Spectral bridge over untroubled waters,
Another river under mirrors of light.
Rain floods the banks with shadows
And the bridge suspends the night.
A few hours longer into summer now
I walk along the Canadian shore–
America a thousand miles away.
Freedom doesn’t cross the bridge.
It is a causeway into economies
And politics polluted from the start.
Spectral bridge over untroubled waters.
It’s those untroubled waters–
That bridge-less flowing of unknowing–
That river of apathy and death
All cross like those without a country.
Month: June 2019
Musical Ruins
Listen, you can hear the walls
Collapse base lines of brick and mortar.
You can hear electric wires
Playing last solos of Woodstock light.
Piano keys compose dust into rows
Of musical crescendo and demolition.
Cellos moan like shuddering lumber,
Violins cry panes of splintering glass,
The acoustics rebound into emptiness,
Hours upon hours of practice
Keep tempo now with wind and space
And the young singer I once heard
In full voice behind a closed door,
Shakes like a tree and won’t give way.
Night of the Bay Moon
The bay moon crawls into the room
eight arms full of lunar presence
undulating with its own intelligence
writing visibly from within
it makes our skin all one color
before laying down on our bed
drawing in the tide
with the tenderness of its limbs
until we are the dream lovers
of each other
its reflection on the water
peering into its own distant eye
with a gentle voice that shares voices
with vanishing ink
Fear of Falling Farther
If birds weren’t flying
Would the earth be crying
If hate has a deity
Why any homogeneity
If music can’t unite
Neither can fire ignite
If people are regressing
Discourse is digressing
If global warming isn’t real
To whom should we appeal
If wars are to be fought
Can’t peace be bought
If government is corrupt
Can justice be enough
If honesty is not modesty
So much for polity
If leaves didn’t appear
What shade covers fear
If coastlines recede
Will politicians concede
If ignorance persists
Can civilization resist
Painted Turtle with the Earth on its Back
Just off the highway
my son saved a painted turtle
with the earth on its back.
I was a good father.
I showed my children
the symmetry of snakes
and the quicksilver of fishes.
I put their wings in the sky
and left them beachcombing
on the shores of wonder.
When they held up a stone
it was the birth of creation.
When they examined shells
the book of nature sounded.
The world moves slowly,
one child after one father
towards the good.
Zen Bowls
Cottonwood flying
like a snowfall
like a wilderness
planting all its seeds
Mandevilla flowers
spiral open backwards
transfixing the sun
granting the shaman a glimpse
The blue irises
in Van Gogh’s eyes
flower forever
in the fire of life
Sunflower sunset
level with the lake
at the solstice
from the cemetery
After the long rain
the climbing hydrangea
blossoms with butterflies
like Zen bowls
Written by the Left Hand
Means something grows equal
An equation is coming into being
Parallel lines move off into infinity
And at the vanishing point
It is our contention that things meet
It means when the rich stop lying
To the poor we can talk about politics
It means the end of violence
Can’t begin with violence
It means greed is the flower of death
It means that logarithmic spirals
Begin in black holes
Where the sunflower and seashell
Are repeated into quintessence
And the cosmos enters its fifth element
It means my left brain
Is connected to my right heart
It means my right hemisphere
Creates its own reality
It means I offer what is whole
Salvatore Ala 