This terrain is unfamiliar
long vistas of green and golden fields
and to the side dark ravines
quicken alertness and care
to avoid hollow fruitless depths.

A gathering of souls
beckons me back to be among them
to tell of my journey, my vision.

But I carry with me shades of the ravine
attached as doubt.
Someone told me to be myself.
An odd order,
for who else could I be?

Still…
just about the time I think I know
my self
it is eroded by swift waters
sweeping by and into me.

I dive nose first into your inner essence
there in your yellow *******
your mighty flowering all the way from your roots
in the succulent whiteness of your blossoming being
you reveal to the world what it means
to disclose, expose and surrender
your deep secrets
to all who stop to take notice,
to him who planted and nurtured you
to your magnificent wholeness
to the creator of the universe
in which you flourish.

Your scent is a hint
of the mystery which is you
my sweet magnolia blossom.

He is walking slowly where step by step
measure by measure in the lush meadow
he plays a dulcet meandering air
inviting me to join him there
unbound by dark and foreboding forces
of the viral pervasive present.

I join him and we fly to the open plain
recently refreshed by rain
Oklahoma and its green fields
where the spirits of Native peoples reside
and in soft spring breezes glide
and remember their ancestors’ names
and the simple childhood games
they played kicking up dust of earth
in earshot of their mothers who gave birth
to those precious souls and bodies brown
made of love and Red River and ground.

The flute’s tune again catches me
in its lively streaming strain
and pulls me up to airy heights
to join the dance of darkness and light
in spirit realms where beauty
and reality tango together in peace.

Being here in this creative moment
shows me the power
residing inside of me
if I but pause in silence
or on the wings of soft music
and abide in this space
for just a little while.
Sigh.

Watered in the heat and fervor of summer
the sage explodes its magenta glory
bees buzz and feast on its nectar.

It captures the sun
smiles and giggles its delight.
It is a joy to see life burst
and stir a flurry
as the zeal and vigor of its limbs
cannot be contained.

I too need watering
in this infernal season
of clashes and wrangling
seemingly determined
to turn my verdant soul
into a desert.

A meal of turkey and fixings
an afternoon of repairing her fence
making a shelf unit for their dining room
all these grand efforts
would feel good
and might get me noticed
but what about a smile to a stranger
a call to my cousin
putting away my old neighbor’s garbage can
smoothing my wife’s hair as I pass behind her easy chair
waving at the new guy on the block who doesn’t know me
bringing a cold drink to the yardman?

Going small
is better than nothing at all
when I’ve talked myself out of the big deed
due to time, tired, bruise or bleed.

here I am in this piece of time allotted to me
in the warm currents
of your precious heart

Mourning
By Glenn Currier

I saw the woman kneeling at his grave
weeping at his premature departure.
Were her tears a liquid bridge
between their love, their passionate past
and a new still aborning present?

My heart ached for her
thinking of the way they gave themselves to each other
and to a greater cause
wondering
and hoping
his life was a small stone
for building something
beautiful.

“To write is to go looking for what I don’t even know myself before I write it.”
- Annie Ernaux, winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature

I went into the dark canyon
not knowing where it would lead -
another adventure
taken up to pursue a dream,
my hand holding the reins
not knowing what lie ahead
nor what I was looking for.

The notion that led me here
words in my head
the meaning of which were a cypher so cryptic
I knew not what quest I would wrest from them.

But I had been told that this riding
was an exploration of the unknown.
That I was just a hapless pioneer
in a borderless land,
a wilderness
requiring a spindly surrender.

Leaping from below the sands and receding surf
his head held high and proud
breathing salty breeze.
Sea creature or thoroughbred
what would he do
upon clearing the sandy womb?

I stood there in wonder
poring my darkness into his
hoping his silhouette legs
would emerge before the sun fell.
I yearned to feel him splash his majestic self
up to me.

I’d ride him away from the darkness
looking for light
encounter creatures of the night
on the edge of the sea.
My horse and me on this gusty spree
are one in this seascape
running free.

Your voice crackles like red logs in a camp
singes the tiny hairs in my ears
burns in my numbered parts
eddies over the big stones
rolls pebbles left and right as if looking for a place
to lodge and rest, away from the pounding environment.

Your long and insistently unruly hair
tickles the tiny places inside
that never thought of being tickled
never figured to be touched by your hidden wildness
the disguised untamedness
stirs my groggy languid waters
your wild, full flushed heart pounds
rhythm into my flat languid and resistant plains.

I am a sandy arid desert dotted with cacti and pigweed
thirsting for the fluid you excite with ease
and draw up from my depths.

Songs erupting from the well of your faith
come forth from your sober mouth
and waft over our sallow selves
over our normality and our implacable comfort.

Your vocal chords echo Leonard Cohen
a pursuer who never found the object of his quest
but you do not deify the journey
like so many traveling troubadours.
You rest assured of your place up yonder
the place safe and secure in green planet that is you.

I get so tired of one religion
tearing down another.
It seems so cheap to me -
a protestation better muted
in favor of a simple act of helpfulness.

Dew collects on each tiny blossom
reflecting on
every pedal and sparkling
anger, blue, white and new
morning light multiplied
sapphire makes broken dreams worth it

Gentle arrhythmic plinks
down from the plumbing vent
through the stove hood
then plink-a-plank-a-clank        clank    clank  
clank   clank  clank clankclankclank
the roof rumbling now
soft flashes beyond the blinds
the deep throated distant thunder
tumbling over clouds and air
into our living room
where
I am grateful
for a dry pad and pen.

