by Alan Harris
2001
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Quiet is to noise as silence is to quiet. |
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Free PDF download of this entire book: Carpet Flights in Adobe Acrobat PDF format (40 formatted pages including color photos) Free Adobe Acrobat Reader is required. |
Contents
(Click on any divider between poems to return here.)
Muse on a Moonbeam
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Twinkle you don't but glow you do not yellow not white through my window. Half the month I see you riding above my maple and I mostly ignore you because you're steady and I'm busy with trivia. I file you under L for later. Since muses unused dry up in the dark of the moon (or so some poets fear), tonight I welcome your light as a loving underflow beneath my busy overflow. Tuning into your glow far beyond the maple yet as near as here, I let my writing listen. |
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As Below, So Above
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Fragrance from flowers already bloomed gives courage to the budding ones. |
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Together
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There was never a never so always as forever nor a permanence so flimsy as finished. There was never a happy so permanent as joy nor a falseness so fleeting as autonomy. Insulation clothes well till it suffocates, and protection is safe till it isolates. To breathe always joy let our hearts strive together most brave toward that space both above and unknown where our labor with stones can build the next temple. Build we together or become we the stones. |
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Getting Old
A Burlesque
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It's awful to get old, it is. Today I got pretty winded rocking away in my chair so I went upstairs for a nap but tripped over my beard which is the same color as the fog before my eyes. Then I couldn't remember whether I'd been upstairs or downstairs, and worse yet, it didn't seem to matter. I no longer care whether there's life after death, now that life before death has become so confusing. Where did I put that drool rag? I must switch to a new one, since we're in a new month. I've missed church services for several weeks in a row because they hold them right in the middle of my night at 10 a.m. Whenever I do go, I'm so groggy I can't tell the Lord's Prayer from the Lord's Supper, and I'm apt to get to thinking so deep that my wife says I breathe too loud and she nudges me to break my train of thought. So this is what it comes to. When you're a child you think you'll never get old, and when you're old, you forget you were ever a child. I catch myself rambling a lot and hope that people won't notice because maybe they are nearly as old as I am or they might be sympathetic or at least look the other way. I guess this drool rag's still okay. |
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Midnight in Midwinter
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Just the finest trace of snow fell unseen yet tingly on my face, and the streets were whitening under a semi-coating of this semi-snow. I knew the moon was up there but clouds were having their way. I walked familiar streets, my neighborhood oddly hushed, no traffic, dogs all quiet indoors. Far off I heard the muffled horn of a diesel engine pulling its rumbling train along the single trunk line past the edge of town. With each crossing its wail and rumble became a little louder, and then each wail became quieter until silence comforted the streets like a forgiving mother after her child's necessary cries. All of us had our way tonight-- the snow was able to hint of itself, my footprints showed I'd been there, the train took some of the silence, and midnight was allowed its hush. Now my coat is hanging to dry and I know where the moon is. |
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Pressure
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In a house where Usually prevails, where Always-used-to guides, where What-other-people-think and Never-been-done-before deter, a cork may pop one day up out of a pressurized bottle to let wine spray the ceiling just in case novelty might be okay. |
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Sun
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Our sun as seen by the asleep is a space heater and a day lamp but oh honey how very much we are in it and are it and are and forever are. |
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Stars
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Skyspread of stars on this clear night quivers my heart because all these are merely what can be seen. Stars may see me naked in clothing, caught up in the heresies of here and there, now and whenever. "Brothers," I yell into the infinite, "Greetings to all sources of light!" The aftersilence calms my heart. |
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Suppose
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Suppose that many who went before are still here--as us-- and we now go before all future lives--of us. Suppose that one major all-of-us is being lovingly built from billions of 'me's as they labor or shirk, create or destroy, rejoice or agonize. Suppose that from separate confusion where the me is king all grow toward a fusion century by millennium which births a new being, its cells and organs we. Suppose that space is pregnant with us. |
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Ways
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Abundance
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Listen to abundance-- not only Niagara's thunder but two mosquitoes whining-- not only the whoosh of rest but the whoops of errors and the whew of success. Abundance is my golly and Betsy's heavens, but also the sibilance of a petunia's petal falling into grass. Abundance roars out its yes and whispers yet more yes-- the best, it is, of the most, plus the all within the least. |
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Dove
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Dove rides windy wire, placid in tumult, slim tail flipping up and down. |
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Beauty
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Soon after sundown tonight leftover orange fades upward into night's deepening blue above our row of poplars. How does a sky do this? It looks so easy. Such beauty is free to see yet invites a seeing into. Who is living behind this beauty? No name is being spoken to me but there's an inner rush as if some Friend from space is near. |
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Just Asking
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I ask how eyes know when to wake and lovers, when to love, how engines feel when pulling trains, why planets need to spin. Does every point in cosmic space touch every other point? Can money buy creative thought? Is dark the price of light? Does every pain result in gain? Does living have a goal? And what's left out when parts fall short of summing up the whole? |
