Jumping the train of your thoughts

Jumping the train of your thoughts,
like a hobo, bedraggled and weary,
adrift upon rattling wheel-dreams,
sprawled in a boxcar under twilight,
with dying moths in the sawdust,
with yeast rolls and apple cores,
Indian Head pennies and peach snuff.
The trees are sifted by September;
a silo eclipses the swelling moon.
Old eyes open in the half-light
and watch as unfamiliar sceneries
pass by like clean mountain streams
after the first great thawing of spring.

How sudden sunlight shakes

Of course she does not realize
how sudden sunlight shakes,
like golden veins of lightning,
through antiquated stonework,
through battle-wearied walls,
at a smile of clear-eyed joy,
striking with acute enchantment - 
a ruin of bliss! in gladness straying
over silver-beaded grasses
into hushed and hidden gardens
ablaze with blooming florettes,
the fairest of lanterns shining
in all the encircling world!

To Anna

[from: Joy Beneath the Battered Moon: The Complete Writings of Gwyllyn]

 

I wish I could make this world as full of radiant light

as beautiful and as pure, as happy and as bright

as it now seems to you in your childish sight
untouched by the tainted shadows of night.

She sleeps under a Rackham tree

Her eyes are tired, they close unbidden,
the moon by tattered rags is hidden;
a breath of cold air moves the leaves,
a lonely night-dove gently grieves.

The Rackham tree is reaching down
with crooked arms and troubled frown
as if to guard the sleeping child
from the world now dark and wild.

Broadway

Let silence smooth away
the fault-lines and furrows,
the riven hillocks between
curious strangers in the sun,
stepping on paper trash and
shouldering the hot wind. We
emerge with empty clockwork
faces, hiding trembling little
souls, flames leaping up from
candlewick lives, past crumbling
art nouveau cornices into the
great blue wilderness of heaven.

Late in the Day

Broad grasses like holy emeralds shine
and breezes bestir the poplar and pine,
while clouds with painterly skill are arrayed
across a canvas of shimmering jade.

What charms now bid my mind to turn
and gently coax my heart to burn?

Skeleton leaves and cypress seeds,
putrid flowers and beautiful weeds,
robins and sparrows, leaping squirrels,
sandstone fossils of angels and girls.

What dreams now lull my soul to rest
from dying days and weary quest?

The birds and trees are falling asleep,
the squirrels no longer climb and leap.
The bright jade sky now turns to grey
and in shadows the emeralds fade away.