Corona Senryu I

Morning mirror grin:
Which friend will I lose today?
The old cynic asked.

Dead Stars

No friendship can be safe 
From the destructive power of time,
From the curse of fading memory, 
From the poison of indifference. 

Our telephone line may bridge
The distance of the daunting miles.
But no bridge was built to cross
The distance of the daunting years.

To keep at bay deep fears
We pretend our friendship holds. 
But no denial can fill the loss
Of the trust we once held dear.

Courage it takes to see it clear:
The passion of youth does end,
That joy that we cherished -
That friendship won't perish - 
Lost when the road did wend
Far to the left and far to the right:
We walked our own paths,
Soon lost to sight.

If the child in you and the child in me
Should one day meet in your memory,
Tell them both to always sing
Of the joy and the excitement
In a future we held in awe;
Tell them both to always cling
To the vision of companionship 
In a future we thought we saw.

For across the sky the darkness falls:
On the sand alone I count my scars,
Your echo faint and then it stalls -
A friend like the light of long dead stars.

Morning Mirror

In the gloom of dawn
Before the light of morning,
I am fully awake,
Staring at my face in the mirror,
The water running softly.
It has been running for some time.

I raise my hands to my face,
My fingers linger along and trace
The line of my cheekbones.
This skin will one day fall away,
The cheekbones turn to dust.

One finger runs down my nose,
A line slightly bent
By an experience that rent
My faith with hard cement.
This nose too will vanish.

The hair at my sides a bit grayish,
Showing how fast the days run.
They have been running for some time.
And though we run after our days,
Always we lag behind.

Ours is a fruitless race,
Death already shows on my face.
And my hair will fall into the sink
Sooner than I think.

In the growing light of morning
The birds begin to call,
Their cheerful sounds an invitation
To lay in bed once more
Until the sunlight is too bright
To sleep, perchance to dream.

Walking

I can't say your name.
Because I don't know you.
Wherever you are.

Did you think
That you would find me
One day,
I wonder sometimes

When I wander
In this city or the next,
With the sidewalks branching
Right and left.

The stretches of time:
Sometimes I notice the years.
But mostly the seasons.

Still, I never know who I will meet
Around the bend in the street.

Grace

This is the boon of time;
It creates a distance in the mind,
A space of grace
And possibility:
That you may not be a slave
To the past,
That your pain is not obliged to last
But fade by grades,
And the tell-tale tears
Vanish in the years.

Distance

Imaginary fingers
run gently through my hair
as I fix a lazy stare
at the table, once laden, now bare.
The heating pipes knock, hiss
and warm the silent air,
in the night beyond the only kiss
the wind upon the branches bare.  

Imaginary hands miss
my tight and aching back,
hardened by the days of quiet labor,
dragging the alienating sack;
hands instead that brush the sand
from a hardened pillow
on a warm night in an alien land.  

The soldier and I had parted
in the possible of an autumn evening,
one meal not sufficing, not enticing,
a gust of words to loosen
the silent weight that years create.

Destination

The tall volcano will spew its fire.
In rage the storm will roar and break.
The sunlit hills will tremble and shake.

Mankind, another scourge that roams,
Lays waste across the trembling world -
Oceans and forests wither and groan.

Whether the world will end in fire,
Whether the world will end in ice,
Whether mankind's base desires
Will poison the world in passion's guise -

Destruction is the destination.

Those who extol predestination,
In the grip of ancient fears,
Differ little from the explanations,
Offered by the wise of many years
Who trace the arc of nature's dawn
And its ultimate decline
In complex formulas that shine -
The magic spells of a darker time.

Founder's House

A flag hung from the brick façade
Of a stately and elegant house,
The street lined with old rich homes
And ancient, shady trees.

Inscribed were the words:
"Descendants of Valley Forge,
Soldiers in George Washington's army,"
Undulating in a hot summer breeze.

Around the corner, down the street, some distance away,
A posted sign was met with casual glances each day
From an American public who, with faces pink and red,
Between wiping sweat and heaving, read:

"On this spot, until 1889, lay the house,
Richly appointed, grand, and fine,
Of So-and-So,
An enlightened man of his time,
A Founder of this great Nation,
Whose achievements in Government
And Industry were sundry and sublime."

The plot of ground was flat and empty,
A wide square paved in red brick,
With tufts of grass in places thick,
And a thin tree growing like a lonely stick.

An old, tired beggar sat beneath the tree,
Taking from the sun a brief reprieve,
Descendant, too, of Valley Forge,
Though no one would believe.

