why have you

why have you
made yourself
invisible?
can you not
feel the coming
night?
all time
drains the light
falls the yellowed
leaf from Yggdrasil
waste not the
open eye of life
briefer than a
catching breath
before the darkest
depths reclaim
can't you see
i'll never
be the same?
is this self-assurance
all illusion?
the filament a
delusion of my
pierced heart?
the silence mocks and
coldly shuns all
hoping thought
wrought by golden
ages forever held
desperately within a
breast beat strong
dearly wondering if
i was wrong
oh twilight that
feels so long
will i see the dawn again?

the longview

the longview will
take care of itself
press it not upon your
fetching minds
lest shrink-rays convert
being to amoebic proportion
crushing individual
beauty with aeons
heavier than lead
let this present be
sufficient for the longing
heart
then perhaps
you will survive

In a dream

In a dream I found myself in a haunted house.  An old century manor, with creaky wooden floors and large glass windows.  I don't know how I knew it was haunted, I only felt that it was so.  Suddenly a woman appeared before me on the floor.  She had golden hair, and skin as white as porcelain.  I felt a kind of electricity in the air, and knew I was in the presence of a ghost.  She was lying flat upon the wooden floor, but looked up at me with dark eyes.  We said something to each other then, but I don't recall the content of those words.  I remember kneeling down and gently kissing her upon a snow-white neck.  She inclined her head to make room, and gazed off into the distance.  I still remember the way my lips felt upon her skin.  She was as smooth as a ceramic bowl, and cold.  Her flesh was not hard, but soft.  I think at that moment I felt we might possibly come to love one another, and my heart filled with emotion.

The next thing I remember is leaving the building and meeting its proprietor.  He was an older man, short, stout, and sporting a large moustache.  He vaguely reminded me of Stephen Jay Gould.  He seemed shocked that I had been in the building and asked me in amazement, "Did you not see the monster?"  To which I replied, "No, only a beautiful woman."  He went on to explain that all previous visitors to the house had seen a terrible monster within, at which I glanced at one of the windows and did indeed see a terrifying image, a beast of incredible horror, which flickered away once I looked to other windows.

As you can imagine I was quite upset by this.  Questions flooded my mind.  Would I ever see my pale lady again?  Could I enter the house knowing that such a creature dwelt inside?  Was the lady and the beast two different creatures, or were they in fact two aspects of a single phantom?  This latter possibility made my skin shiver.  Had I unwittingly given my heart to a monster?

This dream was so vivid that I have not forgotten even the smell of the place.  I have had some misgivings as well.  Did I have the lady's permission to kiss her?  I can't recall what was said between us, but the way she gazed into the distance causes me to wonder if my kiss was something she even desired.  Who was she?  Why did I not ask her where she was from, or why she was there?  Could I have helped her transition to another form of existence?  What is the significance of kissing a dead person?  She seemed animated, and yet to touch she was as good as a corpse.  This I find quite disturbing and even hesitate to include here, and yet to you, my faithful reader, I have always shown the deepest recesses of my heart.  In the end I remain baffled by the images and visions that danced within my skull in the quiet hours of the night.  Perhaps you hold the key to unlock these mysteries.

a vision flickering

a vision flickering
o'er the ebony wave
glow with memory'd
light so rich and pure
i stare afraid to blink
along the passage of
time and desire
you are a fire
floating there above the
watery way
rimmed by glowing spheres
fireflies around a
brighter center
bid your ancient love to
enter and recall a
time before the fall
before the weakening of
our magic days
unafraid to embrace the
bold light of uncommon
space around the nearness of
our faces pressed so
close together
before the darkened time
descended from
another place
alien and cold upon the
threshold of our
epicenter
i have not looked away

Thoughts on love and Jesus

Those who say love should be "properly oriented" know little about love or its potential.  Augustine thought love should be oriented to the one unchangeable being, ie God, for all other things are subject to change and therefore lacking in perfection.  But he failed to realize that love demonstrates its true power in being directed at the changeable. 

"He demonstrated his love in this: that while we were still sinners..."

