DARKLY TURNS How dark the dreary morning torn when I awake to madness born What once held a mind said sane now draws forth a heart in pain I've need to purge my tainted soul to look beyond that deep cold hole My spirit clean no longer more seeks solace past the mortal door Soft 'pon the mist a knell doth toll So, weep no more my death-stained soul *** COME SOON When the darkness cools when the shadows fall light the bright candles and scurry from the halls.
Pad silently into night's rooms where judgement will ne'er prevail the shadows dash the regrets wherein daylight's memories dwell.
Snuggle you here, in the shade of night's retreat soothing vistas await you settle in and take a seat.
Release a breath now o'er the candle's flame that you may see...
And she who is the darkness will tease your spirit free.
Yonder lies your journey past the walls of your night's room.
Come roam the scape of twilight, Darkness beckons softly...
Come soon.
*** SCATTERED AND SPINNING.
thoughts tumble round in my head...
Aging...
Feeling my body more and more a stranger to me...
Finding my spirit more and more the vessel that carries me; than the shell of my flesh.
Failures and aspirations The future The past Loves - of my heart, my intellect, my spirit, my past and present.
Death Rebirth Futility Despair Hope Old thoughts and young thoughts Feeling old and feeling childlike Perceptions Ideals Philosophies Expectations Spiritual beliefs Moral beliefs Those dead and those dying and those who are yet to die.
My own death.
Disdain of society, the world around me.
Worry and fear for the world around me, the world in me, the world I am in - for Earth.
Loathing my own species, and hating that feeling.
Wanting to love the creatures we are, the animal I am.
Needing to connect with the oneness of creation around me, fearing others won't, fearing the demise of all creation.
Hoping for the demise of man, and being ashamed for it.
Wondering if I will ever know the answers, wondering if I did in some other time, if I will in some other time - wondering if I already know the answers...
Feeling small and insignificant in the cosmos, and loving it.
Wondering if there are others out there - knowing there are...
Wondering what my part in all this is, afraid I may already have glimpsed the answer.
Scattered and spinning are my thoughts.
*** CONNECTED Expectations fail me; my own.
Loneliness and grief visit me; my own unbidden, that of others: For I cannot not feel them.
Frailties of the body and spirit beat me down; my own injure me; that of others: For feel their anguish I do.
Hope emboldens me; my own enlivens me, that of others: For that light is cast outward.
Love and compassion warm me; my own enrich me; that of others: For we are all connected, on different levels; to different purposes and ends.
For life is not only one thing, or another; it is all things: It is more.
*** REFLECTIONS In each darkened teardrop, within the watery veil I see myself reflected; a ghost with tales to tell.
Shadowy and light - a collage of both; the juxtaposition of beauty and dread, weave to complete the picture; paint the colors the day has bled.
Yet beyond the tears of sadness, past visions of blue-gray pain, lies brighter memories...
in my images of the day.
E'en when twilight falls; and shadows fill the night, each darkened teardrop disappears, yet...
I can still espy the light.
*** THE NIGHT NASTIES It is late, or early; depending on how you look at it.
You are lying on your bed...
perhaps staring at a pattern on the ceiling; glowing red from the light cast by the face of your digital clock.
And maybe you have the TV on, the volume low...
a semblance of company...
a feigned human presence.
Or the radio, instead.
You lie quietly, and you begin to feel that white-hot pulse...
it feels like it burns brightest in your head and neck; a separate entity from the organ, that is your heart.
Then finally, the heart kicks in...
a counter-beat to the pulse; pounding against the bone of your ribcage.
Your breath, to your ears, sounds as if it is rushing through a tunnel.
Your still body tenses.
And then they arrive...
the "Night Nasties," the demons that rob you of sleep and sanity.
Just one, at first.
It scampers onto the stage behind your forehead; speaks its few lines, then scurries offstage.
And another hurries to take its place.
They might even approach in groups of two, or three...
quickly utter their disturbing words and depart.
But there, in the background, they congregate...
and they are rehearsing their lines...
for the next act.
