tribute to a friend, and an idea that did not die, despite the trying of some…
cycles and seasons, the mystery
running in barefoot,
ruddy splendor
across fields,
through vales and valleys
laughing with spring,
through summer
falling into sickled fields
to sigh autumn
peopled and pecked,
postulate of perennials
giddy, zig-zag steps by nature,
but turned slowly straight
humanity, dusty and dishevelled
i am uprooted and aerated
laughing, i sink into soil
grain, chaff splitting
ripeness gone to seed,
free, full, and floating
upon solstice wind
spinning in sudden rains
sprouts and stalks shiver
oh rage of my namesake
drench me with delights
long ago, knighted
bending leafy knee
take your name,
oh thunderous liege
plow and plant it
forever virile
or so we dreamt
a thousands years
no more is our name
chanted by altar light
no more sanguine offerings
or firstborn dedications
drought and disdain
as so much else
the spittle of the masses
dripping thick and pulpy
from marble frescos
senopia of our devotion
lost to time
perhaps we are the fools
oh my jealous lightening lord
tenderly lending as we do
to the uncaring world
my own fate, ignoble
from shepard of field and flora
to stumbling, bumbling fool
in a broad-rimmed cap
johnny appleseed
john chapman, a mortal
i met once in a field
he saw in me all things
and i in him, promise
i gave to him my oath
and your proxy
which he carried a time
until returning to me
ashes to ashes, dust to dust
in the common, mortal way
since then, only occasional
renaissance, resurgence
ancient earth rites taking
new guises, i hear far away
songs to my mid-life nome
Gwrddni, Verdure, Green Man
incense and adulation
though more to leech power
than sustain it in the world
in others, in life
i sit by the shorelines,
sighing as Poseidon chuckles
salty spray of sardonic wit
ignored, yet sinks through skin
oh my skybound sir, sorrow
yet also sweetest smiles
the game we thought to play
has caught us
as games are wont to do
no more mighty Διός Diós
no more verdant me
here, a lesson for us
mighty oak lord
if we would deign find it
for the plow i yet draw
finds newer places, where
marble frescos, gone cerebral
make strange eddies in the air
the fields here, they are wilder
for all they bloom as readily
wild poets, lofty, feral, and free
perhaps we do not yet fail
for you may yet call the lightening
and i am yet your namesake
Zeus Arotrios, for all it may be
we more often slumber than scream
there are these seedlings
sturdy, strapping, and strident
they curl upon my thighs and
bid me rest a time
laurels that
i do not recall pruning
yet they claim to be mine
lay themselves
with smiles, with sighs
at my feet
wild poets, my leige
may their growing
please you
as their blooms
so often please me
i rest
upon these fragrant throngs
and whisper thoughts to you
perhaps… perhaps…
we were not such fools after all