What is Beyond

Life begins and ends, simply. Though what is simple becomes complex when you fight the reality of it. You can drown wondering why, where, how, when. But I'm comfortable with that. We all should be.

--

Blend into the gray earthly tones of the pond mud
Look up through those misty water-skies
Wind up your imagination
“What is beyond?”
Swim from shore to shore
Jump above the surface for a fraction of time
Before you are pulled back to the mud

The Alluvial Fan

Death Valley NP Dunes

***Definition of Alluvial Fan: the alluvial deposit of a stream where it issues from a gorge upon a plain or of a tributary stream at its junction with the main stream.

On a recent trip to Death Valley, I spent time photographing the dunes, exploring the canyons, and traveling through the desert. In a place with so much rock and sand, to imagine times when it was green and verdant is natural. For me, the high flying Raven's see so much. Birds, in fact, that may live over 50 years. No wonder they appear so witty and smart! Simply lacking our own comforts of home, it is rare we lived longer as hunter-gatherers. So who's wiser? This is a story of the wandering Raven speaking to the mountains.

--

Of the desert rides a bird of flesh and bone
“Don’t think of her alone,
but far from home.”
Out from the roiling currents she is carried
to the parched Earth

“Tell her oh Dunes of these effervescent mountains
in their vivacious youth!”

In the sand the flesh of washed-out youth
“But LOOK, look up and see
the mountains.”
black and beady eyes stare upward,
as feet crane as feathers are ruffled,
and what is seen is stark cliff
slapped against pale cheeks
and brow of old and elemental mountains

“Ah, but once they were green
and sculpting creeks ran through sculpted meadows,
basic units of beauty petrified
in those moments when youth’s thundering holler
was scattered by the scions of Natures brood
that roamed these precious crests of the Sierra.”

Reaching out, the bird gathers the arid breaths
of these thirsty, weeping denizens
whose anatomy has ground down the grottoes
like the stone that turns and turns
until it has ground itself to nothing
and sees what once was the Funeral Mountains
under seas of green and gracious trees,
isles of twisting and dropping rivers,
and corridors of broad and snaking valleys

“That which appears everlastingly
is as transitory as man,
as malleable by the drifting years,
as measured as her quartered seasons,
as day is to night,
the waning moon to tides,
we are all one day driven down the canyons,
shattered rock ground to sand,
and spread outwardly, an alluvial fan
beneath the sky of the Mojave desert.”

Satellite

There were leaves
they whispered along sidewalk
perfectly trimmed
the trees creaked and groaned
and there at my door

I knocked

Nobody answered

I was not what I was before
I could not go there

What I remembered
wasn't remembered
not as I knew it
not as it actually was

It had come to me
that perhaps
I was dead

With eyes that were not eyes,
I struggled
to see

With legs that were not legs
I struggled
to walk

I was discombobulated

I could not see
I could not walk

And what of my place
could I make out?

Nothing

Only a presence
that did not stop its march
as it rode into my mouth
into my throat
down into my guts
and up into my head
into every corner of me
it rode

Like oil I could not wipe away
such infringement

It is then that I discovered my place
was not terrestrial at all
but far from it

This was not
where I had come from

With eyes that could now see
I blinked
and what there was
of the presence I had felt

Not even an echo

We never did meet

And it was a long time
before I understood why

And seeing next to me
nebula's, galaxies
a kaleidoscope of light

And color
And beauty

Bursting

I remembered so fondly
that time long ago

My birth

And how, too, this man
would remember
his burgeoning consciousness
coming to life

What gifts I will have given him
what joys he is to feel?

For asleep, he shall now
be awakened

And what he was

Asleep

Time will pass
as he discovers this place

And I will not show him

I will not be awake
but asleep

And there in front of him
will be the Universe
where PURPOSE
and MEANING
they will be found

He will discover
that he can affect

Change

In ways he never
could've imagined

And once his eyes open
he will go to a place he's never been
and he will go to another
and another

In each
He will see
He will know
He will learn

He will be a satellite


****This is a poem about life and death, but more importantly about God, a subject I don't tackle often. It is, really, about a man becoming God and God becoming a man. Also, it is of the birthing of one who is thought fit to replace God. And while I am not a religious man, I like to think I have an open mind to ponder the time after death and if one were to be a God, how one would exist. ****

A Satellite is defined as:

[n.] a man-made object that orbits around the earth
[n.] a person who follows or serves another
[n.] any celestial body orbiting around a planet or star
[adj.] Surrounding and dominated by a central authority or power

The meadow of me

Yes I know there isn’t any
tangible
ME

Still you search thinking I am there
Out hiding
Hidden
But I am not behind
In front
Among

