Leaves of Ash

A chain is forged of gossamer links
So light but yet so strong
Unbroken chain from heart to heart
It sweetly sways in song

From here to there, from there to here
From mother to the one
She loved before, through birth, through time,
Eternity begun

This chain shall never cease to be
This chain her heart adorns
Forged of glistening tears and smiles
Its weight so lightly worn

Have I been squashed beneath His feet,
A tiny, tiny bug–
Or stepped upon–a bit of lint,
Beneath His woven rug–

Insignificance can’t presume to know
Even if there be
Fine lines of distinction
Between insect, dust and me.

A life should, like a sonnet, be contained,
Yet free within bounds of some dear order.
Alive each moment, clear, yet soul restrained,
Attuned to nature; mark well its border.

For life, as art, its precious light may shine
Beyond its end. And so may poem be praised
Long after author pens its words to sign
A faith that spirit may be always raised
Above the plane we see from day to day.

Each life, if like a verse, would end aware
That time, if nothing else, cannot be stayed,
Nor form dismissed without a care.

To live as well as one may do with grace,
To die and know that all is in its place.

I take you for granite,
For steel, for stone–
Mutability is not love’s style.

Construct the heart
With mettle of faith,
The love will grow
Without guile.

Oh, how I hate the
transients of earthly bliss–
Peace, joy, tenderness
Those carpetbaggers,
hobos and vagabonds
That blithely glide
on hearts opened wide
And never to remorse
are remiss.

His body forgot what love could induce
His mind saw all the ends that were loose
His heart lay in a gray flannel vault
His soul swam alone in the depth of its fault

The years came and went: He pondered them well
He counted the ways he’d managed to quell
Too many, too often, too much and too sweet
In courting life safely, he married defeat.

I am Earth, not your mother
Sentient, solid
Unforgiving, uncaring.
Crawl over me, tiny ones
In and out, poking yourselves
Up and down
Like ants, like worms

You, capable of so little,
Worry so much

Cataclysmic mighty meteors
Snapping rotations
Huge jerkings on my
strings of galactic gravity–
These jar me.

A small filth on my skin, a blemish
These do not concern me

My power is deep
Erupting, exploding
Shattering your technology

My mantle of blue
subsumes transforms cleanses
Regeneration–not just a word

I ask nothing of you

You take so little

I am not eternal
–but almost

Say your prayers, tiny ones
But not for me