'Quiet Waters'

Bryce & Photoshop

In stillness made of dew and green,

we attend and hear only the music

of a tree that stands beside like solitary

kin to our very own solitude. We survey

these shores of memory for a lifetime,

yours and mine, where water knows

no spirit that crosses it, crosses from

homeless grassy banks to shelter. The

infinite water, that makes dread increase

over our lives, pulls them deeper and

deep to live or die, or deeper to love.

Do not strike the pose of clarity in this

morning sun, but beg pardon of the sky

that you transform from darkness to light.

Knowledge makes no possession of this

place and shelter remains no more than

salvation or a tomb. To the victim of

silence, all love is hypocrisy, no more

than dry-bedded, a betrayal lost.

But I bid you, instead, lest you die

too soon, make the stars give birth to

wonder again. Our glances across

this secrecy of water are merely the

call of desperate eyes. We have crossed

many miles and miles of nothing we

care to know, believed what we needed

as this quiet, present place spoke from

afar and a distant storm was its torment,

its invention. To love means something;

in time one takes even a shadow for the

soul. And here the morning makes us

gentle, makes us sleep, makes us hybrid

of every blessed memory while morning

wears an ordinary mask, a visage of love.

Do not fear that religion condemns

your birth as sin. There’s an enemy in

your sleep, to be sure, and no one knows

his name; he is more than the birthing

rains concede. Although the angels, who

guard our madness, have not said too

much of late, nor given reason why two

trees stand shore to shore and mean the

same, nor made sense of why these

shelters of stone may be tombs for the

living, the boat shows ready for

elsewhere. It sails out to sea, in our

wisdom hearts, as muted it sits forever

still on quiet waters that anchor deep.

The water too makes anchor of you and

I and nothing more dies for now, only

darkness, divided from this sun. We

stand forever on this side, a mystery

and shelter in ourselves. Perhaps we

shall cross over to return again, or

there we shall stay, awaited and unseen.

 

- Poem ©2003 James Strecker -

All images protected by copyright ©Andy Simmons 1995-2003

If you have arrived from a gallery click here to open the main site page otherwise click the image to move on, thankyou.