2nd & 3rd July, 2009
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Photo by Eric Yeager
©2009 All Rights Reserved
A Thought for Today
Roll on your back and let the sun have the other side.
FROM the¨BOOKS
Summertree, II
The old oak stands
almost alone
as he has stood for ages, eons maybe.
No regrets, recriminations, none.
The strength he’s gathered from
the weathered years
has made him stronger than he might
have dreamed, had he imagination
all those acorn years ago.
It might have been more joyous
and more comforting to live amid the forest
touching branches with his peers, communicating
with the local club of trees and vines. Part of
the great community, mixing in until he blended
blandly with the canopy that guards the moss
and shades the gentle fern and
underbrush,
but stunts the young growth,
robs sunlight from the saplings – would be trees,
while fighting for some sunshine of his own.
It is the way of neighborhoods and communes
to put self and the like group first. Never mind
that sagging Sycamore across the street.
The Oak had heard the Forrest murmurs long ago
and knew, from picked up gossip, rumblings,
passing leaves the wind had carried and even
laughter after lightning, that he was different.
At first he felt outcast, alone. But through the years
he learned to revel in this being different, not like
others, original, separate and separated.
One of a kind has its advantages, he often thought,
(while knowing there would always be
a something missing that goes with non-conformity.)
The something missing was the touch, embraces
from the unknown others.
Some nights he ached as he considered
the awful possibility of only warmth from distant sun
and none from new Oak that would grow nearby
then lean toward him with a promised touch.
Touch is everything to old trees, handshakes become
embraces, an arm around the shoulder, near copulation.
Mistake the rub-up of a branch for love? Not likely,
but love from distance or nearby is only love
while touch grows rarer as the circles round his trunk
tick off the centuries of even strongest Oak.
The probabilities of stray Wisteria
or even simple ivy groping through the grass
toward him for a climb was to remote
to ruminate about.
Ah well, the years – even those alone
had all been good and more would come.
The Summertree would nap a bit,
then check the progress of the nest construction
in his snowy foliage later in the afternoon.
If I close my eyes a bit, a dream might happen by.
I imagine, though I wouldn’t know for certain,
even old Oaks go on dreaming.
RM 5/7/01 2:14 PM / First
publication May 10,2001
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Thursday
2 July
Jose Canseco o
Elizabeth Dole o
Medgar Evers o
Christopher Gluck o
Sir Tyrone Guthrie o
Hermann Hesse o
Polly Holliday o
Ahmad Jamal o
Luci Baines Johnson o
Rene Lacoste o
Lindsay Lohan o
Patrice Lumumba o
Thurgood Marshall o
Jimmy McNichol o
Brock Peters o
Richard Petty o
Dan Rowan o
Curtis Rowe o
Eric Yeager
Friday 3 July
Roger Ailes o
Alan Autry o
Laura Branigan o
Betty Buckley o
Earl Butz o
Jack Carter o
George M. Cohan o
Michael Cole o
Tom Cruise o
Brigatte Fassbinder o
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Thomas Gibson o
Roger Horchow o
Franz Kafka o
Dorothy Kilgallen o
Carlos Kleiber o
Johnny Lee o
Johnny Palmer o
Susan Peters o
Geraldo Rivera o
Ken Russell o
George Sanders o
Tom Stoppard o
Montel Williams
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Almost anything is easier than ‘grace
under pressure’ - but nothing is as gratifying as knowing you pulled it
off.
He
or she who hasn’t stumbled in the public garrisons and been picked up by
strangers or a friend still trembles on the edge of life awaiting
entrance.
No wall can stop the coming of love; no clock can bring it
back.
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THE STORM
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The storm has widened
till now it stretches out
across the sky from end to end.
The thunder isn't thunder anymore
it must be cherubim or seraphim
in some caprice or slight displeasure
licking at the ends of clouds.
The rain, once quiet
in the early evening
makes waterfalls outside each window.
The wind this time
breathes hard
letting go great gusts of air
that swallows leaves
from every
tree
and carries them
in close armada
down the gutter rivers
to clog each drain
and drainpipe.
In winter
this would be a blizzard
and if in absentmindedness
or
impatience
he stubs his toe
or stomps his foot
The almighty will have made
on this May night
an earthquake that will go on
rumbling down the ages.
Curiously the streets
are not uncrowded.
Umbrella people deride upright
those caught unaware
hunch over and go nowhere
or go home.
Do they know
this is no ordinary storm
but such a curiosity
that man who can't explain
the elements
siphon into scriptures
and call miracles ?
I brave the rain.
No. The streams of water
falling on my face
and my brave shoulders
as I stand naked
in the backyard
searching out the secrets
of the still beclouded sky.
I have counted moons
magnified them
in a Moscow glass,
charted constellations
in the tropics
and shared great armfuls
of dim and distant stars
in my own flatlands
with no one but myself.
A storm is not to stop me.
Though my skyward vision
blurs just now
I feel that I can pierce the sky
see through it
to its certain center.
(A vanity to be sure,
and one of many,)
but I have looked
so hard and long
I'm now astronomer by assimilation
astrologer of sorts by my own will.
It's fitting somehow
Something
Some One I believe in
not even me, myself -
knows what I'm looking for.
Something's surely missing
in the life that I attempt
to live
until I find it
it can have no name.
It is clearing.
A flash of light
and one last
heavenly thunder laugh.
The ground has had
a good long drink.
I stay within the night air.
I feel it out there
Somewhere, still
Something's out here. Somewhere.
-
from "We Touch The Sky," 1979, 1980, 1999
[Note: this poem is a combination of the original poem,
written and published
in Great Britain in 1979 and revised a year later for U. S. publication. RM 7/3/99] |
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