Simple Truths

Simple Truths

I’m here
to find the simple truths
that I knew
as a child.

The dogs make a game
of me,
the cats curl
and sleep
upon my body.
The daffodils await
the rising of the sun.
They draw their color
from the world
arriving.
The world I watch
now
takes its color
from the setting moon.

These February trees
excite me.
I crave
their dark and frozen zig-zags,
the hardened lightning strokes
of trunk, leader,
limb and branch.
They pierce the moon,
seem to snare it,
over-lace it,
hold it fast -
but look again
and the moon has moved.
The bare trees darken further
at the rising of the sun.
My hands know
this simple way
of waving and releasing,
too,
but too often I want
to hold onto
the passing things.
What is this restlessness?

A candle burns inside
the house.
It represents things
I cannot name.
The spaces in the weaving,
the colors I have yet
to see.
It also speaks to me
of the way that fear
takes loving hands
and turns them
into weapons.
The mysteries of anger,
joy and sorrow,
love.

Here comes the sun.
A mockingbird screams.
A shaking leaf transforms
into a mourning dove;
an explosion of flight.
The river below
has the look of ice,
spilled from the dawn
and frozen.

And what of intentions?
Do they spill from the sun,
from the moon;
do they rise out
of the wide space
in between?
Do we find them,
recognize them,
or create them?
I need gloves;
I type without them.
I need money;
I work.
I need love;
I share it
where I can.

Every tree, bush, stone, dog, person,
is a mystery deeper
then I can fathom.
All the particles of being
dance
to a sound
the whole
makes.

I am only a moving part
of the dancing machine.
Oil me,
I am squeaking.
I try
and tune myself
and listen.
I try
to catch the rhythm
and move
deliberately,
in keeping with the pace
and pulse
and measure
of the music that moves
through me.

I think more of my ancestors,
I say,
“I love you”,
more often.
I look differently
at my mother,
my father,
my son.
My friends are intriguing,
strange, mysterious
and enchanting.

My hands absorb
and hold
the sunshine.
I feel it
circulating.
The moon makes me turgid.
It rocks me.
In the rise and fall
I see
the flotsam and jetsam
of my life.

Wreckage and raw material
are the gifts
of the currents and tides.
We draw beauty in
with our eyes,
and our senses.
We find it
and recognize it.
We hold it up
and name it,
call it our own.
We set it down
and wonder
where we left it.

There is beauty
in hatred,
love, grief, and war.
In the way the morning comes,
the people go.
Fear and cruelty
are passing.
Love carries
and bears up
under it all.

We all know this.
Our stories will be
spun out,
and all our stories,
all that we have ever known
and done
will be recycled.
No other thing
makes sense.

Rick Mobbs January 2008