Archive for the ‘Exposure’ Category

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2007-06-17 – Pythia’s traces

Sunday, June 17th, 2007 

What prevents your witness of this place
   but the urges of your blood
      and all the drama that follows?

Here, where the sun pours liquid, 
   you pass by in a vision
captured by nature's dream 
   of fitness and the raging of genes.

In and out of that still point 
   you turn like dream warriors
self-reflected in your inner eye 
   and in the stories you tell yourselves.

But past the end of the dance 
   something waits, still and serene.
It is the quiet moment 
   when your water's been poured
but hasn't yet 
   run down to the sea.

There, 
   there is no dance, 
no counterpoint, 
   no singing in the wires.
just a moment of freedom 
   to commune 
with the sun's blessing
   and to witness 
the rise and fall 
   of the fields of flowers.

Time to see the dance 
   and the singing 
      as if for the first time
without the urge 
   to spill yourself.
A time to witness the children's faces 
   smiling new at that same beauty,
before they begin, 
   that you can see, 
      now that you are done.

The puppy at play, 
   the gentle wind in the grass, 
      the light that can shine
 from an eye with love;
    be it animal, 
      child 
         or man.
That sweet blessing 
   behind the play of forms, 
      that beneficent something
 that embraces 
   all of this coming and going, 
      all the mystery and beauty.

Oh, Beloved, 
   carry my sweet Pythia away 
      into your light,
and, Blessed One, 
   whisper to her softly 
      how well she was loved.

                                          gallagher
                                            17 Jun 07

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

Posted in 2007, AAA - Recommended, Catalyst2, Monroe | No Comments »

2008-04-22 – Dreaming of my sons

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 

This morning, I returned from Starbucks 
and the house was quiet
so I lay down in the bed in the guest room 
and gathered the pillows against me.

I found myself dreaming of my older son, Dan, 
and he was small, perhaps five.

He was standing on a stool 
and we were talking about something together
and, in a moment of my inattention, 
he toppled off and fell on the floor.

I picked him up, scared that he was hurt, 
and stood him on the stool again
and held him 
checking to see if he was OK.

I whispered to him that he was brave 
and that he was my very special son
and how very much I loved him 
and always would.

I told him he was growing up so fast 
and that soon he'd be 17
and grown into a man 
and that this time of ours was so precious
and I hugged him against me.

And then, as so many times before, 
I awoke surprised and saddened
to find myself 
decades into the future.

The smell of his hair, the fineness of his skin, 
the trust in his eyes,
the warmth of holding him 
and the simple and profound love of that moment
were still there, as a warmth, filling me 
though he's grown now and almost 40.

I've had this dream, or something very similar, 
many times about both my boys.
Always the love, the the treasuring 
and then the awaking and the sadness.

I treasure these secret up wellings 
of my heart's past;
these deep emotional memories 
that bind me to these boys - now men.

I would call them and tell them what I dreamt, 
but I fear they'd think me
an emotional old man having a maudlin moment 
in the midst of their busy lives.

So, I'll leave these words here 
in my collection of poetry and thoughts
and, perhaps, someday, they will find them 
and share this moment with me, then.

A moment so very precious 
and present to me now
and yet so very lost and ephemeral 
in the curtains of time.

                                                 gallagher
                                                 22 Apr 08

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

Posted in 2008, Dan, Monroe, People, Poetry Collective | No Comments »

2008-06-21 – Under Many Stars

Saturday, June 21st, 2008

Here,
amid the weeds
of these centuries,
I rise.

Seeking light and warmth
from the soils and seas
of yet another world.

The long rise;
the single cell, the multiple.

We spawn;
fleet of form and bright of eye.

We gather and rise
in complexity and imagination
beneath another wheeling sun, above,
and the shifting plates, below.

Again and again,
we come to self-consciousness.
Spewing poetry and conquest,
cities and literature.

Proud and driven,
we sing the animal’s song …
but in a higher key;
as we procreate, build and consume.

And it is always the same rise …
and always the same fall,
just … beneath a different star.

We are technological children,
impulsive and uncontrolled,
pressed onward by those same
biological imperatives
that fueled our original rise
from the mud.

Those same imperatives,
now freed by our intelligence.

Those same imperatives,
now pushing us from behind,
motivating us,
while we stare into the mirror
of our imagined futures
and think ourselves Gods.

And all this
while we are sleepwalking
into our demise …
once again.

We think we are aware
and we imagine
that we see the game entire.

But while we are looking for enemies
outside the gate,
they are no further
than our next desire, within.

We, driven on
by our own biological imperatives,
will plunge again
onto that self-same sword
of our desires and greed,
untamed.

I have been many times before
and I will be again …
rising and falling beneath different stars
with different eyes and chemistry.

But I am the same one.

I have yearned for my freedom before
and I have died by my own hand.

But someplace among the stars,
I will rise once more.

And this time … this time …
I will learn to transcend
the very urges
that doomed me
in my technological
adolescence.

And on that very dirt,
after the long climb yet again,
I will finally find the path
to maturity and intentional balance
with the biosphere that birthed me.

And enter, then, into all of
whatever awaits … such as we.

gallagher
21 June 2008 – Summer Solstice
Monroe, Washington, USA

Posted in 2008, AAA - Recommended, Catalyst2, Monroe, Spiritual | No Comments »

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