Too steep to climb

There is a breeze here on the hill
That speaks of cold winters to come,
Even though yet the embers of my erstwhile fire sputter among the moon-drenched stones.
I smell upon it the wood-smoke from cooking in the hearths
And the soft songs being hummed unconsciously by the dozing lantern-lighters
Who draw easy breath in the comfort of their own homes.
I look briefly over my right shoulder
At the grey distance, barren and endless
And turn back to my past, the village in the valley below.
But within arm’s reach are the memories of my days amongst that council of trees
And of my trials of adolescence in the school yard,
Of my dreams of stars in the fragrant meadows beyond.
All of the history that I have piled upon the world in my years
Is wrapped up in a neat little bundle of houses, and lives
Tucked in a hollow between the hills.
I am still young and my feet will carry me far
And so, even more so, I must be gone,
And lose myself in new births in scattered lands.
As with every step the dream of days gone by will lighten and fade
And yellow in the dust of new experience and time,
And since the future remains clouded,
I will have merely the beating of my heart to keep pace with me.
My ever-renewed present is worn proudly.

When the thread of music fades
The buzz and hum of an everyday busyness
And a silence slips inside,
You pause and consider…
The ends and means, the in-betweens.

The sounds that surround
The clamor of voices and passions
Of loves lost and gained
Of culture, cerebral yearnings, heroism and damnation,
The world that flits under the fluorescent light
Bedazzled by its own self-sustainment,
Is not enough somehow.
The real world spends most of its time in the darkness of unperception.
Grand trees decaying in the solitary company of stars,
Mountains sighing their substance away into the wind and sea,
The rebirth of violent volcanoes,
And sharp moonlight
All these and more will persevere long into the coming ages.

The marrow that drives my body
Seems to have crept out of the house
In the quiet of night
And I shiver in my dreams and lament a loss I know not how to cope with.
She stands away in a pale Buddha-hood of her own
Teaching high morals in a world that used to be my home
In a life I can’t remember.
And I couldn’t care less.
My keep is with the inanimate.
The uncultured.
The unculturable and eternal.
I walk through meadows of crashing columns of sandstone.
And fall on to the grass myself.
My eyes close.