A Song for Yip

What started as

A faint sliver soon

Grew into an arc

Visible in its entirety
Extending from

Front to back

Thrilling us

 Like a riddle

Taking shape

Before our eyes

A tribe in the making
In awe we stood and

Celebrated with a pact

Sealed by the rainbow on high

To find sufficiency in things

Painted and poetic

Evident here and now

Across the expanse

Of this perfectly marbled

Mauve sky

Tell me then Yip

Why oh why
Can’t I 

*  *  *  *  *

This weekend we walked to the head of Weesuck Creek around sunset and saw the full arc of a rainbow take shape over the bay.  I'd never seen anything like it.  What a steady hand and eye it takes to work on that scale! I never realized that it takes time for Nature to work colors into the canvas just the same as for you and I.


This was the first segment to appear:

A few minutes later my wife pointed to the Southeast where we saw the other terminus:

And as the sky darkened the arc gradually and triumphantly emerged in full display:

On the walk back home I wrote my poem for Yip.

Dreamscape - 1

As if from a dream
I woke and slipped into
The silver lining
Of my new dream coat

Stepping onto the balcony
I bathed in the ghostly glow
From the perigee moon now
Obscured by a thick cover
Of low scudding clouds

Everything shone
With an innermost light
Even the porch railing
Shimmered with
Bio-luminescence

As there in the deepest
Yin of the night
I beheld the vapor trail
Of Eternal delight everywhere
Around me stirring

Ralph Blakelock - Moonlight

Red Notebook - 1

Today there occurred to me
Two more reasons to write --
Because a poem may either
Be fashioned as a meditation
Or else as a way to summon
The courage once again
To hold the pen upright
And push it along
To the bottom
Of the page

Independence Day, 2014

The 4^th of July

Was a very rainy

Day out here on the

East End and I ended

Up wasting the better

Part of the day writing

Drivel of one kind

Or another

Without much focus

Or clarity until it

Finally struck me

How a house in a storm

On a day such as this

Is a perfect metaphor 

For the very idea of

A poet such as myself

Beset with self doubt

The trees to the left

And right of the front door

Showing all kinds of distress  

Being buffeted about by the lashing

Wind and rain and yet

Able to preserve a sense

Of total dry and calm

In an interior realm

Almost indifferent

To the ultimate outcome