At least not physically

And maybe you reason
I am a ghost
If I am, I am
Behind
In front
Among

dead but aware

and family, friends you are in a high place
in a meadow
among flowers not yet risen
Among trees
green with white coats shed
Far from road, trail, city

In a place you will lay the physical me

Where I will stay and remain
This tangible - remnant

of ME

to be kept in nature’s arms
beneath sun ray
moon ray
star gaze
beneath mountain's high
lakes deep
rivers long

Leave
cause you can't remain
return
cause the spring is near
and visit
my family and friends

The meadow of ME

Gate Keeper

---

Burps (of boiled-reek) into nostrils whiff of fear
And times beyond today come crushing into me
The moments before, through storm I had steered
And to which I’d come to rest with death so near

Death walks with me along a lonely path
And the loudness of its calm grips me up
The price of swaggered arrogance swings its wrath
And spills my life from emptied cup

Ghostly whispers and phantoms smile with greed
Their arms reach with essence no longer distilled
Fingers rake along the skin that does not bleed
And I wonder if the life (of me) perhaps was swilled

Running away not in despise or even in dread
I hunger for the days ahead and their flavour
I gorge of release, of thunder caps in my head
And perhaps I thank luck and my guarding savior

A beating heart

Time is strange when it fastens onto me
it doesn’t taste or smell, feel pain or suffering
grow or die, love or hate
and somehow, to me, that isn’t exactly honest.
Not how it flows strangely by
like currents through the sea!
Not how it faces me in the mirror
with less youth, more wisdom!
Not how it courses through me
with less heart, more confusion!
Not how it opens the door to fear
to death and the passing years!
Not how this time confounds me?
Leaves me chasing it, a tail I cannot catch
Leaves me missing it, a bone I cannot fetch
Leaves me loving it, a glow that does not dim
Leaves me hating it, an ocean I cannot swim
Leaves me cursing it!
But without it, no forward or backward
no living or dying
no loving or hating
no giving or taking
no nothing at all that isn’t the same
and the same
and the same
and the same
not me!
not anything!
what a horrible game that would be
if from time we were to depart
all life and its beating heart?
We’d all be apt to forget the measure of life
how precious these moments...are

Measure of a man

This is a hard piece for me to write. I imagine often the mountain eating me up and spitting me out. In this poem I wanted to explore a place where life and death mix, where you could explore how it would feel to be dead and sitting next to your bones, years later.

-----

No beating heart chases me second by second
no flesh at all weighs a dead man I reckon
There are thoughts in me of times before
where good days were ahead and always in store
but life took a different course for me
on high mountain above the sea
My thoughts pause on the young man I was
whose feet ached to go and wonder
the seven seas and the four corners of the world
but that was a dream, just like finding that perfect girl
by the time I’d set off I was in such a rush
what a shame it was to die neath a rocks crush
Long have I journeyed, so much left to wonder
but today I sit and rest high above water
where wind somehow shifts my being in motion
and wisps of ghostly limbs move in unison
across the bones, fragments of what I was before
and feelings are roused, better left where they were stored
And it sets me on a question I struggle to understand
what it is, truly, that is the measure of a man
surely what remains of me here on this mountainside
isn’t the entire sum of what I am inside
No matter the body I now lack
in my returning, I am left defying the fact
had I known of ghosts, would life have been as real?
if I had known at all, there'd be no fear to feel
not on mountain dressed in rock and ice
or on life's path set headlong into futures vice
it wouldn't be my own, only a theme park ride to amuse
such a shame to waste life best lived as you choose
If you don’t miss anything in life, what good is it at all?
maybe I should miss the sound of angels in heaven calling
but instead I yearn for danger felt atop cliffed-in heights
I yearn for feeling a mortal man's blight
but yearned for most of all lay in bones on the ground
these bones that will never rise again to walk around
Soon the sun turns and leaves us in darkness
there are feelings I am sure I will never harness
even with these stars piloting me through sad thoughts
no answer is found beyond cutting out the rot
time passes slowly without whispers of age or hunger blinding
but even then nothing is ever worth not deciding
I leave when dawn awakens and visits me with her smile
now grown I must rise up and leave my past child
I have long awaited discovering the measure of me
and it isn’t in the flesh or bones you see
(nor is it in the wisps of phantom that is now me)
it is in days laid out behind and those ahead
the ones you know are alive even when you are dead

Satellite

Numerous times I have written about life and death. It is a subject that I never tire of.

A Satellite is defined as:

[n.] a man-made object that orbits around the earth
[n.] a person who follows or serves another
[n.] any celestial body orbiting around a planet or star
[adj.] Surrounding and dominated by a central authority or power

This poem is about all of these.

