Into White II

Last week I posted a short poem resulting from something I woke up with and wrote down in the middle of the night. This is an experiment in stretching it out:

 

Seeking silence, can I ever discover

a place as quiet as this?

Yet as intention and supplication draw it nearer,

I yearn for the flowering of solid

in the fields of uncertainty.

 

Is this the human condition;

are we meant to desire by design,

only to be disappointed upon materialization?

 

Perhaps this is creation’s essence;

why expansion and contraction exist.

If the gods will it into being,

are they likewise bereft at culmination,

precipitating perpetuity?

 

Finally, does this this exemplify the ultimate artistic temperament?

Create, suffer, create –

only to despair that what we envision

can never match, in execution, our fantastic illusion?

 

Safe Harbor

copyright 2013 – Bela Johnson

 

Like clouds of breath rising

from a steaming tub

or the formless spines of cumulus;

Untethered thoughts wander,

free of their mooring

in the harbor of the heart.

 

Vexation arises –

too much elemental air.

We need earth to  grow:

tunnels of wriggling

worms ingesting loam,

casting off their compost skins –

giving rise to a soulful forest of green.

 

coypright 2013 – Bela Johnson