The road to Nowhere
is paved with good intentions
Not Hell, but Nowhere.
Nowhere is a spot
on the side of the road where
hope ran out of gas.
Don’t blame intentions,
they’re only a starting point.
Next time bring a map.
Bring along a friend.
Travel roads paved with laughter;
they lead to Somewhere.
#27
I wrote a poem to save trees.
A Han Shan poem to dangle like a leaf
in an endangered forest.
The forest was saved.
The poem removed.
And now you want to rehang it but don’t you see?
it would be like trying to re-attach a fallen leaf to a tree.
The life force disconnected, it could only be a sad thing,
a dead trophy.
Instead we should be writing a new poem,
a poem to the trees
wishing them well.
A poem to all the other poets whose words stayed the bulldozer.
A poem to the people, all the people,
who will one day walk the forest and think,
“How wonderful.
This is the forest that poets helped save.”
#26
Even though I didn’t see
my poem hanging from a tree
The Han Shan poetry project saved
a rainforest from the ‘dozer blade.
Now I have a choice to make
Should I agree to let them take
my poem and hang it up again?
I must consult my poet friends
and speak of poetry and of ethics
to see if I can gain perspective
on conflicting thoughts and issues.
Stay tuned readers, to be continued…
#25
We try to be the best we can
but if we do not understand
what that best could really be
we’re missing opportunities
to plumb the depths and reach the heights
of all the many things we might
achieve if we just looked inside.
Do or do not – there is no ‘try’.
#24
There are daisies ‘round my door,
purple daisies ‘round my door,
nodding as the errant drops
land upon their sunny tops.
Raindrops like a leaky faucet
running a Rube Goldberg gauntlet
threading convoluted jigs
through aspen leaves and willow twigs.
Slither, plummet, then rebound
another inch towards the ground.
Gravity is gently calling
to the raindrops wildly falling.
Closer now they group then dash
apart in one last valiant splash
and leap one more time before
they bop the daisies ‘round my door.
The purple daisies ‘round my door.
#23
Ripples in a lifetime.
Wrinkles in a dream.
Choices like a pebble
tossed into a stream.
See which way the wind blows
by the bending trees.
Ripples in a lifetime.
Wrinkles in a dream.
Ripples in a lifetime
Wrinkles in a dream
Don’t be looking down
when you’re climbing up a tree.
Hold your breath and float
like a feather on a breeze.
Ripples in a lifetime.
Wrinkles in a dream.
Ripples in a lifetime.
Wrinkles in a dream.
How deep is the water?
Deeper than it seems.
Rainbow’s to the ripple
as the sky is to the sea.
Ripples in a lifetime.
Wrinkles in a dream.
#22
Mornings after rain
are filled with new beginnings,
sunlight, and wonder.
Sunlight through water
kindles rainbows and a dream
to follow ‘til night.
Night brings the release,
sparks and rumbles in the dark
‘til morning shines through.
#21
When I think I know how the path unwinds,
know the twists and turns like the back of my mind,
even now, and now and then
the path turns back on itself again.
#20
I cannot trust someone who can just walk away
from an unpicked berry patch without
at least one wistful, backwards glance.
There’s always one more spot, a little farther in,
where the berries sway tauntingly
heavy and purple; wink seductively
from behind leaves and brambles.
I have a gatherer’s soul and, barring
bears and stepped on hornet’s nests,
I am genetically compelled to fill
the bag or box or ball cap.
It’s not greed that drives me,
it’s a deep rooted survival instinct.
It is physically painful to leave an eligible berry
hanging.
And yet they come, these sport gatherers,
picking just enough to put in their muffins.
No thought for jelly spread lovingly on winter toast.
No plans for how to fit just one more bag of berries
in the freezer.
Laughing and chattering like magpies.
Do they feel the eyes of a thousand years of gatherers
watching them, guiding their hands,
steeling their resolve?
Do they see the primordial link?
The purity of the simple act of picking berries?
I see my hand move and know that my great
grandmother to the nth degree once moved
her hand the same way, once
hefted her heavy basket and thought of how
the spoils would feed her family.
I feel a weight of responsibility to pick,
to store, to preserve.
No, I cannot trust someone who can just walk
away from an unpicked berry patch.
#19
Silence infiltrates music
wraps itself around each note,
framing melodies like negative space in a picture.
Music seduces silence,
awakening the longing
of a soundless soul to dance with eyes closed.
#18
Linda Studley 