And their garbagy spewings, like nimble fingers, abrade and gouge in the darkness backstage.
You can't hear what they are saying, but you feel them; flaying strips of your reasoning away.
And they just keep coming...
Auditioning for a part - in the lunacy.
After a while, you are unable to concentrate.
You cannot hear the "Night Nasty.
" You are aware, only, that it is gesticulating wildly; trying to get your attention.
It is just as well, this one has taken a turn on the stage inside your skull already.
You can finally sleep.
You slip under the gray cover of slumber...
and...
then...
the nightmares begin.
*** INVISIBLE Am I? My words...
read, sound, speak no different from yours;are they foreign to you? I respond, feel, think...
reach for you - extend myself.
Can't you hear, feel, perceive my presence? Are you intimidated, afraid, wary...
do you sense an otherworldliness in me you do not possess? I feel it in myself, and always have.
It is a blessing and a curse.
Yet, it is what has shaped me, formed me.
But do not let it distance you from me.
I feel what you feel - and more - I feel my own strangeness and alienation.
But do you not realize that my own foreignness is my view of reality, that it discerns you as different, and therefore alien and strange, too? What do you think when you *hear* me? Do you really *see* me? Am I as invisible as you make me feel? Would it bother you, if you were me?...
*** MESSENGER Soothe me, with your caressing touch.
Chill me, with an icy zephyr.
Push me, tug at me, with your invisible hands.
Comfort me; your whispering breath at my ear.
On that torpid, muggy summer's day, refresh me with your unexpected presence.
Sing to me, as you brush through the limbs and pine needles in the trees above me as I walk through the forest.
Howl your inconsolable mutterings as you wend your way around the corners of my house, tear through the alleys and cement structures of the city, bend your path around boulder and hillock.
Send me words spoken in secret in places I cannot see.
Share with me the recent past: the trace of perfume worn by the woman who, moments ago, walked this same path; the scent of a candle snuffed out wafting from the open window of a dwelling now dark.
Share with me the present: the balm of rain falling a few miles away; the musty tang of damp leaves on the ground; the scent of newly mown grass; the fragrance of fragile blossoms in new bloom.
Bring me whispers of children's voices, lovers' secret words, the tinkle of windchimes, the splash of a fountain, the babble of a river, the beat of the tide, the pulse of the city.
Play with me, as I sprint through the meadow, as I amble under the spreading oaks, as I walk the beaches of lake and sea, as I stroll down the country path 'neath a canopy of stars and moonlight.
Swirl the tall grasses.
Lift the limbs and leaves of the oaks in a dance.
Tickle the water's surface - shattering the sunlight into fractured glints of silver.
Spin the cooling night's air 'round me; full of the flavor of earth, and memories of the day.
Propel me into the future on your journey forward - for you are ever pushing on, beyond - take me with you on your speedy flight.
Companion, messenger, friend...
the wind.
*** I WANT TO GO BACK To the days when what worried me the most was what we were going to have for dinner.
And would I get to watch my favorite TV shows before I had to go to bed.
When the days passed by with no thought to time, only child-time: measured by the rise of the sun, and the rise of the moon.
When my room, my house, my yard, and my neighborhood were my world.
And, school...
But back then it held little importance to me, except for looking for it to end when summer breaks and holidays came.
Playing ditch'um, and tag.
Building forts in the trees; or digging them in a vacant lot, and covering the hole with canvas.
Fashioning space rockets out of discarded refrigerator boxes.
Play-fighting wars and battles.
Throwing a blanket over the redwood picnic table in the backyard and "creating" a clubhouse.
Climbing trees.
Hunting for lizards and toads and pollywogs.
Going to the drive-in movie, in my pajamas.
Kicking around the neighborhood with friends.
Sitting in the grass at night, and looking up at a sky full of bright stars, and the Milky Way Galaxy...
when you could still see those things in a clear night sky.
Going fishing, on a summer's eve, with my family.
Riding my bike, for what seemed like hours, but it didn't matter, because I was "on an adventure.
