1. Light
Perhaps the idea of light began with Morse code.
An SOS from deep space. My mind wanders
to the opening bars of Chief Inspector Morse.
Who doesn’t love puzzling out a good mystery?
Yet the truth of the flute
had other destinations in mind.
I am reminded that I am not in charge.
The mind maps of music,
each is unique. A signature.
A frenzied rhythm, the hummingbird of war.
The coda is another message, a cypher
and then the piano brings it all home with an arpeggio.
A cascade of music ends with the one-note song
of a car horn on distant streets,
reminding me of old Havana,
a place where I’ve never been,
a place where I can never return to.
And I mourn for what was lost.
And for that was coming.
2. Morning Zephyr
2. Morning Zephyr
The sea breeze is a sister to the wind chimes.
Someone once told me the wind was sighing,
or perhaps there were angels hidden in the eaves.
A sophisticated melody reminds me
that the piano is a harp on its side
and I think of the ancient Greeks
leaving Aeolian harps on stone walls for the gods
so that the wind would have an accompanist,
so that it was not alone. Yet the music of the wind
in the pines is as a primal roar akin to fire,
and we combust as we listen to the wind
playing the old notes that resonate deep within the psyche.
And that flute. I envision a girl in an alpine meadow
keeping company with the wind. There is no other lover
other than time. An old woman sits
beneath the casuarina trees
dreaming of distant shores,
and other beachheads.
3. Quiet Thoughts
Starlit music, wavering lights from distant galaxies
lifts us to the sky glittering with arpeggios of hope.
It is as if the moon were slipping
off her beaded flapper dress
onto the silk cloak of the sea
and look how she lies back,
odalisque moon low on the horizon.
She is the same moon reflecting
in the mirrors of barway doors and brothel halls.
When we look up, for a moment we might forget
the ordinary and the mundane, but her journey
is effortless across the distant seas.
The moon, a siren dancing in her own wake.
But fairytales always have a twist.
But fairytales always have a twist.
No, not Disney versions all sanitized
with the scary bits expunged. Real fairy tales
where fear is palpable, and devours us.
Water can’t find its way back to the sea
on a level playing field. We can’t find our way.
We need the elevation to bring us down
to the shore from such lofty heights
to the sea, the sea, the shining sea
fanning its lace fan on the shore
waiting for the last dance.
4. Our Dance
The rhumba of morning flashes onto the sea,
4. Our Dance
The rhumba of morning flashes onto the sea,
so still, after the eclipse. Your eyes take in
the opalescent thunderclouds. Storm out to sea,
and yellow morning light bathes the city.
A pulsing glow verging on tangerine
fades into pale gracenotes. Coral atolls,
the sophisticated dreams of tropical fish
painting the water with their bodies.
Small dancers of kinetic art.
I am most at home when I am in the sea.
The clouds come down to drink from the horizon
gathering up all that light.
The distance of time, the tango,
and the ticking of an old clock in another room,
a relentless metronome. We are every age all at once,
we are both young and infirm. Art saves us.
The soft rain on the sea, the sweet tears of joy
falling from nascent clouds.
5. The Blue Path
Snazzy snap and step of the dancer,
the jazzy path and tickle of piano.
Blue notes, late nightclubs of the soul
loitering after hours, the sleaze of cigarette smoke,
a chorus of martini glasses, or is it mojitos at dawn?
Breakfast of champions. Well, for Hemingway
it was, of course. Poor man offed himself for no real reason.
It was either writer’s block, or he was too drunk
to stand at the typewriter. The sun also rises,
the sun is a rose, old man, and the sea is opalescent,
the meniscus beckons, old man. The sea. A boat.
The staccato of a drum solo, surely Africa is invoked.
I want to tell Ernest to wait it out, the best is yet to come.
That sullen, relentless art. We’ve all been there.
We dance across the darkness of the dance floor
snapping our fingers, we are dancing
like moths towards that burning light.
6. Little Glass Houses
Small birds in the eaves take flight
and weave the air into a gossamer gown
made of webs. Transparent thought.
A hungry sun begins its journey
and the birds sing a crescendo.
They are at the center of it all.
The windows of the soul and all that.
I think of Cadiz, a place I’ve never been.
Wind chimes dream another melody into being.
The birds dip and weave, collecting the last notes
and feeding them to their young.
Their pinfeathers are almost all in.
Soon they will be ready to fledge,
taking strands of the melody with them
wherever they go. They will pollinate the air
with their relentless songs.
7. Joy
He is running through the forest on a dirt track,
he knows the rhythm of the heart,
the pounding of his feet on the pine loam,
the vague order of vanilla underfoot.
A place of solace, a retreat, annealed by fire.
He is taking down to the bass notes,
that of rock and loam and sky.
The dreams of trees released in smoke
with only the sky to witness their last will and testament.
The uncharted journey of burned needles
settling back down to earth, miles from home
in the form of emberfire,
a combustion of the soul, annealed by flame,
and the final song of trees.
8. Tributaries
Water over stones, the song of boulders.
8. Tributaries
Water over stones, the song of boulders.
The journey to the sea begins in the mountains
as snow and rain. Thunder, hail,
and then the melody begins to emerge
from the crevices of rocks,
at first, so small, like the twinned breath of birds and wings.
Then it deepens, it grows in timbre, circling
each waterworn course with the finesse of a dancer,
gaining momentum with each passing.
The river is a gateway to the sea, and a chorus awaits,
it seeks an audience with the wind
and then the rocks are ground into pebbles, becoming sand
while the waves play them against the shore.
Freewrites from Uncharted Journey, 1986
You can listen to Joy here.
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