----

How it is I have eyes, I do not know
there is no body to me
but I cry tears
I feel pain
and there is a love inside of me
that hurts so much
and I cannot end it

It has come to me, that maybe I am dead
but I am still - here

I remember my past, what I was before I was here
the leaves whisper along the sidewalk
perfectly trimmed
the trees creek and groan
and there at my door I knock
and nobody answers

I am not what I was before
I cannot go there

What I remember can’t be remembered
not as I remembered it
not as it actually was

I struggle with these eyes that are not eyes
closed

and then, I stop
I stop struggling
there is no purpose to it
for the first time in my life I let go
and I feel release

but as long as it was there, this feeling!
In a fraction of second it, too, was gone

Something now! It tugs at me
my foot, my arms, my hair
my self!!!
ripped from this place
my flesh that is not flesh
my body that is not body
my mind that is becoming overrun
becoming more and more and more and more
like snakes in water they defile
and I can do nothing, nothing but watch in terror
as I am

defiled.

I float again, wounded and wild with anger and fear
where am I?
Why am I still here?
“Fuck this place!”
my feelings explode

But I am moving, spinning
no longer held
no longer staring into the sun
I reach out to stop
and I stop
not like I’ve stopped before
it is if time stopped, movement stopped
and I froze there.

Far ahead I see nebula's, galaxies
a kaleidoscope of light

I reach for them too

and
I
am
there, there, there, there, there, there
free

How it is that I am free
and from what I do not know
but over the millennia
I realize
the
ANSWER

What I was escaping was life
who I was fighting
was
ME

The love I felt was for everything I LOVED
You see, I had died
and now I was, for all I could figure, a SOUL
a free soul
and everything here was mine to see
mine to visit

But I never, not once met another
no one to answer questions for me

I come back and stare at the sun often
where in a sense, I was born
I come to ask
she does not answer
I did not expect it to

Purpose, meaning, too much
but I search
I see
I watch
I learn
and maybe I will never know
but I know this
“What is here, is here
What I have is mine
No future can curse that
there is no ahead or behind
only now.”
In the distance, a point of light
a streak across the sky
I reach for it
and I am
THERE at peace
a Satellite

and over time, I realize
I am so much more than that

"Raising Daffodils"

Life is evanescent. Momentary. Like the wind it comes and goes. Today is a rather somber day for me. My gramps is in the hospital in sore shape. Whether or not he makes it will depend on how much fight he has left in him. So I post a sad poem I wrote years ago.

My memories hum a tune I can’t hear, only feel
the night plays on my mind as well as the sky
the stars flicker and dance like the rustle of leafs
My eyes linger on the chasm whose teeth chatter
to the cold breath of wind that wafts of fall

I sniff in the fragrance of rain just fallen
my eyes search raindrops for conscious thought
but reflections of clouds cover hope
leaving echoes of summer’s sweet memory to fill my nose
with the scent of daffodils

An old trees carcass lays where a young sapling
grows through broken branches
I cast its grey‑weathered bones between dangling feet
I hear them shatter on rock and splash into river
my startled breath fills me with the earthy tang of rotting leafs
I look up at the moon riding towards the horizon
and see the leafs raining, tumbling towards the Earth

I find one, reddish‑yellow tipped in green
In my hand, swallowed by stars, the light plays with my eyes
and my mind imagines the dead leafs veins pulsing
and my own heart beats in stride, beating until my face is blushed
and my own two hands full of foliage reach up to the sky
where my own body becomes more weighted and tied to the earth
where my own legs become more laden and rooted to the land
where my own emotion becomes more raw and hewn to the seasons
where I am induced to reach as high as I can

HIGHER still
so that the leaves would again turn green and wave to summer breeze
to once more be full of life’s blood and breathing!

But the wind blows and my arms weaken
the rain falls, and I weaken!
This terrible wind continues to bite fiercer and a torrential rain descends in sheets
burdening me
until at last I fall to the ground disgusted
clawing my fingers into the dark soil in search of meaning
in search of anything that would mean more than the past
digging so that I could leave what I couldn’t forget
leaving it so I could move on toward to morrows worth living
forgetting so I could remember
grieving so I could move on

Days turn to months, seasons turn to years
and a young man now old visits the cliff near the daffodils
and recalls memories of past friends and family, past loves and lost youth
each time watering and cultivating the past
so it will not be forgotten

Panhandler

Death lays for me a golden carpet
life leaves for me not even a tattered rag
I shop for life in the local market
but I haven’t a dime, so I’m left to beg