Freedom

Beholder

I do not understand.
But I can feel.

This world builds
prisons
for each of us.

To be born
is one thing;
yet another
to grow into the cage
they give you.

Beauty,
Power,
Lineage,
/
Bars,
Locks,
Chains.

It is


exhausting,

lonely,

cruel;


and for you,
the same, but

manifold
  logarithmic
   multiplied
    perpetual
     incessant
      relentless

This is why I am so pleased
you have learned
to pick the locks
or slip between the bars
or simply disapparate,
escaping
when you want to.

Listen.


You are not

an image.


You are

an interior.


You are

a cathedral

with many rooms

and stained glass in sunlight

and libraries

and catacombs.


You are

a book

with 1,000 pages

and many chapters,

including the unwritten.


You are

a mountain,

fitted in a flowing garment of forests,

dotted with deep caverns,

drinking lightning in summer,

content under frost and snow in winter,

filled with granite and obsidian,

quartzite and gold.



You survive all fire.


You navigate by starlight.


You leave ripples in the world.


You are a microcosm.


You are a garden.


You are a home.


The waves break themselves on your shores.


This is why no cage will contain you.


You are.

Sometimes,

when driving with old music under slated smoke
against the brushstroked horizon
fading along mountains to the west
as the sun-heat of the high desert
reflecting off the scent of sagebrush
gives way to a chill mist
collecting on burnished sandstone and granite
with small patches of veridian moss and lichen
in the wild geometry of a late afternoon
as amber light stretches out into a blanket
under which nothing can harm us

(not even the future
not even the past

[this is a good place to stop
and get out the cameras] ),

our gaze sweeps
the scattered domains of the earth,
of the coyote and the elk
and a railroad track not used in years;

soon,
we will start thinking of good food
and something cool to drink.

Shell Canyon | Wyoming | USA

Anathema

20 years into this century
and the West burns,

the land inflamed, unceasing.

It burns in the forests
and the fields,
it burns in the streets,
with fires small and great
all stretching out for the same air,
all feasting upon the same oxygen.

But empires thus
are built of bone
and of sweat,

and within the elements
of things closest to our hearts,
from the private
to the pestilent,
we wait
and we watch
with dilated eyes
the assault and decay.

To breathe! Only to breathe…

The body has a finite amount of blood.
The mind can only take so much.

They will not stop, you see.
They will never

stop.

This is the desolation.

Oh rise now the midnight daughter,
oh rise now the twilight son;
keep your blades sharp,
your torches dry,
your eyes up.

Under the roaming haze
under a descending sun;
late now, the domain of summer,
and the long dark
approaches.

There is but one bastion,
one shield,
one bulwark,
one fire in the night:

hold fast thy memory,
thy faith,
thy hope
and thy love.

You know
in your deep-heart
what is right.

All else is anathema,
all else is so much dust,
for there are no spells
with which to resurrect the dead.

In Memoriam: Patrick H Lee

artist: https://www.deviantart.com/pe-travers/art/Desolation-120816158

Theory

What makes a wild heart beat?

(no, i mean really beat)

Does it fly full-out and free
under the sun?
Does it hide and whisper
its dreamings in the dark?
Does it drift
in fitful slumber beneath the sea?

What voices, still, are carried on the horizon’s wind?

Where do they go?

And why,
why is all this insanity
very much like a coming home?

(does it even matter?)

Here,
I’ll tell you a secret:

I have no idea.

But I think it’s very close

to whatever makes a horse
dig its hooves hard into the ground,
playing with the earth
at the scent of rain,
throwing out ripened patches
of green grass
to an evening blanket-sky
burgeoned with pillars of midnight
as the final spears of sunlight
slip past the edges of thunderwaves
forged in hearts of lightning.

artist: https://www.deviantart.com/temiree/art/Rising-Thunder-606707595

Winterlight

Out of the valley of shadow
and into the arms
of fire and of ice-
see now the horizon line
burning
over the frozen teeth
of the mountains.

See now breath
coalescing into fog,
See now ice start to drip
off of branch and rock;
and listen to the wind…
only listen.

What do you hear?

Such it is with emergence,
with voyage,
with survival
and with salvation.

Such it is
with winter and sunlight.

Weathered Sign at the Mouth of the River Cave

_______________
WEARY TRAVELER

If you’re reading this,
then please,
sit
and rest awhile.

Before entering,
be aware that

in spite of
[__________]
you’re actually
a very good individual,

regardless of
[__________]
you are forgiven
and are loved by numerous people,

and that even
[__________]
will not defeat you;
though it will try.

If anyone or anything tries to
[__________]
you, or
[__________]
for you,
recall the following:
– you are forged from stars
– you are made from oceans
– you are composed from music.

If you ever get lost,
refer to your map;
in time you will attain
[__________]
and
[__________].

So sit,
and rest awhile-
ye have come already so far
and into the dark beyond
ye must now go.

Listen- can you hear it calling?

Remember now, Traveler-
blade sharp,
torch dry,
eyes up.

faa08d0f8e0fa1ead7584444d22f6f0b
artist credit requested

Entanglement

The chords of sunset fall to the earth
and drift ever lightly,
flowing through warmth of a summer
to fade down low-key in the electric descent of the night,

where your touch
is the ghost of the last solstice;
your voice,
the thunder of the preceding equinox,
and the kinetic energy
of angels all fallen to perfection;
where your soul
is a roaring and territorial
song of the solar aurescent…

and your heart-

your heart, seeking in the wilds of humanity
a home that was here, ever-present.

Staring down the slowly-racing horizon,
breathing in the dusklight,
lungs filling deep with the dust of dead suns,

one silent prayer,
one lone evocation into the dark defiant, my dear:

may, one day,
you deny your god
before the crowing of the next sunrise

by daring to look up as you once did-
to watch the stars.

falling_star_by_snatti89-dc392e7
artist: https://deviantart.com/snatti89