knotted wings of crows
with scarce strength
rise into rain,
below vegetation
burnished by fall
listens to the calls,
damp rooted trees
in eroded soil
cover to our
consummation,
revisited after twenty
years,
as one we move
our lives wove a story,
origin in these fields
birth from these fields
as cells would watch
these fields and woodland,
a last exhalation,
we would not return
an act of memory
physical and intricate
framed in the cortex
for tomorrow
Sunday Whirl 119
when a thought becomes a fraction
divided into memory
and everyday fatigue
it settles not happy to remain
will divide again
into dreams and realization
long cerebral passageways
cluttered with electric snapshots
of a life lived long,
thinking was a process
started in the morning
after rinsing mouth and bathing
combed and prepared
opened the mind
some fractions found division harder
and became elongated spools
of tension and agitation
hands that tremor
ever so slightly
as sipping a glass of lemonade,
beneath this mass of
seething activity
normal had almost resumed
old fractions worked
looking at a photo album
your son found in the loft
other debris of a life in one place
gathered and divided
and will be when your
gone
moon leaves hoofprint clouds
as with horses it races,
old stars more than pieces of rock
show somber interest,
there would be no more
shallowness to the sun,
as on earth below
with fingers in urn
scattering ashes
feeding eternal foliage,
those hoofbeats drummed your name
quick reflection passing over water
ashamed moon hides,
the longness of souls given to solitude,
ashes scattered in arcs
summer has laid it’s green pasture
as darkness fills the air
fireflies imagined appear
wishing for a net to catch them in
and crush with celestial hammer,
empty urn falls
shattered by hoofbeats,
damp meadow reveals the place
you began,
ambiguous shadows almost bestial,
tears make streets upon your face
all that could be over was,
coming with dust, dreams and flesh
the enchanted
and persistent stars
i am father
and my father was father before me
we are form
almost unified shape
tied by familial genetics,
i am here
my father gone
bond unbroken love unbound
memory and cohesion
i have many of his traits,
i am here
and he still is
of the dust of the wind
yet at my side
that rub of ache in the forehead
as his thoughts and mine collide,
i have voice
my children hear
i make it apparent
as i heard my father,
despite long hours of work
his words i could hold
and made me smile
a child growing taught what is right
molded by nurturing consideration,
i am love
to my children
as he to me
never too old to embrace
and accept eternal bond
now without him
i will carry on
and my sons
as fathers will
Ivan Hare 18/06/27-09/01/13
the prairie became an extension of the city
thanks to the railroad
so finding solitude was easy,
in the yard steaming hot
through haze cyclops diesels
rumbled threatening inert freight,
a man nimble over tracks
knew passage between the lines
many years spent here
living on the perimeter,
where boxcars became brittle and fell apart,
it was here he served god
and those others displaced,
god was an argument for cheap whiskey
and sorry nights,
the others came to him
as in his throat he had words and lyrics
written in his own hand,
his boxcar a place for the dead
those whose limbs had ceased in all exhaustion,
he spoke sermon gave a sense of rapture
then would take each body out
to that solitude for burial,
wind caught and burned faces
heaven a casual component,
the sky a vault
and mountain halls echoing nature,
love had evaded him for so long,
passion cast upon the train
making right for those about,
even in slumber he did not crave
the early life that was chest deep in darkness,
fellow man and a swirl of small favors
cleansed his sanity,
he labored as a persistent mouse
to save the dead from further disgrace,
and hoped his dust would find
the same
velvetmedia 