summer

Loving the peonies

/ eharpingon / 4 Comments

Loving the peonies,

I held myself

in question:

how can I be so scared,

when they have

such daring?

The audacity

to bloom in

such beauty

and self-possession.

No delicacy or

diminution,

but a full

chorus revelling

in the ephemeral.

And yet, not without

wisdom –

there is nothing

hedonistic or

indulgent

about them.

Foliage of forest green

holds the memory

both ancient and

ever-present

that to choose life

is to befriend

the poetry of its

completion.

That these loving

emissaries,

boundless for a

fleeting moment,

are bound towards

an ending.

And they teach

in their being:

what is more

grievous than death

is to hide in

life’s shadow,

sitting in foreboding,

for fear that endless, ashen

sorrow is safer

than the oceanic fantasia

of living and losing.

And as the

peonies crest,

and their

petals begin to fall,

I sit with my fears,

holding them

in my palms

for as long as

I can bear,

before gently dedicating them

to the pearlescence

of the clouds passing by.

My words are

/ eharpingon / Leave a comment

My words are

not perfect

but they are

full of heart.

I long and aim

to speak rubies

and sunbeams;

More often,

they feel plain,

though strong;

lacking the elegance and poise

of a

craftsman,

but holding

the simple

complexity of

soil and salt.

Humble,

because the true

symphonic lakes and

reservoirs of me

cannot be truly

spoken.

I would like to impart

my mysteries

with the eloquence and precision

of noon,

but they remain

veiled

by gauzy pearl sheets.

Especially now,

as night draws in

and the great

crossing lies ahead.

Inky alchemy.

Shafts of light.

A great path,

damp and dark,

opens.

I tread softly,

a night-pool lapping

under the dim

magnificence

of a black moon

rising.

Glory.

I turn in fear

but cannot bear not looking.

La Loba.

Under her shadowy

wing and root

I rest and reside,

Hers,

in this moment of passage

formidable, terrifying.

Greatest most loving

wild mother and

guide.

Even though

I ran to the lanterns,

a hotel lobby

without a key,

harkening to the

pangs of panic;

she is with me,

ferocious and kind,

burning, growling,

the river running beneath

an earthly life.

Birthday Eve

/ eharpingon / Leave a comment

Somehow

a bull snorted

silver

and the sky

hummed pink,

the cotton

richness of

clouds golden

with sunset.

A trail, a road

waving and

weaving across

Her firmament,

pied beauty

no possibility

of losing my way.

No detours

through other

chasms and cosmos

bright;

no other

celestial seas

or turtle shells.

Just this place.

A teeming,

beating heart

in time.

And this time,

with its waxing abundance,

bee-dance

and goldfinch sweetness,

that lines,

as ever,

the crags and mountains

and canyons and oceans

of my own

being.

Fragrant, fertile

and, yes,

fleeting.

I arrived

sighing with

life, death, life.

Bursting with joy,

yet, for months

I was grieving.

Three crows

/ eharpingon / Leave a comment

Three crows

flew by:

black on the

pale blue

sky of dusk.

Pointed.

Determined

Flocking.

And I felt

the sweet

aches,

the strawberry-breath

of summer.

Spring continues

to bludgeon and

quake

with ferocious

storms and

riots of green

But I felt the

flicker

of something

more serene.

The calm of

days stretching

long and lean.

Languid hours.

Spring is sticky,

excruciating.

I long to love it,

but it feels like

a frothy mist

in which

I cannot catch

A foothold;

or perhaps

I still lack the grace

to flow and

know its torrents

when I step

blinking, in disbelief

out of Winter’s

nest.

But now,

I feel the spark.

The coursing.

The legs relishing,

lingering light,

speaking hope

blooming and bright.

An ancient

aliveness

after the pangs

of birth.

Pale sheets.

A ringing glow,

the great

sigh of the Earth.