Eve of Battle

The generalship of peace is left
to those who can't control it.
On any given day
its forces
are in utter disarray
each captain thinking only of its unit
and communications are usually down.
Even now they are all sleeping
on the eve of one great battle
in the year's campaign.
Who guards these quiet camps?
There are no sentinels,
so certainly now the enemy could rush in.
But they are surrounded by a silent field of stars
and nothing now will wake them
till the sun's rise sounds their reveille.
And will they meet the charge?
Anger, pride, hypocrisy
the adversary flings
to burst among their ranks,
and from the cynical deceiver
no mercy is expected.
And will they meet the charge,
this weak battalion? Will gentle weapons
grasped in honorable hands
suffice to meet the charge?
Wait the morning, let it come;
let all the sleepers rise
and with life's desperate persistence
make ready to defend the hearts
they're sworn to celebrate in love
and let them meet the charge.

December 25 2011

Deer in the Brush

They can't really be that silent.
My dog must have heard them,
though maybe he only scented,
or saw that quick flick of a white tail
grey in the dusk behind the neighbor's house.
One brief impression of body and hock 
and they were gone, but 
the poor dog's hoarse frustration
couldn't erase their lingering quiet, 
so still,
as though they were moving in a dream
(but whether theirs or mine,
I cannot tell).

December 23 2011

To a Younger Daughter

I do not chide the rose
for wearing its heavy scent
and dusky red
so languidly upon its stem.
I do not reprimand volcanoes
for sending tears of lava
down their rocky cheeks,
and tigers of necessity
must hunt.
Why, then, should your honest lamentations
anger me? You are a thorny flower,
eruptive, and hungry as only a cat can be,
but you are truthful in your rage.
You owe a debt to age
which you will pay, no doubt, begrudgingly,
but do not let the manners of maturity
cover quite completely 
all that wildness you possess.
It is something with which you are blessed
and with it you may conquer
fear
or all
or even
a single fortunate heart.

December 20 2011

Another Christmas Pageant

So many hidden tears are wrung
from the simple sight of these few children,
the very Bibles of a faith 
they do not understand, but live. 
Here are your churches and your synagogues;
truly, Allahu Akbar: God is great,
in even the smallest things.

December 11 2011

Wait

It is amazing how things wait.
Soap on a dish
stones
plates in the cupboard of an empty house
the sun in its unimagined immensity
undiscovered oil
and tools in the basement.
All these things I would emulate
to own their limitless calm
if not for the troublesome detail of humanity
that tethers me to restlessness and impatience. 
But oh how that unsought link
conducts the warmth of all those others
calling their message of green and growing life
for the sharing of which with me 
they are prepared 
to wait.

December 9 2011

Sedimeditation

I am in favor of building things slowly
and of things that slowly build.
I admire sedimentary rock, 
though some call it weak
because it cleaves along the plane of deposition.
But the way it gradually accretes
at the riverine pace of geological necessity
speaks to me of patience and accomplishment.
Let others of my kind be igneous;
I will labor on, 
recording and protecting
every layering of life
and building, 
always building
toward the sun.
Only when I am stone and fossilized
may any curious finally pry apart
my ancient strata
to read what they preserve.

December 5-18 2011

I do realize it's an awful title. Feel free to suggest something more dignified.

For Helen

She seemed like a chrysalis
the last time I saw her,
or maybe a nest,
with her paper skin and floating hair
and delicate, twig-like bones;
something, at any rate,
that held a lively Nature's child
in a fragile, temporary shell.
And her voice was a bird's,
which signifies flight;
so I must have known, considering these clues,
that soon she would show the world those feathered limbs
that bore her up, along with those who knew her,
through one hundred delighted years;
and that she would further rise,
with a smiling gentleness that was hers alone,
to who knows where
happy, on brilliant wings.

December 1 2011

Inscription on a Headstone

Born, lived, died,
happy, cried,
kept body and soul together.
Now they're apart;
take heart:
heaven's forever.

Sorry to be morbid; I've just had this jingling around in my head for years as a fun thing to put on a tombstone. (Depends on how you define "fun," of course.)

December 1 2011