of rippling water behind them was alight with reflection, setting the cast of dancing silhouettes vibrantly aflame. Our telescopes stood like pillars majestically aside as we lay in the embracing foliage looking up at the conflagrant stars, shrouded though they were to us by the gleaming veil of the Aurora Borealis as we were to them.

He would be there one day. The bright and longing eyes of my young cousin John were affix at the sky as he lay beside me, his sanguine voice fervently poured forth a score of heart-held prodigious dreams into my ear. He stretched his arms out and pointed down the open road of the Milky Way. "I'll be there, one day. I'm going where no man has gone before." He was six. Such an optimistic age.

The resolute ardor of his declaration was innocent. Intense. A naivete that would be bent or broken by those who would obviate the very thought that perhaps they themselves once shared intertwined with others who would simply smile in the sideline at his enthusiasm, taken, of course, as delusional. But I felt there was something so arcane, even sacred, in the boy's conviction. And though we all, chiseled down (by an ever-growing palpable requirement), may contemplate ourselves with a pill of bitter reality - a solitary existence, isolated from the stars perhaps by the countless miles or a masochistic cultivation of faithless doubt - we are all fused in a grander scheme that transcends our blind vindications as such, as the connections between our selves and the universe that we are part of (as explored by our inquisitive and intellectual natures) are clearly perceived and aspired to through ungilded innocent eyes.