When You Are Old.

this poem is about love... maybe love that wasn't received.  a love that Yeats thought was richer than the love she did receive, and forever held that against her.  I'm not sure.  But the ache of time and loss resound from it, and therefore, Jed loves it. 

WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,	5
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled	10
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars. w.b.yeats

Purpose Capital.

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

to wear my body out, to ravish my mind into mush, completely devoted to sacrificial and heavenminded love.  i want to i want to i want to.  

let's see if i can quiet the puppeteer that turns my glance to weaker lovers, to cheaper meals and bad wine for the hasty lust to be drunk.  

To Unlearn.

The layers of living/loving life are coming through to me as a peeling away, an unlearning. 

Unlearning the American Dream. 

Unlearning the formulas of family security in suburban quarantine.

Unlearning the reasons why people are given value. 

And what excites me, is that this revealed wisdom of living and seeing through the veil

is confirmed in the Gospel. 

What is the Gospel but an Unlearning of our desires, haunts, and secret motives?  What is the Gospel but an ancient recording of what my heart is screaming all around me.  

The Wind, The City, and The Forest.

i am a two faced man

the hand built home down dirt road lost

and the color can in hand down alleys angeles los 

the drive or canopied walk to Talk with no phone

but the nervous quake at being alone 

the challenge to throw the keyboard and paper green

but wait in line for the five second new touch screen 

the heaven is home and mystery hold for purity's promise

yet hunger in shadows for immediate fill and long doubting thomas.

the books that I read and verse that I pen

is for my own joy or the eyes of men.

I am a two faced man. 

And the one informs the other

and tempers the shrill sounds of a 

commitment neither is willing to make. 

and each longs to be free of the other

or to be overcome.

Sent this to OP the day before The Rescue.

Building a statue of dreams and youth,
with bone and muscle, film and tooth,
to breathe a chance of changing glaciers,
driving the river to a new ocean,
to turn the timid boy to face her
and drink the dreamer danger potion.

Your aching joints are trembling past
the crested ridge of wind-torn mast,
and pride is swelling as mourning dawns,
the passing spring of first born voice,
that dared to shout for throats ripped gone,
and threat a victory rejoiced,

a lasting ache to hold it close
for self was pinned and but a ghost,
forget it not the purposed road,
that moved you through a sunset load,
and fear will creep that self's return,
will wake the dark you did unlearn,

but hold the ache as close as bone,
and seek the wonder in his tone,
and see as badges tired legs,
and see as honor nesting eggs,
that long to crack and cry and leap
from high above and touch the sheep,

for God is bold and lavish more,
for writing this into his score:
with names inscribed with roars of Lion,
a silly dreamer and Orion.

November & June.

It is after The Rescue... one of the most incredible weeks/experiences of my life. I have yet to really reflect on it. That will come.

For now, here is a poem I wrote in the van driving back to SD.. staring at wild canyons and friends that humble me... and i was just day dreaming about longing, and the purity of unrequited or separated love...

______


November and June can never meet
This side of eternity.
They are wholly in love,
I think, but they do not know
the other exists except by rumor.
Time is the murder of their
Flirtatious meeting.
But he does not know how
They pass poetry addressed to the other
they hope is there,
Written on the leaves and
carved in the seeds beneath the sleeping soil.