I nearly weep at the remembering
How beauty hung in every ray of radiant
Brilliance breaking through the trees
Laden heavy on old oak branch
Upon branch
Centuries old with story and weight
Draped like pashmina, draped and dripping
Gray moss makes her a bearded lady
And her neighbor an elegant old sage
Makes me linger longer with every wandering
Step

Can beauty make you weary and worn
Carrying heavy the memory of fragments
Gathered and stored in a soul
Longing
A soul
Hungry
For what the day held.

Circling round and round
Like a mad dog in search of his tail
Rabid in need of earth’s poetic soul
Yet
Slowly
I round each corner
Expectant
Knowing
That I had  seen
But a fragment of what He gives

I am Columbus, Vasco Da Gama, Magellan
I am poet explorer
Capturer of lines of lovely
Gatherer, noticer, bounty-hunter
In search of something
Nameless, faceless
Wonder

Memorizing the berry red, the shadows’ dance
The limb and leaf
Ripples race like dominoes across the creek
Netting and crab-pot, rigging and roadways
Grit and glory, socks sagging
Pinned to the clothesline
Wet with story

And in the end I wonder
As I wander

This was never meant
For
Me alone
No

To hoard and have
To savor and store
Somewhere in the wonderment
And uncovering
I am more of Whitman
And Frost
Wordsworth
Though weak and frail
Feeble
The comparisons, faulty
At best

But yet
I am called
To spill through ink on a page
In the fragile lines of a poem
The poetry
I found

Along my way
Clear my voice
Whisper to a few
In this awkward way
.
Bend in and hear
Me say
I have sipped the cup of beauty
Now I raise the cup, full

Place your lips
Cracked and parched
Upon the waiting rim.
And taste the poetry of God.

Joining my friend Laura today. Monday’s are simply marvelous there.  And joining Angie for a fun first-time link at her place.