Essex 16 February 2015

Edges of snow drifts are sharp
aquiline smooth until they fold
into the flat glistening field
before me, the tangle of normal
life lingers in the shadows of bare trees
lacing the blank white surface.
Three blizzards have encased us
within dazzling whiteness
and vicious cold winds.

Like the lash of ice on our faces
while shoveling a path out
in the rages of an ending storm
we grate against each other
feeling trapped inside
while the plows outside breakdown
heating oil trucks get stuck
and we pray the lights stay on.

Safe, warm and irritably
we are blessed to be here
and not in a lonely farm house
out west, w/ snow fenced ranges
lost cattle, a blank range,
not lost as the homeless we don’t see,
Here where tree shadows dance the snow fields
plows pile up snow mountains
round ruddy bundled children slide down.

Kent Bowker 2/16/2015

Solstice Song

A rush of wind, quick,
.  flying crisp brown leaves,
.       cheeks red in the cold,
in this moment       all stops
.   a presentation,
.          an apparition frozen in motion,
change is marked
.            not yet apparent,
expectation stalls in the restless air.

Dying King why do you come here?
.            Is it really time to go?
Wait,             wait for the failing light
to waft the year’s end away.
You’ve aged so quickly,
.       Bounding Youth of spring,
.           so desired then
.    spreading your seed
.          in the maiden fields,
.                    so wasted now.

Your shifting phases of mortality
.     All that lives dies
.             all that dies lives,
the juncture of ambiguity, being,
Dionysus, Corn God ephemeral.

You, Our precious sacrifice, our marker
erect the burning tree,
impale yourself into its branches
.     above the gaily wrapped gifts
.            of passions spent,
and then farewell
.     into the dark times
.           solstice born.

Pray with us,
.       as the tree burns your
.            light away
for rebirth, for repetition
that the turning orb
.       of Olympian chariots
.           carries the Sun Child,
.          the Reborn King
.             down to earth again,
that he will rampage
.           over the dead fields
.             spray the golden touch
.     of young semen /
.           impregnate
.                      us.

12/21/2014
Remember:
Days of darkness
Days of death
the solstice marks the end of Kings
and the long slow reawakening of life
the coming of Mithras, and a Christ
who’ll die with the year for everyone
that their blood will flood the fields
bequeath fertility to the earth.

The Cat, the Mouse, and Me

I have to admit fancy has failed
to imagine me as a mouse
the cat chases through the house
thinking he will catch me.

I fail to think of me as other than
a serious minded man.
If I’d had another mother
witty and mischievous, I just might
think I could be a mouse
making faces at the up-tight cat,
lounging slow, old furry mat.

I can’t imagine cat’s catnip trip
to be anything like my own
whiffs of weed, wet hay,
because I’m stuck being human,
high or not, almost every day.