The Eternal Cycle

I. Eternal Sunrise

The sky forms rings

            warm colors and

fainting stars —

The orb does swallow up the dark;

            shriveling shadows, lost echoes of

            night — good night

cold night, but light —

good light

warm light

                        firing up the placid mirror

ripples of time and river…

Dissipation of solitude and mist,

            distant rumbling of a waking earth,

tapping of some long-awaited,

to say

            Good morning! Good morning!

The surface floats

and atop a hemisphere,

a burst

            expectant, happy and suspended

quivering — and a breeze of young life:

of life awaiting

                        of dissolved dreams

of simple thoughts and simple motions

            up up…

                        of clarity

lucid wakefulness, dreary light,

frozen steam

solid light

blackened gleam.

A warmth deferred,

            is cold indeed.

A snowflake partly shined,

            melts away its singularity.

A world halved, a

            halfway radiance.

A birth held still, a

            death postponed.

May the trees lean

            to some brighter days

            to soak, to eat,

            to multiply and

bloom!

May we the sleepers open up,          

to see, to feel,

to absorb

and never close —

            forever waking

            forever stretching

endless beginning

to never set.

So the leaps can never fall,

            the lift cannot cease,

            the flowers young in bloom

                        and unable to wilt:

            in this

eternal sunrise —

            and to rise and rise

                                    and yes, to rise.

II. Eternal Day

Now the shaking, vibrations,

The steady beating of soil and concrete and

                        glass and air

            do perpetuate the movement

of vibrant figures —

as the skin atop meat atop skeleton

                                                lift up

and with solid hands — search...

            ...create...and find within the trees…

some inkling of precious life and love, perhaps.

Where do clouds

            and blue skies

have their daily conversations?

            -about weather

            -about pitiful commodities and

                        economies —

does the sun join in as well?

(the words are masked by rain)

Here is the brightness of the cohesion:

the beautiful mix of maturity and youth,

            the vitality of dreams not yet washed away

by the storms of inevitable

but unforeseen:

                        fate, disaster, broken bones,

                        broken hearts and minds that

            do not heal so easily.

Eyes sleep not now — no rest until the rest

            is finished; sealed to the

promise of some other promise of…

                                    some strange

abstractions: paper cars and plastic houses,

mere wood to

            the burning passion

            the fiery infection that is

            forever lovable ambition.

Sunlight to the green that grows

so earnestly

                        under the blue blanket

                        (though sometimes gray)

and among the tired bustle, soulless music,

            through the continuum of letters,

            symbols — exaggerated destruction

that makes green more gray and blue

                        more gray and gray less gray;

and should the raising of brick forests

be the razing of the green one,

            or perhaps an integration?

So a multiplicity of sounds

            echo voluminously

as does the eagerness of such

strained light:

                        that white and colors

so willing and impatient

            to fill such entrenched voids.

So is now the time to do

            and cease the wait;

for eternal days mean not infinite progress —

bodies, strong and weak

                        can only last so long

before winds blow lifeless dust, these feeble remnants:

we sleepless beings,

            ghosts of day,

tread on for invisible stars!

Where is the end, shall we solemnly ask,

to replenish, to seek our

                        dear and darling reinvigoration;

fun is not found in these forevers of

work and play, work and play, work and

            play —

yet we should seize

            the precious light of day,

timeless and priceless, every trickle,

            to pay our neverending mortgage.

So we must and shall,

labor on!

            ...to push with mighty frail arms,

pull with wretched crooked legs,

in this

                        eternal day —

            and maybe in a very long time,

we could finally

                        crumple with

a final air, of

fleeting

satisfaction.

III. Eternal Sunset

The toil has become

            some weary lonesome task;

            a labor such that

even the skies have faded...

Melancholy is painted across

vast landscapes — striking through

                        mountains and valleys

                        land and sea,

penetrating the flower and the fauna,

            soaking them with strange feelings:

like despair, nostalgia,

a sad contentment

a hot coldness.

