Tuesday, July 5, 2011

dark flowers


where does this compulsion come from
that arrives unbidden each and every day
like birdsong
sweet, gentle, insistent
begging to be heard
articulating territories of understanding
singing of joys and fears
under skies
that already know
all that there is to know

dancing
over seas
that have danced their dances
through every living thing
that ever was

what can i add
to the music
that has been playing


i rest the eyes of my weary joy
in the shadowed petals of sun-shy flowers

12 comments:

The Weaver of Grass said...

You add every day with your lovely words, Steven.

Ruth said...

I agree with the Weaver, Steven.

And I also agree with your question, which is something like I was asking yesterday as I listened to birdsong, once again. You've asked it so beautifully, the skies already know. Yet we must go on singing.

The final lines, with that 'weary joy,' leaves a question in my mind, What is weary joy? But I rest in it, joyfully.

Titus said...

I loved this stanza:

dancing
over seas
that have danced their dances
through every living thing
that ever was

What do you add? Eyes that truly see, and I enjoy your vision.

Reya Mellicker said...

You add and enhance and honor the music that has been playing. You do it every day with words and pictures.

You really do.

steven said...

thanks weaver. steven

steven said...

ruth - what is weary joy? as i'm experiencing it it's a mixture of gratitude and exhaustion that i trace to the transition from working intensely for ten months into summer which floods me with all of its richness and yet also overwhelms me as i try to absorb it all. steven

steven said...

titus - do you ever find yourself run up against an invisible wall. it feels like doubt but it's much more like a question to yourself and then everything around you. why? steven

steven said...

reya- i'm humbled to honour the music of everything. i just wonder why it can't just be. why has anyone ever written anything? steven

* said...

So much in this, the sun-shy flowers (love). And

"singing of joys and fears
under skies
that already know
all that there is to know..."

Yes. You write of a world-weariness without being weary at all.

steven said...

terresa - thanks for seeing what i saw and reading what i wrote. doors opened. steven

Dan Gurney said...

Absolutely exquisite Steven. This poem captures a feeling of floating on a sea of knowingness I often feel as I paddle my canoe...that sea inside us all, singing its quiet songs of life. You do add a lot to that song, at least you do for me because you make it audible, more obvious.

steven said...

dan thankyou for your kind and generous comment. in writing that piece i was reflecting on the telling of a story that is already being told. is it necessary? why? perhaps it's sharing the sense of the story that matters because it might awaken another person's sense of their own understandings. steven