" Swimming on the hottest days of summer until my skin was shriveled, and my eyes blurry from all the chlorine...
I can't even put a time frame on these moments, not a year, or what age I was exactly...
or how long these activities I remember lasted when I was living them.
They just are...
there for me to reflect on.
A spot of nostalgia.
It happens every now and then, when I drive down the streets of the old neighborhood, as I did today.
The air was hazy in the late afternoon light...
and much of the old neighborhood looks the same, or I can make it so, in my thoughts with just a little mental tweak.
And it all comes flooding back to me, compacted in a single feeling.
Sometimes that feeling is a warm greeting; other times I simply want to cry with the realization of what passes too quickly, when we are too young to value it, and can only do so when it hits us in the now.
There is no going back...
but every now and then, I'd like to.
*** MID-DECEMBER 1986 A gray cold is seeping through the late afternoon, as I sit and gaze out through the chilled ice of my window.
As I look out over the rooftops, my eyes settle on the ash tinged smoke pushing its way out of the chimney tops.
The curling vapors partly obscure the faded and damp red tiles of the roofs.
Dead leaves of brown and ochre lay scattered on the ground below.
Now and then they twist up from the ground, then drift off, urged by the invisible breath of winter.
They are but castoff garments.
Their former owners line the streets and walkways, and stretch their gaunt and bare appendages to the gray sky.
They look vulnerable, naked as they are to the elements, but they are not.
They are the sentries of winter.
On the street below pass two people, a man and a woman.
Arms tucked against their bodies, heads down, shoulders hunched.
The woman treads past the man, wordlessly.
Puffs of frosty breath push past the man's lips, but no sound.
His breath obscures his features.
To what, or where will their silent pursuit take them? Perhaps to an inn, with a brilliant fire blazing in a stone hearth.
They might enter, and gathered at a large wooden table would be their friends or acquaintances.
Seated in heavy oak chairs the group would look up as they step through the door.
A few might be smiling.
Others are chatting, but stop when they take note of the arrivals.
With a sweeping gesture to the table, they would beckon them over.
Soft firelight reflects off the top of the table where a feast is spread, and steaming mugs of a dark brew await.
The man and the woman nod to their friends seated around the table.
They then sit down, and as if never apart commence in familiar rapport.
And yet as I watch their retreating figures do I wonder if they might not be going elsewhere.
It is likely they are not together at all.
Feet cold and wet, her wrap grasped tightly round her frame could she be secreting herself to a lover? Perhaps he is waiting for her now, eager for her to arrive.
Deep red wine, and silken sheets warmed by the fire near the bed wait with him in the second story flat.
He is listening for her approach on the stairs.
He then walks over to the fire and looks into the mirror above the mantle.
He tells himself to be patient.
It is difficult; he is so keen to be with her.
As he waits, he thinks about the love they share and it comforts him, stays his restless feelings.
Or could he be the lover?...
This man with his hands dug deep in his pockets, his head bent; seemingly not associated with the woman whose stride puts her slightly in front of him.
I will never know, it is not meant.
That knowledge is theirs only, as it should be.
I am just the stranger looking on, unseen.
Warming my solitude with mental pictures of what may be.
The street is desolate now as I watch.
Gone each to their destination, the man and the woman.
And only the walls of their dwellings will know if they are present or elsewhere.
Gone now, too, is the dancing sparkle of silvered sunlight on leaves.
Gone is the warm blanket of golden sun on streets and grass, on this day of winter.
They are but a memory, of a past season.
But in that reflected firelight on the table in the inn...
In the tall narrow glass of deep red wine, illumined from the fireplace by the bed...
And in the hearts of unknown lovers...
Dances the sparkling sunlight, and it heeds not the season.
Would that I were at the inn gazing into the fire, my hands round that warm mug of dark brew, the voices of my friends at my side.
Or mayhap slipping neath those silken sheets, my lover at my side, the glittering red wine within my grasp.
But I am not...
maybe tomorrow.
Maybe.
*** copyright © Kathy A Pippig (Harris)