© 2004  Ward Abel

From Shoreless Bridge, December

After all, it is we who have invented time, we who have actually created   

a concept of movement

staged as mass and energy within a perceived

space. 

It comes from limitations:  finitia, beginnings, cessations, starts, stops, births,

deaths...represented by clockfaces, calendar-boxes, odometrics, digital recaptures. 

When those limits are demolished, you can sit in a quiet room,

close sensations, and eternity gains relevance,

like the poinsettia who has no need for say.  Utterance only

implies

meaning, but silence is not so constrained:  

it truly represents,

placed upon a window sill.

Gray Highway

Gray Highway  

stretches almost due north

from Macon

into Jones County, and to its seat

(which is also named "Gray").

A double-meaning permeates

that pavement,

devoid of color,

melancholy,

always the quiet ride.

It was the path my grandfather drove,

taking me and my brother up

to Lake Sinclair,

past fruit groves

and massive stands of pine,

when summer once had real meaning

and distinguished itself

from all other seasons.

Now the highway is indeed

a gray wand that conjures the dead,

cutting through white and red clay,

green fields,

and the blue eyes

of grandfather's evaporation:

it reminds me of the shortened queue

of our traveled

gathering.

Morning Cache

Another chance at revelation.

Line on my face while driving

divides

late shadow and early sun:

eyes in that shadow,

mouth in that sun;

the former cautious, secretive;

the latter weak, open, willing.

Both in fragile combat.

Everyone else can see it,

the division.

Yet I can only see it

reflected,

where it loses a generation

there on paper.  Rear-view paper at that.  Less real.

Watered-down.

Blurred.  Once removed.

Let out the truth, I tell myself,

let it out so that all can know me full face.

But others are not the problem,  

are they?

Even knowing this,

I can't escape the dichotomy on my way,

flickering from roadside pine-rows,

filters for morning. 

I'll wait until night comes, I say to me,

I'll dash from this crop of my making

when such lines are more subtle

in that darkworld

fashioned by multiple turnings-away,

when others will notice less.

But others are not the problem,

are they?

This waiting for cover in word and act

is a problematic compromise

serving neither secretivity

nor open sky.

Yeah, but this is morning.

Always morning somewhere.

All poems are copyrighted property of Ward Abel.

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