Scenes from time itself.

01.02.2010

There it is. Again.

Slap!

A nibble……Maybe?
Or a dream remembered?
A dark closeted fragment, in any case,
Gray with time and pulled up by snaky tendrils breaking
with age.
The slow intrusion of a muddy river
Slapping away at the wet bank. But now and then
We get it:
A root grasped by the traveler in its sudden appearance
From beyond the shutters of our minds lost.

A piano plays at some distance.

In a long wooden shadowed hall. A lonely…..sound.

Chords
Just out of time
Out of memory
Out of
Tears.

Out of friends.

Somewhere there are memories

Soft and sunny sepia memories
That would warm a day
Now dark with white snow
The frequency of night fallen below,
The might of fallen heroes underground
Burrowing forever in dark earth.
When there are no more bad dreams in the belly of sleeping Mother
We will go unafraid to that place, then,
Is it when the flute plays for us?

The older days, remembered sweetly, a sugar lump

Dissolved, but now, forever shut, unless….
Can we open a door?
Can we find a track not blown over
By wind and sand
Passing?

1
Next to the piano, syncretic chords
Calling up the scenes forgotten
To play before dry raspy closed eyes, lids heavy
With age
With regret

But then the old man swallows, his white beard

Shuffling on his chest
A dance all its own feet and fingers
Snapping and in the memory
A small rivulet of crystal tear
Crawling down his cheek like a spying spider
Down a wall
One faceted dark spider eye alert
For the hand that will

Smack!

Time is the shard of troll mirror

Stuck in our eyes and heart.
Our lives unwittingly spelling “Evigheden”
- eternity spelled with the ice of missed opportunity
And risen urges fulfilled against better
Judgment
And forgotten lives
Touched.

On the window, the old black crow on the rust brick sill cracks his feathered neck.
Shuffling his rubber-booted feet on the bricks
And craning his neck to see the young shiny crow
Bobbing next to him. The old crow sighs..
His black eye nicts shut and open, shut and open.
The reflection of the young crow milky in each flicker.
“I see what you want me to see, Father”, says the young crow.
“The piano plays by itself.”
The old crow turns its rigid beak back to the window pane,
It’s own reflection
Unfettered and unaccusing.
The eye again, nicts shut. And stays there
Like that
For a bird moment.

The scenes against the old man’s eyelids

Dance
To the rhythm played by the unseen musician.

2
The future stopped for this momento
Of color and movement
Of remembered faces dancing around the maypole
Small and cherubic, smiles amidst the gay blue and white ribbons
The lengthening seasonal sun casting warmth
On the children’s laughter.
A gentle fire
Against the ice that works its way
To the heart.

A cello uprights itself,

And plays an accompanying chord to the piano melody.
Somewhere off in the forest
Outside the door
A made place where the huntsman’s horn is sounded
A brass blowing and clarion
Alerting the tanned and ancient buck
Suddenly erect, antlers
Proud and searching to left
And slowly …..right.
Eyes…
That go wide with the remembered splash of sudden distorted chord
From resurrected electric guitars
Smashing the sound barrier
And pushing over dark evergreens
Leaning with the weight of white snow
Nestled on the boughs of wood.

There it is.
For sure this time!
A real memory.
Or not. Memory
Raised against smokey time
Trusted eyes seeing
What was not trusted at the moment,
Momentos of friendship
Slippery only in their youthful exuberance
And freely given frets
Of insecure lives
Slipping from the minds
Of those once most close
Forgetting
Implied oaths of fealty
Developed under suns and moons constant
In their red rising and purpled setting.

3
The old man smiles
Where he had not smiled
Since that night
Years ago.

He goes to a closet
Where those once touched
Will forget him.
Once spoken words shuttered
From living.

He goes to a closet, but not just

Yet.

Of yet he opens his clear eyes

And sees the two crows.
He nods and the window opens.

Minutes later, they are three at tea

Nodding their heads to the music
Played just for them
Against the eyelid of the eternal dreamer
Dreaming of his queen
A white angel of place beyond and place
Near.

Slurp...”ahhhhh….”

The old crow held his fragile cup ahead of him

His wing deftly curling around a dainty handle
Of white and roses china.
“I once dreamed of twins,” he winked, then drank.
The young crow laughed without knowing why
Since the old man chuckled against the slatted chair
And slapped his knee,
Arthritic hands
Suddenly free of curling pain.

Later that night

The old man shudders
And realizes the leaded window is open
The breeze of ember-smelling winter
Cold in its reach
Claws in it own clutching pain
To gain one more dreamer
One more

4
For the belly.

But in the air above

The dream remains,
The unfurled golden bow of greatest
Potential
Flexes and pulls,
And a young boy
Smiles
At a young girl, smile
Hidden
Behind shy and dimpled cheek.

THERE it is.

A shoot of green
Unfurls out of the dreaming earth belly…