To the Drunken Muse:
No.
Leave, take your enticing cup of lies,
leave the room of this life,
close the door and go, do not return.
I want nothing to dull or dazzle
this beautiful mirror I’m given.
These reflections, perceptions
are to be keen with physical edge,
and with Spirit: from here I can see
in the low meadow there
the wild grass-blades, shining and sere
in lean winter sun, stirring slightly
with sharp curled knives of wind.
A Red-Shouldered Hawk is perched high
in the Black Walnut, folded and still, waiting
intently watching, for his very life.
Many autumns ago, far to the north:
I sit beside a deep, high-mountain lake
alone, long after midnight.
The yellow moon is glowing
above a jagged black forest of spruce.
The golden light reflects perfectly,
silently, on the black windless water.
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–Quilla
January 10, 2015 | Categories: Meditations | Tags: alcohol, contemplation, deception, drunkenness, hawks, meditation, moonlight, poetry, reflection, silence, spirit, truth | Leave a comment
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March Fourteenth
In bitter cold I take my morning walk
through the local cemetery.
Sharp north wind flutters the faded flag,
rustles the fields of artificial flowers.
Squalls of snow blow like ghosts
from the distant blue mountains.
In the grey thicket of thorns
scarlet Quince blooms had begun opening,
now they hesitate. . .
The Mockingbird who nests there
every Spring—she perches, but does not sing.
A flock of crows blows down the wind
like scarves of torn black cloth.
The old man with the shovel—his face
withered red with years of whiskey
and winter morning wind.
He marks lines in the dead grass
where the backhoe is to dig.
Another human life returns to red clay.
Later they will bring the canopy
and folding metal chairs for the family.
A green carpet will barely hide
the sharp black opening in the ground,
the mound of fresh-dug earth.
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–Quilla
March 14, 2013 | Categories: Meditations | Tags: alcohol, alcoholism, cemetery, Chinese Landscape poetry, death, dying, early spring, graveyard, landscape poetry, Mockingbird, morning walk, north wind, poetry, Quince, snow, walking, whiskey | Leave a comment
Ruach 333, by Quilla 