Elements Poems

Indoors by technology, outdoors by speedy transport
I travel the world
Today in Japan, tomorrow in Rome,
Next day by an ancient civilization or in Hawaii or Coast Ivory,
...

desert sucks upper water to store in the deep
trees, plants, herbs and grasses are about to die
sunshine reflects on mirages there
mirages elude and mislead the travelers,
...

Mine are the night and morning,
The pits of air, the gulf of space,
The sportive sun, the gibbous moon,
The innumerable days.
...

To him who in the love of nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
...

In the mustardseed sun,
By full tilt river and switchback sea
Where the cormorants scud,
In his house on stilts high among beaks
...

BOOK I
DEEP in the shady sadness of a vale
Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,
...

It is a winter's tale
That the snow blind twilight ferries over the lakes
And floating fields from the farm in the cup of the vales,
...

Spring


Come, my beloved; let us walk amidst the knolls,
...

[Given to Frank Bidart]


You won't become a gourmet* cook
...

Direct clay was turned into required elements
parts, sections, groups, classes in proportion
to set in every function in as pottery style,
osteoblasts turned into bones to form the cage,
...

The wind whistles eerily, as the storm approaches,
it gradually encroaches, taking over
like some unscrupulous military machine,
giving way to no one,
...

I am a kind word uttered and repeated
By the voice of Nature;
I am a star fallen from the
Blue tent upon the green carpet.
...

Budger of history Brake of time You Bomb
Toy of universe Grandest of all snatched sky I cannot hate you
...

I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide,
As being past away. -Vain sympathies!
For backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes,
I see what was, and is, and will abide;
...

Shameless, nude always invites
To outrage her modesty,
Smooth and grey
who would not be
...

O Sovereign power of love! O grief! O balm!
All records, saving thine, come cool, and calm,
And shadowy, through the mist of passed years:
For others, good or bad, hatred and tears
...

The First Epistle

Awake, my ST. JOHN!(1) leave all meaner things
To low ambition, and the pride of Kings.
...

Now my five senses
gather into a meaning
all acts, all presences;
and as a lily gathers
...

The Owner of the entire known and unknown universe
The Owner of each point and cell of all creations, creatures
The Owner of all the beings seen, unseen, small and large
The Owner of all the unseen souls here and there;
...

(for a collage-painting by James Koehnline, dated Sept.7,2024)
...............

In the welter of ever-flowing immanence
...

Elements combine, Reactions ignite passion, Chemistry's dance.
...

Someone was knocking at the door
When they last laughed
A couple of times per week
It has helped out a lot
...

When The Elements Get Set
January 11, 2021

Space spreads; following
...

our engineer once a pioneer hero
still battles elements environments
to produce updated applied solutions
required by a more complex society
...

Universal setFemale and Male,
Consist of elements,
FEMALE- - - - -{A}={F, E, M, A, L.E}
MALE- - - - - -{B}={M, A, L, E}
...

I was given the earth
not to keep but to sow and to share
such a beautiful mine like a beautiful yours
no wrath from some mouth
...

One may be striving all along,
O Kunti's son,
A man of discretion,
Still, the senses turbulent, strong,
...

In this world, bad gets a lot of chances to do harms
Openly allowed by God as His love even to such elements
To see whether there is a chance to turn bad to be good
Before He finishes them for the good of humanity finally!
...