Peacefully Sleeping Reapers
PEACEFULLY SLEEPING REAPERS (click to watch video reading) Crossing the river Saint Christopher scratched his ear and a mosqui…
Though he couldn’t see it from below
the man was astonished that the
ladder he’d leaned up against the house
extended into the clouds so he
climbed and climbed until he totally
disappeared
and from a certain point in the sky had the
sensation he was climbing down
gravity pulling him actually upward
in a cloud-ship’s harbor so vast he
couldn’t see them as hulls banked as they
were and piled on each other
to the top of space
He stepped down onto the ground and
marveled at its springiness its rainbowing arch
Birds wheeled upside down in a
yellow sky that flashed alternately
silver then gold
A distant calliope could also have been
his own breathing since a mile-high snow-deep
silence reigned everywhere
After the initial image of this poem I was actually going to
pursue the idea that once we’ve
embarked on a Path and some progress is being
made a quantum
leap extension or even flight takes
place by Allah beyond our pale
capabilities for success
a roller-coastering thrust that uplifts the
fragile but gaudy car of our selves we’re in
and we see ourselves sailing across a
canyon whose fluctuating abalone colors are
actual angel song
“Nearer my God to Thee”
our own disaster become
an averted disaster
epiphany
11/16/10 (from The Caged Bear Spies the Angel)
(Note: This morning’s poem, the ‘Eid al-Adha for some in this world, or the day before or after for others, after considering its enigma, reminded me of my Hajj in 1972, at the simpler Kaaba, before the giant stadium masjid al-haram was built… and the sensations of uplift and sweet liberation we felt…)