That Nature

Something or someone has awakened me

from my bear sleep and bear dream

of naked women in the aisles

of the tabernacle singing the blues.

Restlessly I am walking

through the rooms of my house

looking for the culprit

but only see myself reflected

in the windows, mirrors

                                    and I have

to surmise I am the one

who has broken into sleep and dream

somehow disturbed by that lumbering

gait, those rolled shoulders,

the face and body changing easily

between the bear and me.

There are gifts we can and cannot

show and it's confusing how 

two creatures can be in one body,

one heart, one soul

                               as if some complimentary

reality has fitted us together

making the whole greater than the parts.

So I make my coffee,

look at my hands,

sniff the air and sigh

letting that bear dream go

into the morning light,

growl to greet the day.

-Byron Hoot

Piles of the Morning

Origins of faint sore dust looms in drinking waste 
Pockets pretending under soft vigils 
Gifts of seeking tundras 
Miles of ready tides 
Rusty leaves and tired mansions of truth wander into herds left blind Auroras deny bottled meaning 
Tired of want Ready for rest 
Eastern doors making dancing dens 
Proper spaces where open coins fall into trance and milk 
Piles of the morning

-Cory Tambourine

River’s Edge

River’s edge lists with voices of measure 
Deer watch quiet till seen in dense green verbiage The rocks tilted in sandy remorse wait for change Time shaped smooth 
Dissolved into dance 
Thirsty smoke challenges empty taverns 
Taken by the roots of virtue and resolve 
Patterns of opinion leaping over thoughts 
Trails into the decades 

-Cory Tambourine

Galloping Pines

French paint leery lists 
Manners cold and fast in isolated injured briars 
Seen for billowing manors 
What frost lies for punctual mornings 
Galloping pines Long and lonely 
Smells of venturing seasons against trained misers 
Breaking timid destinies Arrows angry visit mine 
The wasted song of dust 
Summer training misses along underwater voices 
Tunnels breath white adornment as veins of laughter reach born masters 

-Cory Tambourine

Awhile

Break  me no more for awhile.

Even I need, if I don't deserve it, time

to heal;

            surely, time and circumstance 

also hold mercy.

Keep me from looking at the wounds

by which watching does nothing,

the transfiguration coming from within,

unseen until only the scar of memory

holds that story.

                       Break me no more

today or tomorrow or the next day.

Certainly, this can be understood

better than I can say.

                              I don't think it's impossible

for this to be heard, to hear,"Okay.

Alright."

           Break me no more

                                         for awhile.

-Byron Hoot

Still Life

still life rising from the earth

stronger than the breath of silence

three stone deep 

ancient keep

cat curled arms 

embrace the edge of home    

boundary the flowers            

as they rant and wither     

, , ,we are still here. . .

shabby stone  

stalwart chimney

field stone lone 

stark 

stable 

hope twists in furtive joy 

blue smoke hovers hints and whispers 

sweet fire waits a breath away

deep water sweet water well at the core 

heart pulse firm at the center   

, , ,we are still here. . .

still life rising from the earth

still life waiting  

            

, , ,we are still here. . .

-Janey Pease

"For there is hope for a tree, When it is cut down, that it will sprout again, And its shoots will not fail."

Job 14:7

Safe

lean and tough

a rough hewn safe

the stone side of the mountain hugs its secrets

sunshine at midday

like the dial of the safe

reflects and flickers

sparks and stabs

circling past truth

again and again

spinning in surges like sunspots

waxing and waning like a moon on fire

starspots in flight

questions flicker and flash without rest

sos to a silent universe

save our souls

save our souls

save our souls

je suis trop tendre pour ce monde

je suis trop tendre pour ce monde

je suis trop tendre pour ce monde

i see you

but the earth opens between us

i hear you

but the song is silent

like a beggar

standing at the door

head bent against the portal

                        Janey Pease

Michelangelo’s Daughter

i am a daughter of michelangelo

chipping away with sculptor’s mallet

to free the man i see inside

frantic task with hammer and chisel                       

rasp and rifler

chaos flying from my hands

wounds inflicted

drawn to your frame

your structure

            block of granite

            chunk of stone

reaching to embrace you

finding no softness

feeling no give

my ear against your chest listens

pulse pops

warmth spreads

i gather my tools

gather myself

moaning soft songs

wings folding like a mourning dove

melodies sloping downward

that only i can sigh

i take flight 

singing my story  

releasing my song

beyond range

distant  

clear

strong

your own song  follows me

                                    - Janey Pease

The Sufficiency

Snow.  Cold.  Gray clouds edged

in white, the sun golden

contained in the sky.  

The branches naked, 

still the haunts

of the Holy Ghost passing by.

I sit in the contentment

and discontentment of being

mix-blooded,

                     human and divine,

                     longing and desiring --

that blood flowing through me

I can choose to deny 

but still keeps me alive.

The sun  has found the snow:

how the two seem to fit just so.

What is possible is simply

possible in the eternity

called now.

-Byron Hoot

A Simple Woman

(Poem for Ann) A simple woman. Simple in the way a shell is simple In all its translucent curved beauty, Delicately shaped by mathematical order, Echoing the spirals of the galaxies Spinning in the darkest skies, Or the whorl of the sunflower’s face, Under the shimmering wings of the bee, Legs laden with golden pollen. Simple in the way a leaf is simple In all its verdant, veiny sheen, Its synthesis hidden from human eye, pulsing with the green miracle Of captured sunlight, The same elements as in our very cells; Forged in the crucible of the stars, Born when the universe was born. Simple in the way that love is simple, In all its warmth and grace, Its language that of the Divine, Wired in the brain of our forebears, Living deep in the synapses of thought, Lauded in word and song, Ever sought by humankind. 

-Patricia Thrushart

That Thing Called Time

There is little enough holding of what

there is of that thing called time.

What is left of  it  -- always less

return the longer one is in it --

we seek a grip, a grasp trying to understand

how it wants to be held.

                                       This, of course, presupposes

our ability to change, to sense that what

is is not as it has been -- no easy thing

as we often think, though know better,

that we can slow what cannot be stopped.

So learning what can be held,

what is to be released becomes the mantra

to greet the day --  a matter of knowledge

no words can hold, no grip can grasp,

that sense of having been given

what you could not have imagined

                                                       to ask.

-Byron Hoot