When did the rains start?

When did the rains start

Far up in the mountains of nevermore?

There where blue moths fly

In the diminishing light,

In the mists beyond the dappled hills.

Where then was the beginning?

With no

Beginning,

How could the soft trills

Of chickadees

Arrive at last at the end?

If they had flown forever

From an infinity inclining

Deep and deeper into the past,

They would never have arrived at all –

Would they –

In the juniper trees

In the mists of early winter?

How did the ancient cart

Roll over the ruts of Malta

And down into the sea

By the lingering shore?

And so,

You see,

It’s as clear as it can be

That time itself is impossible,

An illusion,

That cannot be –

A smoke before the dawn, curling in the valleys.

Why look for a mist-bearded authority

To explain the inexplicable?

It seems we have misunderstood the nature of reality.

It is only a dream,

Not a thing.

Just an ancient scheme,

A vision,

Only a shining gleam

Flickering on the outstretched wing

Of the young raven,

Maybe a statement,

An intent,

A strange or misbegotten level,

A stilted

Statue placed high up on a pedestal,

Or just a phantom fading in the shifting shadows of the night.

Well, long ago,

Once upon a time, a drifting fellow,

An odd king of sorts,

Stumbled through pale courts,

His lies

Stemming from cowardice and a banality of weakness –

He walked with his hat askew atop his head – tilted.

Then in a blink, all of time–that illusion,

Like the seared leaves of autumn – wilted

And fell apart.

Now look beyond the shifting dust,

Beyond the rust

Of nevermore –

There gleams ahead – past the tumbled gates of time that used to be –

A mystery,

In the God-given arc of awareness,

At the owl-bright break

Of day,

The white-crowned sparrow

Dips his gold beak into the swift-running creek.

The tree trunks are black in the dripping rain of dawn.

The snow has come and gone,

All gone away

In the skies

Now can you hear the call, the cries

Of the loons

From the quiet, clear, listening lake,

Just below the meandering moon’s

Journey,

Just quite near

The startling canyons of the sunrise?

© Copyright, Sharon St Joan, 2023