In plain view

Saffron yellow, and here, for a friend

In plain view

 

Prayer and ink, subtle imaginings entwine.

Desire’s rekindled touch bridges this glance,

     lining my pocket in small

     intimate saffron whispers.

 

Fingers map texture, newly faced.

Tender embraces unreasonably rocked

     in slumber by fingertips, molded

     between breaths, cast in amber relief.

 

This yellow scarf of drawn words, traveling

distant and days with me, pocketed within

     warm stride.  Remembering you.

 

Wandering familiar streets, names becoming

untied by winds, reading these tea-leaf colors

     till words become, repeating sounds till

     resonance lands on the page.

     Journey’s full measure given reign.

 

In plain view I hold these folded pages

between fingers’ circling touch, this fond

alchemy moving unseen but listening.

     A smile grows on my lips.

 

     See what’s become of me!

 

Movement for the joy of nothing much.

 

Movement for a dancer’s veiled name.

 

 

Neil Reid © 1996

 

 

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Slender blue ribbons

Slender blue ribbons.

 

Slender blue ribbons of passage

trailed behind, sweeping down sky.

Feathered wings sing whispers into air,

sun on quills like a sail’s brow,

harbor dreams, blue mirrors blue

    approaching shadow’s feet.

 

Echoes traced the horizon arc.

Witnessed, myself and another,

a compass over an afternoon lake.

Some lesson from nothing much,

but for a moment, everything.

Gladness without reproach.

 

    Resilient air gave back the phrase,

    a tension sweet and released.

    There are greater curves

    than mine or yours.

 

    Silence full figured with voices

    just beneath speaking, a whistle

    to break a broken lost embrace.

 

That murmur took residence

as those wild ducks swung

down their dream, and into mine.

 

 

1996 © Neil Reid

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Bear in the river

Bear in the river.

 

I am too old to sing these songs again,

    the old bear thought to himself,

    wishing he was wrong.

He tried hard to remember the wise things

    he had learned in his life;

    at least one wise thing.

He tried very hard. Mostly without success.

 

Instead he thought of her often, each day,

    each hour; sometimes each breath.

Could not conceive a horizon without her face.

Would that the earth be her image,

    and he the seas, and sky and clouds to

    embrace and delight each borrowed breath.

 

It pleased the old bear to have these thoughts.

With time he came to know his heart was able

    to embrace this grace, and surrendered his resisting,

    let the wind blow down from the high valleys again,

    allowed the fish their play in the river without

    his gaze guiding them.

 

 

1996 © Neil Reid

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September’s first poem

 

September’s first poem.

 

I am learning to walk, slowly.

 

As it is less intense, it is become,

more deliberate. Like the trickle

of water downslope is deliberate.

Not imposed, but surrendering;

within the whole it gains by being less.

 

It is – irresistibly becoming, at peace.

 

 

1996 © Neil Reid

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