fright.

  Was it not but new evidence

  of my personal contact,

  with possibly,

  circling,

  continuous life?

  Drops

  Formless drops,

  weighted with sand,

  drift aimlessly,

  crushing their neighbors,

  in hapless style

  blending their substance on mindless concrete,

  leveling to perfection on any horizontal mass

  until, recalled for rebirth.

  Then,

  recycled,

  each begins anew,

  within a most personal, enclosed circle.

  Places

  The bay

  The bay,

  horizontal along its southern rim,

  arched across its northern fringe,

  concealed from my view,

  (with noon’s high manners,)

  the life contained within its bounds

  Then,

  though the bay was under shielded by a granite sufferance,

  and immersed in a molecular mass of two for one

  Suddenly,

  I was allowed a moment's penetration

  Before, randomly

  All was withdrawn

  And I was there

  At the very surface,

  Back into fullest light.

  The shore

  Laddered by the tides,

  the ochre sand scaled into dunes,

  breached the ridge,

  then allowed the winds to cross the height

  through the new gaps,

  ever more primitively irregular.

  until,

  coarsened and alone,

  the dunes fronted the coiling sea.

  The city

  Early morning.

  Sooted streets.

  The city stands gray and still.

  The air,

  unable to bear the weight,

  languishes on every line

  of building, curb and sign,

  bending the poles,

  warping the square,

  ellipsing the light,

  holding all the pigeons

  from their early morning flight.

  Oblivious, the sleeping citizens

  suck in the invisible visible,

  that seeps through, everywhere.

  Further out,

  a farmer,

  set to start his day,(cont'd)

  rejoices in the early day

  of God's so promised light.

  Beyond his fields,

  trucks bring in paradise,

  containered in,

  recycled slime.

  In the precambrian elevation

  a lone man stretches out

  and quietly breathes in.

  Country view

  From the bottom land came

  the discordant sounds of

  the untuned bells.

  As the herd slowly filed

  along the threadbare path,

  the settling dew

  brought relief to them all,

  from the intimidating flies,

  Leaving them,

  without thought,

  Contented to ruminate

  on their second coming;

  Blocking all things

  so known by us,

  with the sound of

  their own mastication.

  Eventide

  As eventide arched

  across the silvered landscape,

  the wind was broken

  on the anvil of the granite hills

  leaving wisps without substance.

  Time decayed, suddenly,

  the strength

  of the other primary elements.

  The graying cows

  paced step by step.

  Cloned to forget the day

  they chewed their cud,

  rhythmically,

  at one with their digestion.

  Thomas,

  in a parlor chair,

  too tired to contemplate,(cont'd)

  let the day slip away

  before his memory had its way.

  His wife,

  before the tv set,

  reiterated, vicariously,

  the rosary of her discontent.

  The sound of the moment's media hype,

  filled the sleeping rooms

  with the government's new,

  inspired, obsolescence.

  Moments

  The kettle

  The kettle discos upon the plate,

  breathing clouds on the elements.

  the fridge chuckles,

  the washer rocks,

  the plates all rest upon the rack

  beside the cups,

  who do have a tendency to drool.

  the furniture,

  all cracked and worn,

  stands,

  upon the old barn board.

  Did I bring the barn spirits

  into this room

  with the old planking I tore

  from the walls of the ancient barn,

  now leaning over its tenentless floors?

  Glass

  Slithering rain deflects the glass

  Into countless caves of silver and white

  where my glassed eyes cannot take me

  to see the intricacies of,

  this sudden new event,

  of five dimensional light

  in a three layered world.

  Where I live

  I live on this high plain

  As plain as I can be

  Breathing deep to wash my soul

  In all Nature’s reality.

  My Children and I

  My children and I allowed the boat

  to sift the river, up to it's mouth,

  where we anchored

  just before a darkened spot

  that seemed to frame static things,

  with living weeds and shadows.

  then we began to fish

  through the malleable surface

  and tried to watch our invisible lines;

  until we came to rest within the cradle

  of the moment's single chime.

  Greening

  Greening the paths

  that laid stretched

  and silent

  in the summer’s heat

  the summered rain gently

  pushed the blades of grass aside

  and entered the scattered capillaries,

  gasping there, below the skin of the earth.

  Inside them, turning again and yet again

  the liquid traveled down,

  even the smallest of the veins,

  and replenished the foundation reservoirs,

  so needed to uphold continuing life

  as a witness for

  the promise of tomorrow’s reality

  to be seen,

  later,

  by sentient things

  soon to tread the greened way.

  The winds

  The winds marched in columns, four.

  Human spoor was rescinded.

  Light etched its fingers’ paths,

  delighting the primeval rock.

  The snow lay in windrows of pure light.

  Solar power stood high,

  proud of its natural renewal.

  All the visible earth trembled,

  with a sensuality long forgotten.

  For a moment,

  all of this,

  Until from the left,

  Mush-rooming in,

  came an ever-growing shadow.

  The Rivers

  The rivers met

  and tested their strength,

  then mutually agreed to give way, but,

  unable to withstand their manic phase,

  they struggled and overlapped their desires.

  Their greened waters,

  fleeing to decay,

  stumbled into a depression, unknown,

  where their balm aw
aited

  but was denied,

  allowing suffering to stalk

  their salvation.

  Peace

  May I Ask

  Is Peace a negative thing

  If parametered by human law or creed?

  Can it be restrained or explained,

  Fenced or framed

  With things of humanity?

  Is Peace beyond all this?

  extended past and around all human desires

  beyond the plow, beyond the fire.

  No place can it hold,

  No word enfold?

  No thought can be sought,

  No tool inscribe?

  Or,

  Is Peace part of the first sun, on the first morn,

  A tangible entity always here

  Although we see it not

  Through all our so deserved tears?

  Can Peace Come…

  Can Peace come to each of us

  behind the consuming light that signals our day

  before our day begins,

  even in advance of our wildest surmise.

  Will we note this signaling query from beyond

  even before our conscious state reacts?

  Will our sight confirm,

  or our ears attention to identify,

  before the event passes and is gone,

  leaving us here to wait for, when,

  like a stringed comet,

  Peace will come again

  as is known,

  from within the collective memory of the species

  in time with some future clock

  according to some distant and destined chronology

  beyond our most temporary prime?

  Until then, must we spiral our hope and remind ourselves

  to leave evidence for those yet to come

  so we can help them identify, in time,

  the next event of Peace.

  And while we wait, can we try

  to be aware of all the possibilities,

  yearn and reach and be eager to pass on all we glean,

  be ever alert to pass on our hope

  in the eventual surprise of some distant kin

  when the evented signal comes

  to more alert ears

  and ushers in

  our most desired friend,

  recognized and identified,

  suitably greeted,

  dimensioned in all totality,

  sufficient to eternalize

  each future, sentient, quivering life,

  finally free,totally alive?

  May, I again ask

  Will Peace be here, now there

  within the minds of those committed to

  a forward view beyond those things

  we can sense or imagine?

  will Peace be a state of mind wherein resides

  some nebulous construct

  perhaps tailored, perhaps not,

  to fit the shape of everything

  unsolvable, unresolved?

  Or is Peace but a mirrored image

  of things seen backwards or upside down

  maybe pushed out of shape

  by all the effort of a single mind

  in concert with other singularities,

  trying to frame intangible results

  accumulated and unsortable

  that rest within the foreshortened span

  of each mind's limited time?

  However it may be,

  in truth, can we not know

  because our time of singularity is too brief

  as is that of all things that grow?

  Perhaps,

  it is best to account for our personal stats

  on things that live within our control

  and be ready
Robert J. MacPhee's Novels