Sylph Simply Singing 

Communities of Commonality

driving down the freeway on the way to the mall, i look over at the hills below me and it always seem like this little microcosm of creation, the hustle and bustle of humanity going about it's business, the drudgery of dailies, stucco and tile , trees and toys, cars and lawn chairs, pools and patios, the baptisms and the funerals, and the marriages and divorces in between. We build and we dream, we humans, and its all washed away over time, just the gutted hillsides will give witness to our being.

We carve our lives
into the sides of hills
creating communities of commonality
the world over.
We roll over and rise from sleep,
wiping the night from our eyes.
We go to our jobs,
hassle with spouses and kids, care for our elderly,
pray for our sick.
We walk, and run and bike and sun.
We sweep away the collective cobwebs
of our human accumulation
tidying up our little worlds.
We mate and breed, we love and worship,
we kill, rob and deceive...
all in our little communities of commonality.
carved into the guts of god's green hills in spring.
We are a landscape of ants and angles
the world over.
We search for the meaningful
behind the random comings and goings
of existence...
but our view is thru a cloud of the meaningless,
obscuring our vision,
as murky and gray as our plodding.
While light and meaning
hide their face but shine.
And we water our lawns, we shop and play
go to churches and bars
as our days slip away...
Ants building edifices in
the guts of god's hills
above the yucca, oak and pine are paired,
and the angels dance unobserved,
for we're mostly unaware....
Our finger on the pulse of time
leaving some of who we are behind
hieroglyphics in the land.

The Crucifixion Waltz

Lo and behold I am swaying, softly succumbing.
The wandering ghosts have arrived unbidden...
and didn't a friend just recently advice;
"Dance lightly with your goblins."?
Is this an opportunity to spin with grace,
or a stumbling block to trip and fall
thru time and space?
As I try to hold on to the periphery of a past
parading itself plaintively on todays dance floor.
But I always danced too closely didn't I?
Melding to flesh so easily,
molding my body to the curve and rhythm
of my partners loins...
believing it safe to be close on a dance floor.
And now this wandering ghost of yesterday
has its cheek tight against mine,
its hand pressed in the small of my back
bending me to its will,
and I'm moving without resistance
holding tightly to a ghosts arms
succumbing to a goblins charms.
Not even a fragile breath of air
sweeps a current between us now..
The past is here
and I am dancing once again to
the crucifixion waltz of reverie and death,
caught on the notes somewhere between a dirge and a hymn.
I see the silent drops of blood
pooling on the floor
as he twirls me round and round...
the stigmata weeps again for love,
and I dance gently with my ghost partner...
as softly sways my mind,
in and out of time.