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Three Healing Meditations
Healing Meditation #1
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Always, alwhy, alwhere we breathe our breaths within the great Breath. Gentle now, the breath, and open, the mind. If bothered by a grudge, forgetting. If squeezed by a fear, faith in faith in faith. If too many self-mirrors, outgoing to the hurting. If mental moneyclaws, giving both little and big. If outstriking rage, surges of forgiveness. In our jungle of errors, out of dark unknowing each new leaf sprouts as a separate pain, regret, disease, or loss of body-- but each, when assimilated, becomes a sacred leaf in our Book of Knowledge. For strength, going soft. In softness, seeing light. In light, discerning duty. In duty, finding joy. |
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Where I hurt, I grow. Where I hurt, I learn. Where I hurt, I atone. Where I hurt, I am alive. If I could know why I hurt, and go back enough in time, I would uncause it, and yet I know that now is too late. But now is back in time for later, so I need to learn all I can of the living ethics and physics to avoid future pain. I search for the Book of Ethics and find it in other people's eyes. I struggle with force and matter and find it all gentling with love. Where I learned, let me teach. Where I suffered, let me heal. Where I took, let me give. Where I stumbled, let me warn. |
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Gentle go the waves that heal me in the night. Soft are the sounds that give my body light. Now my room is dark and sleep is nowhere near, but hints of future joy are warding off all fear. Soon will come a time when pain has gone away, when Yes, a healthy Yes, will have its mellow way. With medicine to comfort and universe to cure I see no need to worry as impure turns to pure. |
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Notes on Work
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Beginnings are awkward. Continuings are strenuous. Easy peace won't last. Inner balance may. Death? Doubtful. The graveyard's a door to more. Requiem aeternam? Doubtful. New life, new work. Why then work? Stagnation stinks. Starvation hurts. Endings aren't. |
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May Opening
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May is most too awfully grand for this birdsung treebreezed dewdazzled man. All winter I worked freeze-dried and to the world dead in my closed-up house until this annual now, when May gives me to inhale vigor's gist from its generous air. Today I've opened windows and doors to let livingness in and release husks of flies and moths and thoughts. My breathing replete with May's mixed balm of aromatic everyness, I've fallen again fully open. |
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Whoever Built Chopin
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Who so deftly astounds our roots by means of Chopin? How the Preludes fly and dip and pause and squeeze orange harmonies lasting for days within the heart's chamber. Whoever built Chopin and voiced his hands can hardly mean us any harm. |
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The Middle Way
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When the possible splits inelegantly into yes and no or love and hate or life and death, a maybe may be found in a flower around the corner, already half opened and aromatic. If a mindbox has been closed, sealed with tape, and addressed for a wrong journey, the stewing inside may blow it open along a road up to now unseen-- new steps await. When any love demands any hate and gets its way, that way is poison, but when any hate allows for any love and acts within it, possibilities arise. Measuring won't find the Middle Way, nor asking friends nor reading books, but work and watch, step by day, and strive and give, mile by year, until where isn't it? |
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An Apology for Art
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Why more art? Haven't we enough? Well, a world of mostly dirt demands more soap, yes? A world parched with ugliness thirsts for sips of beauty, no? If creativity ever ceases, that's all the shebang wrote. |
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Dad's Henry J
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Dad and we three boys rode to the farm and back in our 1950 Henry J created by Kaiser-Frazer during their waning years. It had three speeds more or less forward. Reverse required expertise lest the gearshift lever do a free-fall all the way over to the left. Dad's black Henry J had tail fins for sport, two doors, and a sloping but hatchless back. Holes gradually rusted through the floorboard. It was a piece of junk that somehow got loved and joked about and used every day. Its oil pressure light was never not on unless the ignition was turned off, but the engine forgave us since we gave it oil every two or three days. Back seat sitting was decidedly disergonomic, but two of us sat there. We might be snuggling against a chain saw or some fertilizer sacks or old combine parts. We three boys devised subterfuges to achieve riding in the front seat. We'd hang back so as to be the last one in. But Dad was onto us-- if we dallied, he'd tell us to come on and get in. We'd spend hot hours cutting weeds, Dad with tractor (lucky cuss got to sit down all day) and we with reluctant hoes ritually file-sharpened each humid morning. After a too-long day we'd "knock off" (Dad's phrase) and maneuver for our seat in the Henry J by ever so politely letting others go first. Four cylinders, sometimes only three, pulled four weedkillers back into town where we lived. A rain might splot the windshield's dust and be smeared around by the one wiper that had a blade. Dad would never stop at that last stop sign before our house-- said it wasn't worth the extra wear and tear on the Henry J. Out we would pile, wary of hidden saw blades, and the Henry J's doors would close with a clunk plus extra little sounds. Dad bought our Henry J for $200 from a local man aptly nicknamed Bargain Art, and after about fifteen years of his nursing the car with oil, makeshift parts, and patience, it completely quit. Then for another ten years it stood in our farmyard, tombstone to itself, until Dad finally sold it to a collector while preparing himself to die. |
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Dollar Dazzle
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The New York Times, Nov. 9, 1998: It has been almost a year since Egghead Software, a fallen leader in software retailing, announced that it would close the last 80 of its stores to begin anew as an Internet-only operation. Now the company says it is ready to start over -- again.
