The Beginning of Survival (Cool Water)
*
Something I wrote nearly 40 years ago during a time of heat and drought came to mind this morning:
IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY CONTRADICTION, WE LOOK FOR TEARS THROUGH A TELESCOPE (1982 -- 32 years old)
There is a drought and no messiah in sight. Look at the thirsty land.
Look at the magnifying glass sun,
But no hand holds the glass;
no heart is moved by our sorrow.
Through a telescope, we look for healing hands,
a human heart, and eyes that shed tears.
In drought and in deluge
these suns and gods
are distant,
though amazingly graceful and near.
As we watch through telescopes,
our church of sky, land and sea
fills with healing hands,
human hearts and eyes that shed tears.
*
How odd. More turtles found while looking for a way to acknowledge where the idea of watching each other through telescopes came from:
"... Why should we go on watching each other through a telescope? ..."
-- Bob Dylan (1978)
5 comments:
I love how you curate art and music and nature. I hope that you are not melting up there in the PNW.
A beautiful poem. Do you still write poetry?
37paddington -- Thank you for kind comment and for that question. It's been some time since I wrote any poetry but in the past several weeks, a few words came to me that might become a poem. In the years that I did little or no art work, I wrote poetry. In 1966-1967, my senior year in high school, our English teacher brought a poet named Hillary Ayer Fowler from San Francisco to read her poems to us. She and our English teacher encouraged us to write poems of our own and that is how I came to write my first poem.
It all fits here, one complements the other.
Hope the heat is not bothering you too much!
Your poem is so beautiful. Thank you for writing it so long ago and for posting it here in these times.
Post a Comment