Soon the descent will arrive,

                        if not yet

arrived: here to steal

                        the glitter, the goodly

            sights of clear, poignant hues

that so succinctly articulates my

                        (and your)

wretched emotions,

            hideous expressions,

            and those sweet little

dots of beauty — do they call it love?

The irony of these dusk flames...

            ...to appear when the embers

            are dying, when the heat

has conceded to a new wave:

                        these waves of

persistent yearnings and laudable regrets,

scrapes of past and

            fear of future.

But future is beyond the setting glow,

            and the glow is forever —

so a soft happiness may

quietly

                        gloss over and

very hopefully

stay and remain as a pretty

            reflection of former glories,

a gentle comfort in goldened times.

And in this time

            the wind has cooled,

with shivering trees,

                        shivering souls,

and with the drifting leaves

whimpering, brushing through soft air,

            cascading down

            to the hollow ground,

laid to rest by

constant and intense gravity.

Waking stars, with a rising

                        moon —

decaying brightness fills

the deadening,

            passionate heavens;

where there is no heaven but

                        the red paradise

of dimmed

dimming...

            creation of starved children:

children of day,

children of night,

children of the in-between

            (the quiet beautiful forgotten).

Colors of warmth

invite the cold —

            such a welcome, subtle feeling

to lose the soul to

                        a kind numbness,

this slow infinite shift to

enveloping darkness.

Comes now when death

itches but never scratches,

                        the summit

                        past, but the climb

            unfinished

in this:

eternal sunset —

            where exhaustion

            where weathered wistfulness

can bathe in a final red-lit shining,

of ever

waning energy,

unable to cease,

unwilling

            to give.

IV. Eternal Night

Blankets of heavy oblivion

            fill the silent air —

still air — still not from

the lack of movement,

            but the shields of darkness:

veil of this buoyant void.

Points of light

            sprinkle the hanged sky,

held up by peaceful dreams.

We would sleep under

the moon:

                        the smaller

yellow sphere that so kindly

            offers up

the light to provide

            shadows

            nuances in our black-washed

world.

We could listen,

            to whispering willows,

them and their swashing

lessons: about

                        old age and

the withering effect of ambered

            growth, which halts

such basic motions but

preserves emotions.

And the mountains rise

                        to nowhere…

and the wind blows

            nowhere…

the silence echoes

            everywhere…

and the frozen atmosphere

paralyzes the ground

                        and air alike.

Bury the gems —

            the treasures that sink

by night; and smear

            the sculptures built

by now-skeletal hands —

waken the graves

                        that rise with

                        these night jewels.

To walk through those

                        misty, thick

choking shrouds,

            obscuring those hollowed

souls

weary bodies —

shredded egos,

forlorn identities that

            weep into pools:

gloomy fragments of

                        forgotten visions

                        abandoned hopes…

To drown in a sweet goodnight,

            yet that is not so sweet

but

rather sour and dreaded —

                        to know, to dread —

and perhaps, with

            a small dose of desire for

the lost cacophony;

the acidic noises

            of a reminisced day,

            now sullied by some

unknown blackened beasts.

To crouch under the solitary

            edges of insomnia;

cry and raise up

            (in vain) against the

weighted curtains

forceful currents that

                        do not wait

            and without mercy, no kindness

strike at us, the somber

                        pawns of

turbulent cosmos.

To sleep, and continue sleeping…

            and we could,

            we need,

a final sparkle for our

                        wonderful arcs —

ordinary and special,

            found with the fireflies:

all the same and all lit up.

And perhaps is now the time

            to dream of dreams,

where the final light is

the light of the

                        expended embers

of our once brilliant

            minds and hearts.

And in this

quiet unhinged peace,

                        when ghosts finally

            rise to celebrate and remember,

we keepers of souls can

melt

            into the beginning:

in this

            eternal night —

                        a final endless breath,

and a gentle whisper to enter that trance...

            and we would

dissolve.