"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow." - Albert Einstein

Thursday, June 16, 2011

A Candle

Mere wax and wick.  But touch it with a flame - 
Like sudden fireworks!  The room's aglow.
But how it works, I doubt I'll ever know.
Each candle's different, but the light's the same.
It's all a jumble - scientific facts
Of heat and friction, waves and infrared.
But, textbook, if you can, explain instead
Why solace comes from simple wick and wax?

It's easy, really. Solace comes to soul - 
To starving soul - as little scraps of light.
What difference makes it if the scrap is real?
If mortal thing can break immortal seal?
O Incorporeal, let fleshly fight
Until its candle's just a lump of coal.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Not Blue

I.
You asked, "What color is the sky?"
I said, "You know as well as I.
It's blue, the shade of tears and dreams,
Of blood and love and lovely things."

You said, "I know more than you do.
The sky is every shade but blue.
It's red and green and brown and pink - 
It's every color you can think -
But never has the sky been blue."

I didn't speak.  I didn't say
I thought you were as mad as day
Is long.  But still it's in my mind,
The day my cosmos ceased to rhyme.

I didn't understand it now,
Because of you, your theories how
The sky had lied - had lied to me,
And given you reality.

II.
The silence asks, "Where are you now?"
I have no answers as to how
Reality just let you go
With nothing left to see or show.

Nothing left of tears and dreams,
Or blood and love and lovely things.
Just one same house with different paint
And thoughts I've learned to love to hate.
No, none of love and lovely things.

I never speak, I never say
Because of you and that one day - 
When you and sky blue went away - 
That day I learned Reality
Will lie to every man and me.