Two Sonnets – The Blind Men & the Elephant

A blind man groped and grasped through darkened air
And caught in tender hands a hairy cord,
Then searched through sightless memories for a pair,
And cried, “The thing’s a rope, upon my word!”
Three comrades also shared that darkened road,
And paused to hear the outcry of the first,
Then turned with eager, seeing hands to code
For themselves the object and its worth.
The story is well known. The other three
Conclude the thing’s a wall, a tree, a snake,
When a pachyderm’s to blame. Respectively,
His tail, side, leg, and trunk feed each mistake.
And so the Eastern clerics make their claim:
The Thing is found despite misgiven names.

______________________________

While people grope and grasp through darkened air,
They know that life is not unending night.
Sun-warmed winds that caress and lift their hair
Declare the world is not dark; they lack sight.
So far the Eastern clerics’ tale’s the same,
And I will nod, man stumbles through the world,
But insist the Thing when met has but one Name.
It’s with the elephant I have my quarrel.
All tales are built on what they presuppose.
Is what is met a thing, a passive force,
That lumbers on life’s road, self undisclosed?
So claims the ancient parable of course.
Perhaps it is a who, Who reveals and speaks,
Forgives and loves and heals, and blind men seeks.

[Elephant image adapted from original image by Felix Andrews on Wikimedia Commons.]

February Rain

This warm rain in winter comes too early,
With its breathy bluster promising spring,
Like a kiss before its time, wet, heavy
With bold promises it cannot keep. Bring
Me back February’s quiet waiting,
Stilled from time to time to utter silence;
The city’s noise hemmed in interlacing
Flakes. There will be time for the sweet science
Of spring, for rushing rains that pool and seep
Into the waking earth, tickling seeds
From sleep, to yawn and stretch in shoots that leap,
Toward the light. Yes, I, too, have that need
For laughing movement. It will keep. Let snows
Still hem me awhile before the rain blows.

Reprint: “Watching Hoosiers in the Himalayas”

My very first blog entry ever, way back on October 14th, 2004, consisted of this poem. I began with it because I think it is my best work in poetry and I wanted to start the blog with a bang. Here it is again for this new iteration of the blog, and because it is almost time to watch Hoosiers again for this year. Here is the poem also with some exposition and an image.

Watching Hoosiers in the Himalayas

I never thought I would ache for Illinois.
Especially here in this cherished place,
Amidst these swaying pines that whisper joy,
Of windswept hills and cold alpine spaces,
Amidst these pines that wreathed in monsoon mists
Transform the world medieval once again,
That silent stand like monks in sacred trysts.
Yet in this cherished place there comes this pain
For rich, dark, furrowed fields a world away
For harvest leaves that dying golden fall
On silent walks of silent towns that stay
More silent still when winter carpets all
And winter snowdrifts sweep, and families keep
To glowing houses. I watch this screen and weep.

Upon Watching “God Grew Tired of Us”

A Sonnet for the Lost Boys : A Sonnet for Me

There are a thousand ways that lives are lost.
The Lost Boys of Sudan have known them all.
Parents, brothers, sisters, land; which loss most
Crowds the emptiness, and cries out and calls
Them homeward? How can I watch this then turn
To chronicling of small melancholy
In haikued verse? Should this knowing not burn
Away all artistry, all verse, holy
Longing for beauty even, caught in bursts
Of a shutter? I think the Boys would say
It is not so. Is it not dance and mirth
And songs about one’s home which make that day
Shine brightly, when we will all go back home
And praise each people’s beauty one by one.