My Father’s Son

I wonder at the world beneath,
	for I am far above.
I marvel at the clouds around,
	for I am deep within.
I seek to find the man I am,
	now flying in the sky.

The lights I see,
	illuminate the ground,
And each one brightens someone's life.
The land I see,
	it reaches on forever,
And each stretch another story,
	another patchwork quilt of tales,
	a history, its own.
How many lives have lived,
	that this one spot has touched?
How many people pass this light,
	and never see its miracle?

And now the city...
	we prepare to land.
This moment I shall not forget.

Outside, the snow fell while I was unaware.
Inside my mind there was no place for snow.
Is it not so, that for each one there are many worlds?
Can we inhabit more than one at a time?

I felt confused, almost hurt,
that the snow would fall without me.
And yet: am I responsible for the snow,
or must it answer to me?

Should I not delight in the independence of snow?
Is that not its right?
Should I not cherish the world that surprises,
and covers its tracks in the snow?…

“O woe betide the day I die,”
the hermit cried aloud.
“Thou first must live,” the cave replied,
“ere death come ever nigh.”
“O woe betide,” the hermit sighed,
“thou, now become my grave.”
O woe betide, o woe betide,
the hermit died, the hermit lied:
The cave remained a cave -
his life became his grave.

But she who lives until she dies
lives thus much longer still.
For in the heart a memory lives
whom Death can never kill!

And what of noise?
Is it not the crickets’ song,
to crick, crick, crick, all at once?
A seeming chaos!
Such repetition, such noise.
-And one dies out:
I can notice it; I do notice,
as if there were some reason,
as if a single cricket matters.
But the sound itself, it continues;
it pleases me not.
I long for a silence.
Perhaps not silence,
but music, order.
The crickets scream to be heard.
I envy the crickets.
I want to scream.
I almost wish to be a cricket:
that screaming “crick, crick” …were enough!

I love to walk in torrent rain
	and watch the people run.
I love to talk in torrent rain
	to myself or anyone.

I love the colors streetlights shine
	against the grayish sky,
Where sovereign clouds direct our eyne
	to view the heavens fly.

I love to taste the rainy air
	and puff a misty sigh.
I love receiving zany stares
	from sober passersby.

To me is rain a mirac sight,
	mysterious and proud,
The drops that bend unbending light,
	the clouds the sun enshroud.

A miracle, presented once,
	allowed my thoughts to thrive:
I saw Death Valley rainy once;
	I've seen the rains alive!

If ever I had time to tell
the passing of a day,
A genie grant me such a spell,
of what things might I say?

Of lizard tongues and butterflies,
the rustling of leaves;
Of images in cloudy skies,
and what one there perceives;
Of speeding cars and traffic jams,
and all the dirty air;
Aluminum recycled cans;
the passing county fair?

Of all these things I might bespeak
before my time were through.
But most of all my pitch would peak
when I bespoke of you!

It’s not because of endless sands,
though hot their touch may be,
for even this heat stimulates my tired feet,
too often neglected or abused by me.
And how could I spite those sands
whose multicolors marvel me,
with shades from pale tan, or even white,
to charcoal grey and black,
and all the reds and browns between?

Or, if the heat becomes too much,
I may spy the darkened hues upon the shore edge,
where the waves, rolling in and frothing,
moisten the sand, giving respite from the glare.
There I may walk and delight myself
in leaving footprints, washed away only moments later.

I may smile at the footprints ahead,
and postulate that children’s feet,
in their smoothness and dimensions
are most beautiful of all;
that perhaps even in their tenderness
they are mocking full grown man,
even as an ageless angel might
mock an aging adult’s vanity,
knowingly, though childlike in form.

Then I may imagine the families
to which these children belong,
and laugh as an adult, with their elders,
for I may understand
that I too have lost the wisdom of my childhood
with its innocence,
and those children mock me also!

Then glance back down at my feet,
and wonder at the changes my weight affects
upon the darkened hue path of the wave break.
For as I step, the area around my foot
alters its shade. And I wonder
whether the depression draws in more water,
or rather the compression squeezes it out,
explaining the varying hues.
The waves roll in and break upon my toes and ankles.
I look out as they come in. It is enough walking.
Now I swim. The waves delight me,
and I wonder where they begin, and when they end,
for this is how I am wont to perceive things,
as they come and as they go.
I experiment with the waves, and play.
I dive over them as best I can,
or let them push me down,
or defy them as they break upon my face.
I swim into them, away from them,
along their length, or merely float,
head towards them, feet towards them,
leaving their force to direct my motion.

Then sometime later,
for I have lost track of length,
I am satisfied with the waves
(though I long to surf,
as now I understand the longing for this sport:
to master the waves, and use them as I wish)
and I head to shore.

I am refreshed, for the constant flutter of the water,
and the exercise I have had,
have massaged and invigorated my muscles.
Now I study the flickerings of the water’s surface,
the ripples between the waves
as they present a reflecting show of light,
the sun seemingly all around,
really dwelling within this surface
as truly as it does above.

I notice the temperatures shifting
as I move to shore,
cooler further out, warmer near the surface -
that barrier between the water world,
whose house I can only visit,
and my own, the world above,
where the sun is whole and blinding,
though soothing in its warmth,
not but a speckled patch of light,
seemingly indifferent, as it seems below the surface.

I arrive upon the shore, and set to lay down.
I hear the waves singing their rhythm;
Since I can not understand the melody,
their rhythm seems more transfixing.
And this too is soothing.

No – not for all these things I’ve mentioned,
nor many more which I have not,
do I hate the beach!

But as I lay there, eyes closed,
shutting out the star of day,
ears perked to hear the waves,
I am distracted from all these marvels, and mysteries.
And my eyes open wide,
now truly blinded, though not by the sun.
For as I look about,
the sands forgotten
(even the polished stones
who birth the sands, as if wifed to the waves,
who in wearing down these stones
father the sands)
and the waves no longer heard
nor felt, all thoughts of down beneath
and up above, vanished as they had come,
I see only one thing now,
and its horror engulfs me.

There is only flesh,
and the people
who give life otherwise to the bodies
I do not see – only flesh.
And blinded,
I can think only of the pleasures of their flesh,
not seeing how shallow,
how empty these fantasies become
when flesh is a dead thing,
or rather unliving
(for death implies that life has come before,
and their lives I do not know.)
And now, time is lost again,
but not in mystery, merely lost, as I am!

How can I condemn the beach,
whose treasures I enjoy, truly I enjoy,
though they may seem as teasers now,
and I may curse the beach for fooling me?
But how is it the beach?
Or can I blame the people
whose flesh I have removed from them,
being blameless myself?
But my flesh exposed is hardly to be ignored
any more than theirs.
Yet I do not wish to blame myself,
condemn myself for this flaw,
though truly it be my own.

This is why I hate the beach.