The Beginnings of Freedom
The Beginnings of Freedom
by Toby L. Jackson
Copyright 2013 Toby L. Jackson
To my wife Paula; Without her, love in this world would remain undefined.
Contents:
Beginnings of Freedom
Softly
Solitude
How Sweet is Love
Without Sails
Horses
Love, the Raging, Rushing River and I
I Go My Way Alone
Tossing Oneself Off
Youth
Always Calling
Apartheid (A Vision)
Casey, Does Your Mother Know?
These Eyes
If I Should Die Tonight
Louise Lake
The First Touch of Snow
Accidentally Stepping Off
Turmoil
Uninvited, Impatient
Few Are Those Who Cry
Enchanted Rock
A Partial List
For Catrina
Epitaph
Jill
He Loves the Sun
Dana
For Every Life
Beyond the Breaking Day (Variation#2)
Lesser Creatures
Just a List
Natural Man #1
For Loves Desire
Quiet Desperation
Lovers
Sleep Comes Hard
Natural Man #2
Sonnet, the First
The Hand of Man
Always There Is a Cost
These Eyes (A Daydream)
Sonnet #2 (I Love You)
To Stephen Crane
Beginnings of Freedom
Hate, fear, ignorance...
They are part of me.
They are part of us all;
Yet,
The truth must be seen.
Heat, fear, ignorance...
They shame us, destroy us.
They have traveled with us through our history
And will travel with us to our destiny;
Yet,
The truth remains and must be seen.
Softly
Soft and slowly sailing,
To the miles of blinding bright.
While alone my heart is aching,
For the downy falling white.
Solitude
When solitude is upon me
A crowd will only crowd me
A dream will only torment me
A love will only leave me
And solitude is always upon me.
How Sweet is Love
We tend, of late, to dream the same.
I can see it in your eyes
And feel it deep within my own heart.
Still, we are both afraid that what’s begun
So soon, must end.
Do not fear my love,
For lovers have had less of time than we.
Already we feel the pain
And oh! How sweet is love…
Without Sails
Today I am a ship without sails
Tossed about;
No motion to drive the keel,
No color among the riggings,
No shade from the oppressive sun
And no hope for the crew.
Again, today, I am without you.
Back to T of C
Horses
Thundering herds of horses
White and gray
Against the sand.
Leaving trails of hoof prints
Where they ran.
Love, the Raging, Rushing River and I
I stand here; on the bank of a raging,
Rushing river and know full well that my desire
Lies waiting on the other side.
So I set myself to work,
Building a bridge from the sticks
And trees and vines which are scattered about.
Since I have no gift for building bridges
The work is slow, so painfully slow,
And the goal so very near.
Still to trade caution for speed
Could send the bridge and my dreams
Crashing into the swift water, lost forever.
So I work here; on the bank of the raging,
Rushing river and shout oaths of love to my desire,
Oaths which are lost in the sounds of the rumbling water.
I Go My Way Alone
I go my way alone,
Into the darkened paths of life,
Waist deep in truths and truer lies,
I gather flies.
Tossing Oneself Off
He was very young and confused.
Frustrated, as many are,
By our ultra-complex society.
Searching the good and the bad
Of the city for a direction to call his own.
In desperation he jumped from a nearby bridge.
And while he was falling to the relief of death
Sailed so gently downward
That he felt an inner peace.
A peace which was so very worth living for!
Youth
Take me past the gravestones
Of judges and of scribes
Of all the ancient scholars
That so surely shape your lives.
For their attitude alone, assures
That time is on my side.
Back to T of C
Always Calling
Uncontrolled and quickly falling
All alone and always calling
For some way to stop the falling.
Then, the one below you falling
Sees the ground and stops his calling.
Now you hear him crying, crying!
For the ground below him lying
Knows the time is soon for dying.
Knows it’s time to stop the crying
And waits for him to do the dying.
Apartheid (A Vision)
I see a black man
Lying still as a corpse on
The cool stones of the temple floor.
Vowing to neither accept nor resist
Anything from this world until
His god arrives to set him free.
