In Dark Forest

In the depth of the sky,

I see you.

In sunlight on water,

you are there.

In dark forest,

your heart.

In my breathing

and my waking

and my sleep,

you.

- Ralph Murre

The Course

Staying Course

Like smoke, some of our energy
darkens the sky.
Sooty stack of America’s ship,
emblem carried above rusting hull,
casting about oceans without harbor.
Unwelcome, the fouled air.
Unneeded, the roiled waters.
Listing to starboard,
she plows on,
her crew eyeing lifeboats,
her captain holding course.

- Ralph Murre

take y'self a look

take y’self a long look
write y’self a long book
get an agent ‘n’ go on t.v.

tell ‘em how yer ma was unkind
how yer seein’-eye dog was blind
get a divorce ‘n’ go on t.v.

shoot some lefties, shoot some southpaws
shoot some Indians ‘n’ shoot yer in-laws
get a pardon on court t.v.

disappear from the public eye
wait for the popular hue and cry
run for office ‘n’ go on t.v.

- Ralph Murre

Music

There is Music in the Sailor

and there is music in the sea
and there is music in the cedars
and in the tall grasses
and in fishes and me

and sometimes we hear the music
and we dance or we weep
with the emotional willows
trot with foxes, waltz with waves

and we may swim with swans
and hear rhythms in ravens’ wings
tremble with the aspen
fear the diving of the hawk

or we may never learn the tango
or we may learn to fear the clock

- Ralph Murre

timely

Watch

Like the twitchy second hand
mopping the brow of my Timex
and always pointing at something new,
I’ve gone ‘round the dial
and looked in all directions.

Tick Tick Tick

And people ask what time it is,
just as though they want to know.

Tick Tick

They take seats and I tell them,
“It’s a little too late for you --
take note of the length of your shadow,
see the birds that roost,
and feel the wear in the arms of your chair.”

Tick Tick

And people buy new watches
and look for a second opinion there.

Tick


- Ralph Murre

creation

and then one day

as the story goes

there was light

October Dream

photo by Nancy Vaughn

I dreamed of a place without fences
and the women and the trout swam free
and sheep safely grazed
under the watchful eyes of wolves
and I dreamed red maples
bled syrup on platoons’ pancakes
and farm wives with rolling pins
and blue aprons ruled the waves.
I dreamed you were a wading bird
with an appetite just the size
of my pale crustacean body and mind
as I swam between your legs
and back without caution
and I dreamed of the hills
only the blind can see
and I tasted frost-bit apples
from the broken tree of good and evil.
In the dark, I dreamed of the dark.
I dreamed of hell
but there were no fires.
In fact, it was raining cold rain.
I dreamed of hell
and there were armies
shipping home trinkets and the slain.
And in this hell of a dream
there were papers to be filed,
there was nowhere to walk,
and no one was ever on time.
I dreamed of hell
and you were not there
and no one helped carry the pain.

- Ralph Murre

Planet Earth (Detail)

With every day's bad news, it's so easy to feel that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, and maybe it is, but I find some bit of peace by looking closer. Looking beneath the strata populated by humans. I look at the natural world, and I can not find evil. There are, of course, cataclysmic events throughout nature -- earthquakes and tsunamis, droughts and floods and hurricanes and wildfires and all the rest -- but there doesn't seem to be greed, and there is certainly no religion. As humans, some of us take pride in proclaiming that we are a species set apart, above all others. I won't argue with that belief, though I do not share it. It is true that we have powers to create good and bad on a scale that we haven't observed in other species.

But get yourself out of the man-made for just a bit; look at the square meter of earth beneath your feet, and understand that it is older and perhaps wiser, than the human race. Can I assign wisdom to dirt? Knowledge to rocks? Does the bit of dandelion fluff carried on the summer breeze know as much about a satisfying life as I do? Yes, yes.

Look up to the stars and look down to the dirt you sweep from your doorstep and know that they are the same and that you and your human brethren are the same, also. Believe whatever you do about who or what created all this, but don't build churches to convince others of your beliefs. Don't tell others they're wrong. You don't know. And if you don't know, why start a war? If you don't KNOW ( and I suspect that you've never been to heaven or hell ) why enslave yourself to an institution commanded by people who also don't know? Who are committed to destroying races of people who also don't know? I am not a nature writer, but I am an observer of the natural world, and if there is one lesson I've learned from my observations, it is that there is no religion in nature and it is religion that sets humans apart and causes the greatest sufferings. I am becoming a great believer in gods and spirits of all types, but I don't believe that they go to church.