The New York Times, Aug. 16, 2001: |
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Where have all the Eggheads gone? Like yesterday's air--to the winds. I knew their store in Chicago on Dearborn near the First National Bank (which where has also gone?), knew it as well as my family room. The clerks there were hard to find and mostly smart-alecky quick when asked a question. Brightly-inked, their software boxes shouted "Buy me" at browsing retinas. The unquiet phone by the register preempted not-so-patient lines of customers holding plastic gold. Store policies bristled with selfishness behind an ostensible wish to please and a logoic egg. Where did all their profits go? I think all the Eggheads have gone where all the CompUSAs are going, and all the Dells and the Gateways, each company captive in a summary spreadsheet managed by some moneyman's mind who will someday wave his magic tongue and say "No more." Then employees' families will crumble and groan, receiving dread notice oh so once again. Grandiose is Mr. American Moneyman in his plans, ruthless in his recklessness, stonehearted in his layoffs. Yes, Eggheads have all gone where yesterday's air is now, but on and on proceeds the fiscal mayhem like a rodeo, each new company out of the gate a strong bronco that few CEO's can ride but any can sell off or shoot dead. Strip away the dollar signs and what remains but ego? Mightn't we just agree on having a decade or two of calm cooperation? After all, we do have us, right here, this moment. We're a complex bunch, but we each came equipped with yes, a heart-- oh my but yes, a heart. |
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Friendlight
A Good-Bye Poem
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When certain folks become good friends a candle lights and remains aglow and when these folks round separate bends this light stays lit and will always show. |
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When You're in a Frump
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You really don't care, you surely can't dare, and your house and your desk look a dump. When no one calls up to go out for a cup you recline in your chair like a lump. Your life has gone flat, you're verging on fat, and you'd easily pass for a grump. Well, I'm in a frump and you're in a frump-- let's go have some tea, you and me. |
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September Fade
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Sooner sunsets now-- flowers have gone part-petaled-- white of hair, I mull. |
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How westbound engineers saw Earlville, Illinois in 1999
Echoes of Earlville
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When someone first revealed to me that I lived in Earlville, Illinois, I had no inkling there was ever any other place to live. Show me another town where trains would wail from creek to crossover, glissando-ing like slide trombones. I remember winter nights in bed when long steam-engine whistle toots would bring about deep slumbering-- reliable as lullabies. Soon progress dared to usher in the brassy, strident dissonance of diesel horns, "long-long-short-long," which set the window panes a-buzz. Percussion also spread through town from near the Farmer's Elevator-- during harvest rush, staccato pops from John Deeres lined up near the scales sent complex polyrhythms further east than the Legion Hall. Earlville was small, so most knew most-- for everybody's good, it seemed. Few homes were listed, bought, or sold without a buzz of estimates proceeding through the telephones. Transgression stories relayed at the noisy downtown coffee shop made patrons want just one more cup-- and filled the owner's till enough to pay the waitress and the cook. In Earlville, peaceful though it was, occasional embarrassments were held quite close to home and hearth. Shrewd townsfolk having secrets knew the power that perfect silence has, so that even at the coffee shop no mortal ever was the wiser. I wonder whether Earlville now is still the way it used to be. Are the same things happening today except to different residents? Do trains still pound those west-end switches, filling town with jazzy rhythms? Do policemen cruise the streets at night and watch for tavern stragglers who think booze helps their driving skills? The Leader prints the deaths of friends I used to work and joke beside, their laughter now a memory. Obituaries fail to tell the grief and joy these townsfolk knew. If Roman Catholic, they find eternal rest on holy ground off Union Street just east of town. For Protestants and "faith unknown" the Precinct is the plot of choice, out by the blacktop south of town. I'll join my townsmen there someday when hidden forces that I trust decide it's time I go back home. Although I can't be sure I'll hear those trains at night from where I rest, the living folks will surely hear them on and off between their dreams. As each nocturnal freight train bawls through town, then fades out west or east, light-sleeping heirs to Earlville's past will pull their covers up a bit, turn over, and go back to sleep.
