If you've been dropping by regularly, you've probably noticed that I've been struggling for content lately. I'm going through one of those phases where I get so wrapped up in more ambitious projects that I find it difficult to manage a little essay for poor Chuckling, the on-line magazine.
So rather than write a blog post, I will share with you this poem. Please do not get your hopes up. I am not much of a poet. This is really only the second poem I have put together. I've been working on it off and on for several years. It's still not finished, but so what. A week has passed and I have resolved to post something every week, so this is it for this week.
Enjoy, or ridicule. Whatever.
Pan
The harbor lays quiet
I feel a pleasant inward shivering
a thick mist floats up from the sea
and damns the forest
behind a wall of murk
Mist and fog
day like night
a vessel begins to move
but soon it disappears
and the birds fall silent
Then comes a storm
a play for me to stand and watch
the sea flings up
fantastic dancing figures
in seething mist
The heavy rush of wind
the cheerless cold
then all things quiet and still
rain and wind have done their work
my soul is tense
The sun tells false time today
a secret stillness falls
I ponder and am silent
my eyes follow the passing storm
still calling from the drying ground
I find something
in every change of light
the air so full of whisperings
and echos
floating out to sea
I'm burning up my life
for the sake of what?
nights of desolate dreams
a hot breeze stands about my head
the close foul breath of last year's wind
That was no true sun
to show the way
I took the wrong road
with the greatest calm
and came upon this un-true sea
Where all things change a little every day
and the sky is dressed in gold and mauve
and the snow has turned to water
and the ice has loosed its hold
and trickled away
No one ever hears it
and no one ever thinks it
and still it trickles on
this veil of murmuring
always calling me
That little sound of water
the time that went so quickly
the birds that all went silent
that sweetish rotting smell
of dead leaves in the wood
This mysterious current of air
this breath of something strange
these nights and all warm hours
that spirit wanders silent
seeing all through inflamed loins
Hearing music through the fog
the birds of passage gone
yet I do not go away
these familiar trees
mean too much
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