April has been
set aside by those that make such decisions as Poetry Month. Over the years
I’ve been lucky enough to have had poetry published in many literary journals,
as broadsides, pamphlets, teeny tiny booklets, and been lucky enough to have
been invited to conduct poetry readings at some fine upstanding locations in
Nevada and California.
This is one my
offerings in honor of Poetry Month. If you would like to offer one of your
best, contact me on Facebook. I won’t guarantee I will publish it here, but you
can bet I will read it. Remember, by getting published on a blog, it is
considered “published”, and other journals would need to know that.
Desert Love
For one barricaded by concrete and
asphalt, roped, chained, held in the grip of mass humanity and architecture,
denied a beauty not brought forth by man, the desert can be a forbidding and
foreboding experience.
The sights are splendor with rippling
waves of pulverized mountains, one on another, as at sea; glorious chasms
sculpted by millennia of vast storms, water cascading, sea upon sea; creatures
scurrying and bounding, dithering and fluttering, schools upon schools, as at
recess.
And the sound, my God, the magnificent
sound. One’s ears stretched thin by strains of wind passing through those waves
of sand, heaving and pitching through those seas of rain, desperately trying to
pick out the movements of living animals and birds, recessing at life.
When one’s olfactory equivalent of bliss
is diesel, a mid-summer rain in the desert is rejuvenation. Pungency from Sage
and Rabbit brush; soft and sensuous scents of Cedar and Pine; harsh sunlight
softened on Lichen covered rocks glistening in the mist offer a scent never
found in a city cell. Even the sand dust, wetted thoroughly, seems to offer its
own contributing piece of peace.
No steel, no concrete. There are no diesel
brutes shoving their way around. Asphalt is an unknown item here. Peace. Calm.
The only rage is from a storm of nature, not a storm of hate. Listen quietly,
closely, and you’ll hear those oceans of sand speak and sing to you late in the
evening, serenading even the lush choral offering of a coyote clan, or the
sprightly ballet of a near by thunder fed stream.
Foreboding, indeed.
Until next time,
read good books and stay regular.
Join me on
facebook from time to time?
Or Tweet with
me, darlin’?
Johnny, this takes the reader places where there is nothing but peace. Nothing but calm. Oh, how the busy, overworked mind needs some calm. Love it.
ReplyDeleteThank you. Peace was the desire as I wrote this. All the best to you. Johnny
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