But love was betrayed by those later writers who made a mockery of this demonstration by having Jesus "ascend into the clouds" while his disciples stood gaping at love raised to the level of an abstraction.  His followers were left to love Love. 

on this heated day

on this heated day
waiting thirsty by the
dusted tree
parchment paper lips
form a hidden name
"i'll never be the same"
she whispered
and i understood
every word
as an echo in the
shining valley
"how could she do this to me?"
how big the sky for
little questions
how big this ego to
wait so long
could i be wrong?
the illusion of a
windowed face
became the mirror
of disgrace

misty morning

Copyright: https://earnestlyseekingthereal.blogspot.ca/

Current mood

A lake in the woods

The land is now so wooded around this lake one can hardly walk through it.  I used to swim here as a child.  Around the only island visible in this old photo a person can catch bass and old logs.  The stands of birch in the distance, looking like frost upon the land, have for the most part been replaced with spruce and pine.  Otters and beaver live here.  In fact the first beaver dam I ever encountered was found to the right side of this picture at what is the south end of the lake.  During my teen years I would bike the 5.5 km (3.4 miles) to cool off in the water after a warm summer day.  The last time I visited the lake I was hunting for chaga, amply supplied by the remaining birch trees on the southern hills, the once grassy fields you see in the foreground.

Snowy afternoon

"I brought her back and compelled her to be my lover. It satisfied me to have her before me as proof of my unbroken solitude..."   -Hermann Mann

Just chillin..

Katoptron -part 1

Dryad chorus:

"Hear the evening breeze
rustle through the
dancing grass
cricket song in
valley green the
night has come
at last"

Traveller:

"Oh road well laid
wandering path through
forest glade
heavens open
above my head
heavy be my weary tread
There a fallen log to
rest while supping on some
simple bread"

Long he sat as
night came on
a silver moon
rose full and shone
upon the tiny glade
his tired eyes
grew dim as
wakefulness began to fade

Dryad chorus:

"Away oh dream of day
bright illusion to
confuse the
waking dead
find truth within
the night
and love a
welcome bed"

Traveller:

"Perhaps I'll sleep awhile
within this forest glade
safe from evening
wind in shelter
nature's made"

His eyes close upon the
starry night
no care or fear as
world slips from sight
but what's this!
a sudden glowing light
breaks upon
his gentle face!

Dryad chorus:

"Do you believe in fate
children of a
passing breath?
life walked on
thinnest ice a
moment from your death
how came you here
to this time and place
do you suppose
this merely part of
nature's race?
what is this
unnatural light upon
his gentle face?"

Spirit of the Glade:

"A man rests within the
sacred ring
yet still my forest
creatures sing
who is this that
disturbeth not a
single thing?"

Traveller

"What light is this
upon my
weary face?
i dream, or perhaps
moonlight fills this
special place."

Spirit of the Glade

"He wakes!  but
who is this
that makes the
evening bright and
heart within me quake?"

Dryad Chorus

"Unmatched in substance
flesh and spirit meet
but matched in love
all meeting will be sweet."

Traveller

"A spirit there before
my eyes!
Too long have
I travelled or perhaps
while sleeping
I have died!
'Spirit, are you real?'"

Dryad Chorus

"All love seems unreal by
those who feel
the most,
by those touched within
and serve as
true love's host."

Spirit of the Glade

"See these trees and
log by which you lay?
though they be
hard and I be mist
I'm more real than they.
What is your name?"

Traveller

"I am Katoptron
from beyond the
shining sea
Spirit please relate thine
name to me."

Spirit of the Glade

"No mouth can form
my true name
yet there is a word
your lips
might rightly frame:
'Belarten'"

Dryad Chorus

"Would you possess a
being's soul?
learn the name that
makes them whole."

Time has slipped away

Have we not
counted our days
beneath the golden
rays of youth's sun?
do we not see that
time has slipped
away?
why such distance to
our place along the
rippling shore?
no more will I
call home the comfort
I had laid in store
no more a solitary
figure will I cut
it's not enough to
think you mine
one-sided dream

there is a fruiting tree
in a vision
I once had by a
grassy pond
fond have I been of
this memory:

there stood a
spirit of the wood
her eyes a'twinkle
in the light
she plucked a fruit to
share with me until the
day's twilight
"stay with me"
she said as
I turned away to go
had I known she'd
disappear
I'd have not said no 

(some prefer the
natural course
"come what may"
they say but
I am nature's
creature beneath
organic sway
ever mindful of
the fact that
time has slipped away)

Simulacrum Veritatis Tempore Detegendae

Music by Philip Glass