Seed to Mulch

Dead Tree at Chatfield Reservoir: photo by Noelle

Dead Tree at Chatfield Reservoir: photo by Noelle

In grain an old storyteller’s life twists and turns. Withered like drift wood that never left home. Each adventure a ring and a knot. An audience of millipeds and the rolly polly beetle that roam the planks and hone the staff. Sun demands payment in chlorophyll and sap, while wind licks it’s length a child on a lollipop. There is no rest from seed to mulch, for even in death the performance plays on, a tale told in wood.

Tree and Earth

Dead tree on the bank of the South Platte River: Photo by Noelle

Dead tree on the bank of the South Platte River: Photo by Noelle

And the trunk said “I am alone here. My branches are dead and gone. My many roots are withered or taken by beetles. My leaves have blown far in the wind. No life moves in my bark, accept that which feeds upon me.”

And the earth said, “Come to me. For you have fed me with your leaves and opened me with your roots. You have held me to this bank, for surely the rain would have sent me to the river. Be at peace, my old friend and sink into my soil. Tell me of your years in the sun. For that story given, I will trade of how water rises to the moon.”

In Stone

Stone at Roxborough: Photo by Noelle

Stone at Roxborough: Photo by Noelle

Veins run deep. Pockets of distortion, pits and sticks. A landscape cracked and disturbed, stained and bleached from the sun. Colors soft, contrast drifting into shade. Solid, firm, reliable as an East wind. In stone a story I hear with my fingers.

Rain House

Free Bing Photos

Free Bing Photos

The dark water, the sky splitting open. Lightening spiking the blood. Such drama to no witness, but myself. All such storms are spent alone anyway. Hugs are offered. Drinks at the pub, but in the end you are alone and the wind whips up your thoughts into gale forces. A fever’s pitch, knocking shuttered eyes that seems to accent the steady ticking of the wall clock in this silent house of darkness. A mourner’s tomb. A sarcophagus of dried up memories.

I’m as dead as the blind mole brought in by the cat, and yet rage percolates below the surface waiting on my sorrow to sleep. The numbness in between feels like an isolated island in a forgotten river. I hunger for my anger, but I am as a thirsty man who sees the oasis, but worries it’s a mirage, thus his legs will not carry him closer.

Is not fire the sign of life still pulsating in the very veins of my loss? The still standing tree left intact after the path of the tornado. The longing to climb into the grave is held back by the very racking sobs that make me want to climb in. The pulse beats to the tree limb banging the gutter. Death haunts the eaves, while life pumps the generator that flicks on the light in the empty kitchen. Dark windows streaked with rain that hide the streams of my face nicely. One cup, not two, but the coffee tastes the same. Oddly, that is what comforts. The familiarity that still lives, waiting on you, as if the dirge never played.

Spring Snow

Snow at Raccoon Creek: photography by Noelle

Snow at Raccoon Creek: photography by Noelle

Snow on spring blossoms and turns the sky in shades of gray. The yellows and greens are gone today while slate and shake burrow beneath thick robes of white. Silence fills the afternoon where birds had been singing only yesterday. No mowers out for lawns and the garden gloves are in their buckets. Huddled in the house the quiet pulls up last year’s losses and leaves them in the compost for the flower beds yet to be turned. It should be a sadness that tugs in the silence, as my heart was hungry for the trail. Instead, in blankets of tartan red I absorb a last winter’s charm. In the dark afternoon blooms my peace.

Continent of Mud: Photo Poem 37

The story of mud: Photo by Noelle

A story in mud: Photo by Noelle

When I was young everything had to have order. I liked symmetry and balance. If there was a block of blue on the left, than there must be a block of blue on the right. A proper picture of my family home had a sun and green grass. Beauty was related to this curious and predictable pattern of things. I have left that land and wandered into a story of randomness and chaos. What completely lacks symmetry and order possesses the most exquisite beauty to me. A sense of inner balance discovered that clearly was lacking when my outer world was perfectly planned.

Mud over flowers. I am deeply happy here.