Leaves Not Turned

     It's been some time since my last post. That annoying little thing called life has gotten in the way of blogging. But I'm back at the keys, and here's a poemish thing I wrote. For the record, I don't write poetry. And certainly not free verse. I'm no Wordsworth. But in the words of a friend in reference to a Kandinsky painting, "feast your soul on this for a while." 

    

Spines rot of leaves

Not turned. Knowledge limitless,

Yet not enough. Head

In hands, spectacles

On the desk. Lenses of

Distinction. Of choice,

Lie beside the flower dead.

Spine bowed straightened

To stand. To search

For the spine fresh but

Covered with dust.

Gust of breath, of wind.

Clear the haze, the dust.

Stone rolled away

Like the clouds under

The sun. 

Not ink but meaning;

Not clutter but cleaning.

Something new under

The sun. The Son.

Head in hands no longer.

He stands stronger.

Straighter.

But good intenders

With noble intent

Miss intentions. In emphasizing 

The royal thorns

They become the thorns

That choke the meaning.

Spectacles clean, green,

The institutions lead

Him. Fingers steepled,

Or folded, he is told the meaning

Is convenient.

Bogged down in specifics

Is the danger. So they say. 

Bending to drink rather

Than drinking from cupped hands,

Watching lest

They misunderstand.

He follows.

Controversy covered

With heavenly sheet.

Robbing Peter but

Not paying Paul.

The spectacles of

Choice clouding again. 

His trunk branching out

With no root.

his ink becomes grey.

His ink turns pink.

Water, blood, and sweat.

My ink was written grey,

That it may either rot

Or be watered.

But his was not

Nor His.

It was vibrant and crisp;

It was dark, with a bondage 

Light; refracted through

That distorted lens called

Time and preconception.

If he loves the one

Who created the trees, the life, 

The light, the mountains, the seas,

Then what?

Does he stop at love?

Intangible? Unprovable?

Like a prostrate statue?

his ink says by no means.

The tree must blossom.

The fruit must grow.

So the roots must extend 

Deep into the leaves where

The meaning is clear and

The dirt is black.

Nourishment enough from

Spreading roots to press

Through the thorns.

To see without lens,

Undistorted, untainted,

Unspoiled. Above

The fog and clouds; yet

Still under the Son.