Poet to Reader

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Deep inside my silence
words glow like burning stones
plunging to dark waters.

Share with me my holy fire!
With joyful shouts,
we’ll flood the hidden rivers.

But if you leave
I cease.

My words die
without your eyes,
molder to
faded stains.

So come into my heart
and sing with me
this mystic chant!

We’ll be madmen,
hunting diamonds in the dark.

to the center

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Photo: Brian Federle, “Night”, 2014

the
beat
steady;
constant hum,
music of days to
night fading; the right note, only
song you know; sum of your days, falling, falling to night.

so
go
to the
center, to
the black place to wait
for Him. Don’t call out in fear for
there’s nobody there but you and He, so simply be

and
hear
how His song
fills your darkness with
light; smile at Him, your familiar
bright friend, and no longer will you fear your emptiness.

(23 Dec 2013)

Immanence

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I know you stroll
beyond Andromeda
gazing on Magellanic Clouds,
but I cannot see that far.

I am stardust
to Earth-fallen.

Yet I seek you in the autumn rain,
hear you singing in the evening wind.

Your breath fills my empty lungs,
your smile lights
my darkened eyes,
and my heart overflows
with your sacred blood —

love spilling,
Earth-fulfilling.

Gloria

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Photo, Brian Federle: Pacifica Sunset

Sudden light
flares in the eastern sky.

Bright clouds burst
and consume the void
with glory.

The newborn child,
wrinkled and pink, warms
in his mother’s embrace

and waits for the stunned world
to exhale.

(23 December 2012)

Flow

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It flows
over highways
dripping down
lamp-posts
through gutters,
pounding
storm drains,
filling
narrow lanes,
past dark houses,
past high-tension
wires, driving
through
constraining fence,
unfettered
it fills
the green hills
and rolls
through folding slough, past
low bridge and causeway,
ever lower
down to Suisun Bay,
unstoppable
like a swimmer’s blood
pulsing through throbbing vein,
reaching for gate of gold
to break free,
to become
one with
One.

(19 April 2011)

Contact

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I search the narrow rooms of memory
through steep, childhood hallways
under high ceilings, past dim, flowered lamps,
when, trembling, I hear echoes calling me
in deep tones of summer thunder
to our willow tree out back
just as the blinding lightning
contacts
and shatters the still-living wood.

Afraid,

but compelled by my father’s gentle voice,
I retreat
to another room
in my mind.

In the kitchen, at the top of the long, painted staircase,
I hear small, shrill squeaks and low, electric hums
coming from your ham radio set,
and walking down, I see you,
hunched in the red glow
of your magic box, calling softly
into your silver microphone,
“W8PNW calling CQ, calling CQ, calling CQ”

O lonely angler, you cast gossamer lines into the eternal, black sea
looking for a catch, any response, any acknowledgement,
but I’m with you! Standing by your shoulders,
I hear the distant human voice respond
“K8QJZ to W8PNW, receiving you loud and clear!”

I feel your joy of connection
as, quickly you fill out your special postcard,
(American Bald Eagles triumphantly unfurling your call letters)
to mail to your Newfoundland friend.

This, too, is contact.

Another soul found, identified, and filed
in your list of ham-buddies, and I grin with you
as you sign off
and resume your patient search.

(7/14/2010)

Suisun Spring

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Photo: Brian Federle, “Camping” 3-25-2008

the green glow
of our cottonwoods
newly clothed in the gentle April sun ….

our apple tree,
still skeletal,
intimating cotton buds
promising green glory to come,

and the grass!
all winter-yellow evaporated,
shouting like a
third-grade leprechaun
skipping across the playground
in the school’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

but most unforeseen,
along the rough fence
the vinca
blazing with royal light
in the deep, verdant shade
of our cottonwoods.

(12 April 2010)