.
First cold winter twilights despite this
week’s Richmond refinery fire
never more perfect even the
burned and corrupt air stunning
saffron violet orange indigo
becoming blood red as sun descends
with a delayed shudder or retarded
tremor into ocean fire
and night begins to close in
over the whole sky from other
(eastern) end -- a deep blue bowl
or dish inverted convex
glass dome extruded
pyrex lid over boundless
now starless ozone
depleted spaces of end
times -- last hundred years of
human habitation? -- rendering
in view of coming loss
earth in ever more damaged form
ever more beautiful than before
with a delayed shudder or retarded
tremor into ocean fire
and night begins to close in
over the whole sky from other
(eastern) end -- a deep blue bowl
or dish inverted convex
glass dome extruded
pyrex lid over boundless
now starless ozone
depleted spaces of end
times -- last hundred years of
human habitation? -- rendering
in view of coming loss
earth in ever more damaged form
ever more beautiful than before
Twilight, bands of cloud above, ripples on sea below: photo by John Bortniak, 2005 (NOAA Photo Library)
Remains of sunset over ocean at onset of twilight: photo by John Bortniak, 2005 (NOAA Photo Library)
I love the sheer exuberance in this - conveyed through an explosion of changing hues. I have also marvelled at how there is often such beauty to be found - even in destruction. Only when faced with losing something do we see the beauty. Like the earth's final sunset, shimmering golden upon the ocean. More beautiful than any before.
ReplyDeletetwilight is the time when all creatures are free to move... the movement of colour and hue is also a powerful gift... the words and images intertwine with an unforced dignity.
ReplyDeleteAmid the unnatural beauty of the final twilight may we be free to move quietly into what we have not made.
ReplyDeleteHmmmmmmmmm I am thinking, these words of yours are just that; thinking words.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to me the kind of chap to find beauty in everything, anyway.
I am liking the structure of this baby. The flow through from one line to another and the images protrayed. I am especially liking the
'becoming blood red as sun descends
with a delayed shudder or retarded
tremor into ocean fire'
'or dish inverted convex
ReplyDeleteglass dome extruded
pyrex lid over boundless
now starless ozone'
Wonderful word choices!
And on the eigth day, God created the poet.
ReplyDeleteTom,
ReplyDeleteThis may not be the place for these words, but my email faild to find yours, my attempt being
followed in the inbox of my mail service by a sponsored
link which referred to the subject line of my email, from
"immigrationdirect.com"
God have mercy on the earth. email:
Dear x and x,
I am considering emigration. You might be the wisest councils on this question, as on many others. Where would you go?
Sincerely,
Bowie
Atlanta, USA
Epitaph
ReplyDeletein a thin winter
cold,
that silence
was enough
to receive.
Epitaph
ReplyDeletein a thin winter
cold,
that silence
was enough
to receive.
apologies:
ReplyDeletethe cold thin wafer
is enough to receive.
alone under a bright moon, and oh,
I feel alone.
SarahA,
ReplyDeleteYes this baby is definitely of the "flow through" species. Sometimes that way of running-on just seems to allow a truer capture of the thoughts as they come.
About seeing beauty in everything, or at least having a go at it, I think maybe the inclination would come from the not wanting to miss anything because you sense (maybe not quite consciously, but still) you might not have another chance... I guess maybe you know what I am talking about here.
I would think this sort of thing is probably pretty common, and natural, as one gets older.
And too, some of these industrially polluted sunsets over the ocean are... dare one say it... almost too gorgeous for words.
(It's like artificially enhanced photographs, a fine line between the gorgeous and the garish.)
___
Leigh,
Thank you -- and looking at those phrases again I am suddenly struck by the fact I seem to have given the earth's atmosphere a scholarship to some heavenly cooking school!
___
Lucy,
And on the ninth day my check will be in the mail to you for saying that. (Besitos...)
___
O worthy Bow-man, alone,
thy cold thin wafer
silences the moonlight.
Fare not forth
without full reckoning,
O friend. And for your augury:
The lady of the manor hath
spoke with the Sibyl
and sayeth: "New Zealand!"
To which the court fool
cartwheeling 'cross the dirt floor
chanted his antiphons:
"Amsterdam!"
"Canada!"
But not to blaspheme further:
as a sparrow the matter it seems
must rest in the Lord's hand.
__
"A voice, as from a cherub choir,
Gales from blooming Eden bear,
And distant warblings lessen on my ear
That lost in long futurity expire"
my heart is high strung
ReplyDeletelike a thread too well spun
From loving too long from afar
Each singing bird
-In the Greenwood, Desmond O'Grady