On Rainy Days, Like Today

On rainy days, like today, too cold

for the usual summer pursuits, and wet,

it’s easier just to pick up the remote

and flip through 250 channels beamed

from space, only to find the best thing on

is a re-run of a re-run, an old show

I’ve only seen twice before – or thrice –

lounging back on the couch and asleep,

drowsy anyway, before the opening credits roll by

and waking in time to catch the next episode,

though I know “who done it,” same as before;

but it’s so much easier than picking up this pen

to pen a line, a verse, a figurative image

from deep within the memories’ recesses

just sitting there waiting to be re-discovered

and given its own channel in which to broadcast

itself, a re-run missed in the channel–surfing

of a rainy day, a summer day too cold,

a summer day just like today.

Rowing

In life’s little rowboat, ferrying us across

to an unknown destination or just a leisurely pursuit,

we face where we come from, looking backwards,

pulling the oars to propel us forward,

our backs and shoulders thrown into it,

repeated and rhythmic, over and over, steady.

And moving along a sight line drawn straight

from here to there, a glance over our shoulders

shows us off track, heading astray, tossed

by waves rising up or a weak oar’s pull,

turning us aside. So we right ourselves,

sight a new line or, perhaps, take a chance

and risk where the boat will take us, as it will,

arriving on another shore, in time, due time,

facing backwards and rowing ahead to this other shore,

arriving and, returning, coming home again.

Misty Dreaming

In the dark of night

from her bed, moonlit

by the window, she whimpers,

then a low rumbling growl

grows to a single bark, sharp

and shrill, to chase away

the night into morning.

In Our Early Confusions

In our early confusions and darkness,

in need of explanations to calm our fears,

we created god, and contented thus, we moved on

into science and the arts, until faith was not enough,

its answers no longer satisfying us nor explaining any more

what we found in the facts before our eyes,

the heavens becoming but the place of stars

and planets and galaxies, universes well beyond our own,

well beyond what we could see and what we could know

with certainty, an infinity of universes, stars

and planets and galaxies, and nothing more;

the big-bang theory and Darwin’s evolving species

were explanation enough, facts we could trust,

so god fell out of fashion, like a high starched collar,

outdated and old, tight about our necks, too restrictive,

a myth now preached in empty churches to old folks hanging on,

to the lost and foolish, fooling themselves;

or maybe it’s just an excuse for a day off, for festivities

and hollow merriment, a place to pin our hatred and hubris,

yet unexplainable, and setting the divine aside, we trust

now only ourselves, our limited selves moving onward,

confused and fearful, unable to create anymore,

unable to explain, calling out and hearing nothing now,

nothing but the emptiness of our primitive lives.