That night the beggar walked to the river and saw,
With hunger and awe, the fireworks light the evening sky,
Blotting out the stars, the very stars the Founders saw,
Their precious source of light, as they sweat in all their splendor
On those steaming summer nights.

Torn Veils

Winter takes the warmth from everything.
And the lush veils that hide
The eternal mysteries
Wither and fall.

The dark, jagged shape of the trees:
The monsters that walked before history.
The winter sky gray and wan:
The smoldering glow at time's dawn.

The people of the city, puppets of the stars:
Indifferent as the winds of Mars.
The people of the farm, keepers of the faith:
The lonely miles of outer space.

All the souls surrounding me await,
Like nurturing vultures,
My untimely death;
Every boon, every kind gesture,
A gentle prod on the plank at the chasm.
Your trouble does not concern us,
They imply, sly fangs dripping:
Not your aches, cares,
Fears or nightmares.

In the dream I am falling, hurling
Down the chasm filled with millions
Of falling souls, all wrapped
In a mantle of cold, and the voices
Whispering, shouting, calling:
Choices prisons make;
Memories shimmer and break;
Long days of brief sleep-
Fitful, ungrateful -
Your fury is silent and deep.

The eternal mysteries knocked and hissed:
As you failed to forgive, all those chances you missed;

As long as the days are the lines on that list,

Down the chasm of time as you tumble,

With the weight of the sadness you stumble,

As you fumble to shoulder the rock of regret –

The sentence of days that you cannot forget.

Sunset

We sit together on the pier,

With our legs swinging,

The water lapping, glinting.  

We watch the sun sail

Across the low horizon

And sink beneath the sea.  

But that is not the passing of time for you

Or the passing of time for me.  

For the sun flies a little slower for you,

Child of tomorrow.

It sinks a little faster for me,

Man of yesterday.

How many sunsets have I witnessed?

How many sunsets have you missed?

How many sunsets until you read my name

Upon a list?

He was kind, the print will say.

He was brave,

(Though at times he played the knave). 

When you see the sun set in a blazing hail of color,

Shades you never knew you’d see,

Know that time is surely passing.  

The colors at the end of the sea

We see at day's beginning.

They fade to sunken mystery

And rise at day’s cold end. 

 

 

Warning

What conversation is to be had

With someone like you

Who thinks I’m mad? 

I tell you the festival will end.

So set time aside to spend

Getting to know the silence. 

It will sound, the silence,

Like that time

When your voice falters,

Like that time

When your slow legs alter

The schedule of your day. 

You won’t recall this conversation.

There will be no slow conversion

With the looks of pure aversion

That the young will send your way. 

So take time now to listen:

See how ice on branches glistens

On a crisp, cold winter’s day,

How branches full of flowers sway

In the breeze one fine spring day. 

Hear the cicada cry out its doom

In the heat of a summer afternoon

And the silence when its cry does stall

On a quiet evening in the fall. 

Take time to greet that old man who sits in the park,

Whose eyes will not let him stay out after dark,

Or that old woman tossing crumbs on the ground,

Feeding pigeons, seeing ghosts all around –

For one day time will come, without sound,

To show their faces in the mirror.

What warning could be clearer?

Time to choose which you hold dearer -

The noise and lights and thrills of the carnival

Or that hand on your hand when you’ve been left by all.

 

Birthday Cake

Melancholy is an ailment,
As common as the cough.
Though we take our medicine,
It remains, tough,
Rooted in our deepest days.

I always wanted a simple cake,
With blue lettering and white frosting.
But for years
My parents bought a fruitcake
For my birthday.

I always wanted the white cake;
All the other children got white cake.
How I cursed my lot,
Fated as it was for fruitcake.

But I failed to see the fruitcake
For what it was -
For the color of my parents' minds,
For the memories, hard to find,
After the cakes, and everyone else,
Are gone.

Now in the days of no cake
I see what is at stake.
To water the tree of my days
Is the best medicine to take,
And to hope, from beneath its shady leaves,
To take, from the burden of years, a brief reprieve.

Locked in Time

To say I will not likely find
In the years ahead a being
That will appreciate my mind
Is to apply the prejudice of time.

In the present dwells a certain sadness,
The sense that joy will die in future darkness.

But if, from the far side of the earth,
Your life I fail to note,
Then, from a hundred years hence,
You remain just as remote.

Therein lies the trap of time,
Our minds prisoners of the present.
From day to day though I may fly,
Our meeting – miles, years away –
Stays locked beyond this moment.