Look to the dirt.

- Ralph Murre

Thanks

Back in our drive after 1500 miles of discovery
and recovery from the tameness that's called life.
Some bruises and some smiles, some aching and
some joy, and the road. The long road of husband,
wife. Thank the spirits that you know and thank
the ones you don't if there's just a little aching and
some joy and husband, wife. Beware of too much
tameness, and thank the spirits for the road, and
please thank the one you're with for sharing life.

winding pavement
a remembrance of lives
shared in the wind


- arem

note to mice:

play on, little mice

enjoy your cat's away games

this feline's homebound

- arem

Escape

Looks like Nancy Lee and I will escape

this corner of paradise for a while

via motorcycles and ferry boats

to visit three Great Lakes

and the two Mighty Nations

that lie along their shores.

Keep the homefires burning.

- arem

Full

A full moon

and a glass of wine

a full heart

and a wandering mind

September night

- arem

east wind

bluster of east wind

brushes her white hair backward

angry mother lake

- arem

Confluence

Too long held apart
Streams overflow earthen dams
Join in hidden woods
Their colored waters
And follow their gravity
As one river strong enough
To carry burdens
Strong enough the mingled flow
To roll on unstopped
To sea-level finality
No escape but to evaporate
And begin again raining
On the Red River and the Yellow
On Mississippi delta blues
And on the Blue Nile
And the Blue Danube
On the Laughing Whitefish
And the sadness of the Seine
On the Wisconsin
And the O-hi-o

An old idea, returning to the sea
An old idea, you and me

- Ralph Murre

Draft

the first draft

blew away the idea

of this poem

- arem

AvantRetro

I had the rare good fortune, Friday evening, to attend a performance by AvantRetro, the poetry and music duo of Charles Rossiter and Al DeGenova. These guys are the real thing, folks -- great poetry, full of what has been and what is, with hints of what will be -- all presented in a terrific, entertaining manner, with accents of well-wrought jazz and blues riffs accentuating all. I'd had the opportunity to hear Al solo before, which was very good, but the combination of these two is just that much better.

Friday's perfomance was at Milwaukee's oddly-named but terrifically good Woodland Pattern Book Center, where even the open-mike readings were mighty impressive, and the collection of poetry books on hand is -- I'm running out of superlatives here -- very, very large.

If you have the chance to hear AvantRetro live, go hear them. Or get their CD (cleverly titled "AvantRetro") Or buy their book, "Back Beat". Listen to Charles Rossiter's audio website, poetrypoetry.com and buy Al DeGenova's journal of Chicago writing and art, after hours.

Does any of this sound like I might have enjoyed myself on Friday night? Well, yes, my friends, I guess I did.

Incidentally

Someone who is very close to me thinks that self-portrait in my last posting looks nothing like me and suggests that "it is just plain scary". The fact that it looks the way I feel much of the time is, apparently, of no consequence.

Give and Take

in the bright honesty
of the forest clearing
and the dappled dark trail
give me your hand

in the questioning gaze
of the crowded cafe
and rose-windowed cathedral
your smile

to the unnamed color
of the rolling wave crest
and sunlight in canyons
take my heart

and beyond and beyond
all of me

- ralph murre

Lessons

Forgotten Lessons

The way we are pulled
across the surface of years
by hidden gods and loves
illustrated for us as children
by patient teachers in gray suits
their magnets manipulating
mindless filings of metal

The sense of balance
needed for the seesaw
of meeting and mating
misunderstood in the equations
in pale yellow chalk on blackboards
Algebraic equilibrium
of lasting elations

The ceaseless motion
of the drifting continents
rushing across oceans
to find each other’s embrace
Island nations falling away
avoiding tectonic collisions
in the peace of the sea

- Ralph Murre

Honest

I cannot find the pen with honest ink
there is something false
in the color of this paper
and even the glow of this lamp
must be questioned
are you so sure you want what's real?
I could tell a nice story
and I see there are a few
left to be told
it would have a happy ending
and we could sleep warm
on clean pillows and bedtime kisses
and dream dreams
but if I find the pen with honest ink
it may say things that keep us up
and the better light
may show too much of me
the paper that is true is easily torn
and I don't want the sound of ripping
to be the last thing we hear

this is the paper for this story
and I like this unsteady lamp
I cannot find the pen with honest ink

-Ralph Murre