The brittle graying wind sputters its last,
Get low, get low.
The aimless darkness, red to the last,
Too tired, too tired
So let us celebrate
Nothing to lose
Nothing to win
Clean, free blows, all unawares,
Open heart,
Open sky.
Joy for stale weeping buds
For springing green steps
For all the blue dizzy climbing
For all increase and debit
Here it is, here it is,
You don’t even have to take it.
I first posted this 4 years ago. Here’s a reprisal in honor of Bob’s Nobel. After “Song to Woody” by B. Dylan
Hey, Bobby Dylan I wrote you a song
It ain’t very short, on account of it’s long
‘Bout the songs that you wrote when you were a sprout
And the trouble it was to figure them out
So here’s to Dave and to Eric and the rest of your buds
And to the bottles and pints of delectable suds
That you downed with your pals all through those years
I’m surprised you’re still with us after all of them beers
Well I wonder what “Maggie’s farm’s” singing of
Or what “statues made of matchsticks” have to do with true love
I’ve often suspected that most of the time
That there’s nothing you won’t do for the sake of a rhyme
But, hey, Bobby Dylan I know that you know
This stuff I’m a-saying is pretty dang low
Considering how many folks you’ve inspired
Though exactly for what I’ve often inquired
There ain’t no good reason for another damn verse
But I said this was long for better or worse
Here’s my big chance for a Bob Dylan rhyme
So the graveyards and box cutters, all for a dime
One soft-winded luck-drenched
Park bench afternoon
While dust motes drifted languidly
In and out of sunbeam streams
Eyelids too closed to bother
I dreamed of life
Of love-stained moons
Lake-bound loons and the stars
And a vastness so supreme
Only a poor cosmic ash of a
Barely dim spark
Could comprehend it
I dreamed of the gravity of gravity
Of the long loose distance
Between here and now
Of the slow dip of the long journey
The road moves easily within
And without the fortress skull
At a whim
At an ungrim wager
With vaporous fate
I dreamed of how in old age
The bones of our deciduous dreams
Absurdly seductive
Still nudge us toward the impossible
Having arrived at which
We stare longingly behind
Long ago, the mantis was young and slender
As a new formed blade of grass,
And tipped and tumbled at the vaguest breeze.
Enormous food-bearing beasts abounded,
But his poor wee jaws could only open so far.
He could only eat mites (he favored red ones).
Then one day, something remarkable happened.
As he sat hungry, near a gargantuan useless breadcrumb,
A tiny ant appeared, ripped a piece from the crumb,
And carried it away.
Then another, and another came.
Tiny, yes, but many, many mites
Could not equal the weight of just one ant.
And there were hundreds,
For the trickle had become a stream,
Hour after hour.
The mantis ate like a fat king.
And fat and large he became, king of all
Within his hideous grasp.
No grasshopper, no June bug so boisterous
It escaped his perfected skill.
The little ants that nourished him were now ignored,
Out of favor against the panoply
Of hulking nutrients.
Then, for no apparent reason, the days grew
Shorter. It was damned chilly.
Not so bad in itself, the mantis thought,
But food was getting harder to find.
There were those niggling little ants.
Not even a decent snack.
The Mantis was himself grown huge and ponderous.
He sat for hours, hands in position to pounce,
But no food presented itself.
Bye and bye, he fell from the twig,
Exhausted.
First, one tiny ant appeared, ripped a piece from the mantis,
And carried it away.
Then another, and another came.
exiles child 