ShadowRain
poetry
map 2
All the land is changing
and the maps can't keep up
All the places
I knew and loved
are being overwritten
I have remedied the situation
I now carry the country
On my skin
fever
what matter if the skin is warm as fire
when the bone itself is chilled as ice
samsara
I see you gazing too often
at the labyrinth of the world
The walls are whispering;-
calling you into the world
We've all heard that clever voice
We've all stood in this very place
But still, you say,-
'I wont get lost,
I'll find my way
Already I can see the steps
of the route I will take'
But hold on to the shining thread
No matter how dense the world
Keep your heart on the shining thread
And perhaps, someday,
when the walls run thin
I'll meet you on the other side.
a map
Sometimes, fate, that whimsical goddess
shows you a map
to keep you from wandering
too far beyond her ken.
Mine's made of marble
with rivers of gold
with cities of black gems
and lakes as azure as the sky
The chart is my comfort
though the lettering is all foreign
and the land- one I've never been.
The Memory of Happiness
The trick, the old man said,
is to still time,
to hold both ends together
and ever so slowly, so gently,
press them together
Till there is no difference, no distance,
between the past and the future,
no present even.
And then
you no longer have to wait
for the long view of time
to recognize these moments
as the happy ones.
hope
We walked, once, on the same earth
we gazed, once, at the same sky
I see you still, bending over the
water as I add another twig to the fire
It was home, it was a pleasant dark
and your eyes were gleaming with
light I'm left with only that memory of light
and the forest is now merely charred earth
Everytime I seek you, it's suddenly dark
I grasp at your silhouette in the sky
Is this fate mine, this trial by fire?
Will you pass by, like flowing water?
I'll wait for the rain and its promise of water
Surely there will be a change of light
Surely I will gather warmth from the fire
And I'll walk lightly again on the earth
Would that I see a glimpse of that sky
And slip by your shade in the dark
Without you, this house is all too dark
The walls echo the tap's dripping water
While the mid-day sun in the hot sky
makes only a pretense at light
I'm far far away from the solid earth
I'm still bearing the scars of your fire
But I miss the crackle of that fire
I'd forswear the freedom from the dark
For a minute spent on the old earth
A moment spent in the same water
For, where there is you, there is light
And my heart bluer than the bluest sky
Now my life's as open as the sky
I'm a dry twig, waiting for a fire
Another day, a world in new light
I have hope,- who needs the dark
I'll seek the river, my secret water
In time, I'll be strong in the earth
Trust the light, and face the sky
Smell the earth, and the dying fire
Shun the dark, and be like water.