» Poetry

Resurrection

Rastaban — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 23:20:19 +0000

The first Sunday
after the first full moon
after the first equinox of the year,
rise early and lean outside
in the spiced air, listen to the bells ringing.
Morning bells, bells
of the far churches
chuckling their delight for the advent of another spring
in a world that has dawned.

Easter
and already the snows have grown weary;
they drop their coats
and troop back into the darkness.
Already the gale, brabbling wind
discards his piercing shrillness
and his iciness;
he bounds forward on us warm and naked.
Already the distant sun, long aloof
forgets herself,
wanders our way, smiling broadly.
Already the crocuses and daffodils,
the jonquils, the dogwoods, the wisteria, even the white iris
alone in the field by my house,
cast off their shyness; vulnerably
expose themselves before the world,
unprotected and beautiful.

And it is spring. It is spring.
I look beyond the empty lot, out past
the steeples that stand like toys on the far street; suddenly
I see earth supple before me like a gardener
like a mother suckling rich seedmouths

and they spring up.

They spring up, they spring up
in eudicotyledon splendor of living,
resurrected in body once again.

Jenny’s Wind

Rastaban — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 13:53:18 +0000

Jenny would love this gusty wind
were she with me here to see it playing
in these tall oak and birch she knows so well.

Yes, Jenny
would love this gutty wind which sneaks
beneath the leaves, rustling them

until they waken. The breeze
pretends it’s morning still
pretends it doesn’t know about the dark
the silence
which has swept across the world

since yesterday.

The wind is trying harder now.
Relentlessly it tries
to sweep the leaves and branches

into some sort of playful mood
some whim
to rouse them from the death-like mourning
of their silence.

Now and then
it pauses haltingly a moment. Then

rampages
rampaging
as if to chase away the darkness

as if to quell
the soundless whelming of her death
before it blackens out September.

Lake

Rastaban — Sat, 19 Feb 2005 14:42:04 +0000

the slim dark flower
i saw this morning
while walking beside
a lake i’d seen
for only an hour

pressed without warning
deep inside
and made me dream

of her lips’ sweet power

Love Story

Rastaban — Sun, 10 Oct 2004 12:25:39 +0000

Carl & I spent many Mays
roaming hills on sunny days
fighting pirates, routing thieves
building castles, climbing trees
right though to the breezy fall
when leaves became our rampart wall.

Mid-summer of our sixteenth year
all changed, another sex appeared:
a dirt brunette, and a blonde who tracks
Carl up the hill and back.

Laughter echoes between the three
making it very clear to me
between the two he’ll get to choose.

Lucky Carl—he cannot lose.
His eyes are good, he will not miss
her soft blonde hair, the way it twists
and curves like Nature made it do,
and gleams with love in the afternoon.

Then her face he won’t forget—
the chin so soft, yet firmly set
beneath her light blue eyes (those sing
like summer raindrops in the wind).

But I get the girl he leaves behind,
God, I hope he is blind
and does not love the one that’s blonde:

she’s the girl my dreams are on.

Summer Love

Rastaban — Fri, 10 Oct 2003 14:36:24 +0000

Now winter’s come
I like to hum
and sometimes sing a tune

To bring to me
memories
of times we had last June

When I gave you
some summer love
beneath the night’s white moon

Recall we were
beside the shore—
a woman, and a man

Who held her firmly
next to him
on blankets made of sand

Your eyes on mine
were soft and kind
as you pressed against my hips

And the stars above
bright with love
as we tasted with our lips

The waves rolled in
and in the din
we danced a while

Afterwards
we had no words
but silence and a smile

As eye to eye
beneath the sky
we shed our clothes and hugged

Our bodies stark
in the dark
nakedly we loved

The morning smiled
on clothing piled
aside our makeshift bed

And was no talk—

I’ve often thought
of things I might have said

While rapt amazed
I gazed
at the woman I should wed

But now like summer
you are gone—
my winter lingers on

And midnight brings
a pain to things
my heart has felt too long

4 Poems on Nudity

Rastaban — Sat, 10 Oct 1981 22:57:57 +0000

Dirty Eyes

Public nudity is illegal in the national forest
for the forest has no eyes
but dirty men do
and dirty men run the world, run it dirtily
and when dirty men get naked
it is only to put dirt on someone, usually of the opposite sex.

Public nudity is illegal in the national forest
exactly
as it should be.

As it should be
in this obscene national world.

Wealth & Poverty

The Tasaday get to go naked
any time they feel like it, which is most of the time
and they are the poorest people in the world.
And I, one of the richest—
no it is illegal.
My body is obscene. Don’t think of it.

Illegal Wilderness

When I was hiking down the river trail

inside the edge of the Cohutta wilderness
with all my clothes in my arms and my nakedness public below me

public to the woman, anyway, who was with me
and who made
me rise up in stout freedom
as I clumsily hiked along

—if other
hikers had come around the bend
I could have been arrested! My

wilderness—
unclothed of God and all!

The Lord’s Way

Actually, if Christian friends tell the truth
(and I know they would never lie)
God disapproves of nakedness.

Which isn’t surprising, seeing He made it.