Where the Rainbow Ends

We begin this journey of life

Down a road we do not yet know.

We see the blossoms of the moment,

Costumed in dancing colors

That entices us like the bees,

To their perfumed petal traps

And we lust to gain their beauty,

 To glisten like the rose after a rain.

We watch the sun rise upon the distance city,

Turning the towers of glass to gold,

Shimmering like a river of riches

And our eyes serve us our breakfast of wants

Sprinkled with the sweet sugar of excess.

We glutton for the fat of the land.

Our stressed heart beats faster

As the grasp of our hands

Fills our veins with the empty

Calories of success.

We ignore the storms of warning

That dare darken our skies and the path

To our ever bigger car and grander house.

We fill our rooms with non-necessities

To gorge our obese egos

And we ignore the dust specks of reality

That swirl about the air to settle

Lightly upon our treasures

As if in echo of some ancient tome.

Not Home Sweet Home,

But ashes to ashes and

Dust to dust.

We do not see the light for the shimmer.

Our eyes are always to the rainbow,

An illusion of sun and water,

A trick of diffusion

And a lure to delusion.

We cannot own the colors,

But can we the Pot of Gold at its end?

But where the rainbow ends

Lies the mire of despair and truth.

When we reach the distance touchdown point

The rainbow fades away

With all we ever gathered

And we are left naked before the eyes of God.

June 2012

Photograph by Ronald W. Tipton, December 21, 2012, used by permission.

Stalker

STALKER

Who dat

Tap his cane

‘Gainst me doorstop

Loudly?

Stay aback, alack, alack.

Who dat

Dims my eyes

Eve’ to sunshine

Brightly?

Stay thy hand, oh man, oh man!

Who dat

Shadows me

With scythe and clock

Nightly?

Hold a spell, o hell, o hell!

Put up

Or shut up.

I will not go

Lightly

Into the hand of death this day.

My heart

Will struggle

To its last beat

Proudly

Before I go, oh no, oh no!

May 2012

All Souls

ALL SOULS

Moonglow on the tombs shown.

Stones like white blooms

On the slope of last years souls.

Beneath the ground not a sound,

No moan of protest

From the bones of last years souls

In the cities and the county

Walk the dying and the dead,

A bumper crop of next year’s souls.

May 2012

Full Barns

FULL BARNS

There is dust across the fields tonight.

The moon shines upon a forgotten plow.

Tomorrow in the dawn nothing changes.

The furrows remain unseeded, unattended.

The crop brought a banner yield at harvest

And the farmer took his rest.

He tore the old ones down and built anew.

Big sturdy silos and heavy wooded stalls

To hold all the grain and produce

Through the year and seasons to come.

He planned a banquet every day

And drank wine the very best.

He worked the summer long in the heat and dry,

Plowing in the spring and weeding through

Until the corn grew tall, the apples sweet,

For the cool crisp autumn harvest where

He took in his bounty of the labor.

And tore the old ones down and built anew.

“I’ll grow fat now”, was his jest.

So he filled the cribs to the breaking point,

He stacked the fruit up to the ceiling

And scattered wheat across the threshing floor.

“I’ll live a life of ease and merriment,”

And with that cry he challenged God.

Now these wait full for the burrower and thief,

Fine food to feed the pests.

2012