He refuses all.
But the priests of the temple become impatient
With his lamenting; so they beat him with heavy rods,
Bind his feet, then cast him down the many stairs
Of the temple to the street.
Having been unwilling to enter the temple
God meets the man there
And walks with him to the funeral.
The man’s kin grieve and rage at the injustice.
They chant, dance, carry banners
And all return home very tired.
Then god leads the man down a long road worn smooth;
To a shady spot where they sit in comfortable chairs,
Pour cool wine; greet the many travelers as they pass
And await the priests of the temple.
Casey, Does Your Mother Know?
Casey, does your mother know?
From long cold days
Or chilling stone,
How long it takes to feel alone.
And Casey, could your mother know?
From one quick smile
Or long last word,
How quickly her soft voice was heard.
So on some dark, sullen day
When love is lost
Or gone away.
When your mother’s heart longs for decay.
Whisper softly,
Whisper dear
That you will always be so near.
Then remind her of some long last word
And how quickly her soft voice is heard.
These Eyes
/> They’ve held me here for hours now,
Soft as an autumn sky and sweet,
These eyes that hypnotize and cheat
Me so of time!
If I Should Die Tonight
If I should die tonight
Lay my body in the morning light
And as the eyes of love kneel weeping;
Raining tears upon my sleeping,
Be glad at least I lived to see
The smiling eyes of love,
Smiling for me!
Back to T of C
Louise Lake
Grey and close.
A light rain moves in, a chill.
The misty forest is attentive
As she examines the beauty of the lake…
A young girl reflected on the water;
Frail, small footprints in the sand
And the faint sound of weeping on the wind
Like a pitiful cry from the past…
Her loneliness becomes this place
And she is warmed by it.
The crisis is passed and soon
A willow sprouts where she has stood…
The First Touch of Snow
As the first touch of snow lies
Upon the tree covered hilltops.
Time stands still in the smoky mountains
And we brace ourselves
For the chilling winds of winter.
Huddling together before the fire
Content to be warmed by its heat
And our love for each other.
Content as time stands still...
Accidentally Stepping Off
Deeper into the abyss he falls,
Each moment brings new terror
And the muffled echo as he calls
Punctuates his error!
Turmoil
Depression, Power
And lack of Power…
Fear or gain?
All the implications of
Action or inaction…
Living or not living?
Day to day, year to year…
Stagnation or aggression?
Indecision
Frustration
Pain…
Uninvited, Impatient
Walking along; with a cold,
Kind of lonely feeling, I meet a young woman.
As we walk together she tells me of the warm,
Comfortable fire waiting at her home…
I want very much to rush in,
Uninvited, impatient as ever.
Back to T of C
Few Are Those Who Cry
Wide and deep the chasm grows
And on my carcass feed the crows.
Still, he with open eyes
Can see beyond the empty skies
And me.
Soon his flesh will know the flies,
So free the vision of his eyes.
All that lives, is all that dies
And few are those who cry.
Enchanted Rock
I made the short climb
To the windswept granite summit
And stood looking deep into a bright spring sky,
My thoughts turned inward…
Suddenly a little voice spoke;
“Look far; far beyond the horizon.”
“Beyond the mountains and clouds.”
“Beyond the sky itself, to the magic of the future!”
So I turned my eyes to see the ‘morrow:
Enchained by my own sorrows
Imprisoned by a love that’s never lived…
Sitting now, I let my head hang,
Turning my eyes to the granite.
While the voice
Gives out a little chuckle
And moves on…
A Partial List
A partial list:
Grace, music, tenderness,
Understanding, beauty, faith,
Gentleness, love, devotion,
Kindness, poetry, and light...
A partial list,
Of that which she could have taught me.
If only we would have had a lifetime,
Instead of two short months.
For Catrina
Light will fill the darkness
As a small child rushes to greet you…
For her, a smile
Will be returned with a smile.
For her kindness
Will be returned with kindness.
For her, Love is the only reward for love
And all she asks of the world.
And all my tension fades before the glow
Of that small gleaming smile.