Author's Note: The above poem was |
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After a Mostness of Hurt
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How after a mostness of hurt does flower a sunrise of joy. How never does awfulness stay where planets are children of stars. How warmly a candle lights up in blackmost recesses of night. How grieving and torment give way to palpable peace in the heart. |
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A Hidden Sky
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There is a sky below the ground. I saw it today through puddle windows along my street. Big sycamore leaves were floating in it like balloons becalmed. Trees were towering downly up beneath my feet. If streets contain a sky, do you and I? |
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Leaf Dance
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Breath of a little whirlwind on a warm November day plucked up some leaves from the neighbor's pile and danced them in circles. Arrested from our walk, we both stood amazed at the twirly bouncing of lively dead leaves above a clackety street. Invisibly obvious, our airy ballerina pirouetted there a full three minutes before releasing her larger leaves to the ground as in a tease. But still we saw tiny wisps of lighter leaves and dust spinning further away until nothing remained but a transparent grace. |
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Meteor Shower over Tucson
November 18, 2001
For Brian and Patrick|
3 a.m. stars were holding brightly tight to their dome as desert chill challenged three watchers alarmed from bed. The Big Dipper's handle had fallen straight down, but upness was everywhere and never all to be taken in. Earthbound, we flashlit our paths around backyard cacti while overhead, quick meteors like flaming needles pierced and sewed at the night. Several arrived each minute but seldom did any two claim the same piece of sky. Some blazed up so bright they lit up the desert floor-- doubt but believe. We embodied three generations, we watchers who stood or sat or reclined on a blanket. Endless depth boggled our eyes yet we little asked and less knew why we were alive just then. Boy, father, grandfather were we. What all might have happened or not happened in our three lives to cause any of us to be absent? We had beaten unmathematical odds to meet for this familial, communal sky harvest, as had the listening lizards who heard our "Hey!" and "Whoa!" and "Did you see that one?" And how better to bond than under a needled infinity? |
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Yuletide's Deepest Bell
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A scratch-scratch-scratch of Christmas card writing is wiggling world kitchen tables. Tight holiday harmonies from the stereos fill up festooned family rooms. Annual gladness is picking up speed as the ringers ring, the shoppers shop, the bustlers bustle, and the hawkers hawk. Bells remind the weary of pulsings in their hearts, transforming drone to tone. Such yearly yuletide waves are too magical to be real, too real to be magical, too just-right to be too anything at all. Yes, talkers overtalk, laughers overlaugh, givers overgive, and eaters overeat, but a subtle force is working to knit separated threads into scarves of good will. Folks feel an ancient peace and join at the heart in joy when the Deepest Bell rings "One.... One.... One...." |
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Above poem is included in the
Christmas Reflections PDF book Holiday poems to print for gifts or for keeps Free PDF Download - 2.0 MB, 18 pages Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader (also free) |
A New Fading of Before
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Midnight will soon gift us with a new year and mummify the old as we hope ourselves the future. Spots became so tight last year that nothing less than interrupt could calm my jangled vexation. My body was less a trusty horse than a kicky, gimpy, hungry mule, and my mind, this quirky mind: why did it need to fly and dive and not adhere to steadiness? and why so sometimes irritable? Have I better to expect next year as the clock pulls in the minutes like a child sucking in spaghetti? Resolutions I've tried--no luck-- I'm strong first, but later weak. Luck I've tried, but it runs out. This year I'm dropping formulas in favor of heartlight and love-- not slushy, mind you, but real-- to hear a friend inside an enemy, catch the light in the eyes, listen into the endless layers of hurt. On New Year's Eve I welcome this new fading of before as it allows a stronger shining of ever. |
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