For she is the image
Of the beauty and innocence
I pray that my own daughter will possess.
Epitaph
Make use of youth
For time does fly
And hear my body
My dreams must lie.
Back to T of C
Jill
Soft and white,
Young and bright,
With love for life.
Helplessly hoping,
Her heart,
For my heart, will come running.
He Loves the Sun
Rolling gently in the face of a north wind
We move slowly across the smooth terrain,
Never passing hill or hole.
Never gaining speed but always going faster.
The mountains and trees are out of sight,
Never near our path of smoothness.
The clouds above give beauty, please us and make us sick.
As we keep rolling up the years
Toward another mile of smooth terrain.
Always reaching for the crutches that keep us on our feet.
At least in our minds they do.
Crutches, for whatever reason, to lean on.
Rolling, stumbling, stuttering.
Steadily moving across this space.
Maybe a very small space of time
Thank God, thank someone
We won’t be here forever.
Who knows, perhaps we will.
Dana
Her eyes are softer
Than a golden field of grain.
Her tears are warmer
Than a misty summer rain.
Her smile, more beautiful
Than a soaring ocean crane.
Her heart, my heart and the rain.
For Every Life
For every decision
There is an equal indecision.
For every wakeful moment
There is an equal moment of sleep.
For every good
There is an equal bad.
For every poem
In time; there will be a tune,
For every sun, a moon.
And love is how you look at things,
And being calm is easy.
For every man, no doubt, there is a woman.
And for every life there is a tragic death.
Beyond the Breaking Day (Variation#2)
There beyond the lifting gloom
Lies the breaking day;
And as these lovers sweat,
And swoon,
The moon slides quietly away.
Breathing softly tender words
That I so long to say;
These two lovers sweat,
And swoon,
Another impassioned day away.
Back to T of C
Lesser Creatures
The sea rushes to the shore.
The light to darkness.
So men, with perpetual monotony,
Must rush to ambition.
And the lesser may yet become the greater
As ambition blinds.
Just a List
The tears that I’ve so long forgotten.
The dreams no longer dreamed.
To dance and enjoy myself.
The morning sun.
The warmth of your skin on mine.
Natural Man #1
/> As day must come from night,
So light must come from darkness
And beginnings be born of endings.
Maturity from the chaos of childishness
And the realization of your conformity
From your desire, above all, not to conform.
For Loves Desire
Through the city’s crowds we travelled different paths
And became lost in a heated search for loves desire.
Lost within the fires of our youthful passion.
Frustrated by desires which did no good
As strangers filled our lives and
Our empty passion for a moment.
A moment that we knew could never last:
A moment that could never last,
For loves desire.
Quiet Desperation
Have you ever felt like,
A piece of gum,
Stuck on the bottom of someone’s shoe?
He walks and runs,
From there to here,
From here to there.
And because he does not seem to care
You’re crushed and stretched
A thousand times each day.
And the good times are only the weight of the shoe,
When he doesn’t have his foot in it.
Back to T of C
Lovers
How close these sweetest lovers are
Arm in arm
And heart to heart.
As though the two had travelled far
To mingle here and never part.
Sleep Comes Hard
Sleep comes hard these days
To we who spend our time alone.
As ambition forces us to wait
And grow beyond the thrills of childhood.
Searching for that emotion
Which allows old age and death
To move toward us; without fear or regret.
And sleep comes hard these days
To we who sleep alone.
As ambition forces us to wait
And grow beyond the thrills of adolescence.
Searching for that emotion
Which allows the many years
To pass us; without fear or regret.
And sleep comes hard these days
To we who do not have to be alone.
As ambition forces us to wait
And grow beyond the thrills of impatience.
Searching for that emotion
Which allows each single moment
To enrich us; without fear or regret.
Natural Man #2
He waits in the shadows
Until the lights grow dim
For only then may he reveal his true self
Without burning his eyes or drawing ridicule!
Sonnet, the First
Blue, bright and boundless skies
With cooling breezes sailing.
Opens wide your wondering eyes
Where questions are assailing.
Oceans green and flowers scent