I have heard the word as a condemnation
by a religious hierarchy
which meant a severing of ties with a wayward sinner,
ostracism the worse thing for
one interested in staying -
this loneliness and pain desired by the keepers of the norm.

But I think of those with whom my communication is ex.
Al, my former close friend who turned his norms onto me
Jackie, a good and loving woman now gone
James, a man who no longer wants to have lunch with me.
There are a few more
who’ve wittingly or not
closed the door
but in every case a kind of sad weight
abides near my heart, a pain that literally aches
with tears just behind  my eyes.

Being wrapped in your love
feels so good on a wintry day
makes me grateful even for the gray,
for this life I get to live with you
and the spring that soon will break through
the browns and the downs.

There are leads on my chest
to detect any vagaries within
but you are the best heart monitor
circulating in the deep vessels and chambers
checking what pulses and moves in me.
I trust you there
in the darkest parts of me
where life wanders.

I wonder if poetry is
a humble attempt to reduce
the magnificence or terror of dreams
to words.

May I be infected
with a sureness
of your love

May it spread within me
like an IV flowing confidence
in my okayness

In the face of fear
and desperation may
I be a cove of calm presence

May you be well
whole and robust
in every cell

In this time of solitude
may I encounter
the awesome power of now

But does a lover ignore his beloved?
Do I think you get used to it?
Like a flute playing in the distance.
Do I think you blind or deaf
to my silence
to the bustling dreary me?
Do I think you are immune
to my flight?
Do I hope you are dough waiting to be kneaded
assume you are accustomed to being unneeded
or do I wear
a dark cloak glad you don’t see me there?

How often do I blithely
utter, I love you
while wrapped secure
in the loaf of self?

when I need to be awakened
and my writing confidence is shaken
when I seem to be too far apart
in urgent need of loving hearts

where there’re too many un-live things
and I need to hear a poet sing
the times I need a different take
or can’t move on from some dark ache

I want to see some twinkling stars
and leave the shades of stinking bars
or caught in dark of hellish nights
and seek a flight to brilliant heights

With a bleak wan smile
she confided
when she went to the restroom
she noticed she had not flushed the toilet the previous time
and I could hear a hint of fear and regret in her voice.

For two weeks the pain on the left side of her back
was still there
and an awkward limp
when she got out of bed.
She spoke with a dripping sadness in her words.

In a slightly bewildered tone
she traced her arrival at home
from her visit with her aging nieces.
She reflected on their continual drone about their medical conditions
as she listened mute
without her usual
lively witty
response.

It was as if she could almost feel
the slow creeping shadow
of senescence
and mortality
behind her.

I was again struck
and gratified
by the surprising
frankness of my eighty-six-year-old cousin
as we chatted and each recalled
our Thanksgiving
encounters
with kin.

Like a film filling space one frame at a time
it falls together seemingly by accident
but before I know it there it is –
a story, a revelation
a dawning
an aha! moment.
And I don’t even think about
the minds that came upon the ideas
images, humor or drama
together.

I should think about that the next time
a series of seemingly unconnected events
fall upon
or into me
with a surprise ending.

You are a valve I can turn
to open the flow of love
into my day
into my heart.

When I think of the stars and galaxies
capable of capturing your notice and care
the splendid finitude of your love for me
pierces my heart.

It’s early morning
as he starts down the rocky bank of the lake
he slips
his rod and reel in one hand
his other on a boulder to break his fall.
Already fishing, I am about to laugh
but I see the consternation and fear
on his face.

Late that night we sit up
reading a favorite writer
who never failed to transport and beguile us.
We laughed
remembering a previous predicament
we had barely escaped together.

Comfortable moments of quiet
just thinking about what we had read
trying to make it fit in to each of our so-called separate lives
back in the so-called real world.

But I wonder if those times were more real
as we re membered the body of our friendship.

Down from the gray mountains
you caress the emerald foothills
bejeweled with low lupine and lilies.
Storming across the plains
and fields of lively grain
you rain your glory on red winter wheat.
Barley and corn
spring up from ancient soil
eager to be young again.

By the time you ruffle the hair on my arms
you have inhaled gold
vital essence
spread it lavishly on the land
and so you arrive inside me
and sow your quiet liberty
and wisdom in my soul,
you my lovely magnificent muse.

Welcome back.

Justice, justice
You lay sweetly upon our souls
this morning
after the turmoil.
I wish you were not so rare a visitor.

Early morning when I get up
I am in a fight with the dark forces
that inhabit my bones
and haunt my mind.

And I have a choice:
heaven and life or the devil and death.

I am neither all sinner or all saint
I am a break in the fence
easing the flow through boundaries.

Do you know someone who heals,
in whose presence you feel whole
you do not have to bow or kneel
nor beg nor fool nor cajole?

Do you know another whose care
and ability to reach inside
erases doubt and lays you bare
your doubt and pride are laid aside?

Distrust in me is the boulder rock
that averts, delays and hesitates,
stems the tide and sadly blocks
the flowing stream of healing grace.

“As a Royal you were always taught to maintain a buffer zone between you and the rest of Creation” – Prince Harry

I was a working class boy
from an oft-reeking neighborhood
there south of Greens Bayou
where a north wind
made us breathe rotten-egg air.

I was no royal.
But when I read the Prince’s quote today
I wondered if my mom’s childhood-induced fears
imposed a buffer zone on me
to protect me from the tough guys
whose dads ground pipes and did wiring
in local industrial plants.

Years of drinking beer sitting in the rear
I watched bar fights and felt Mom’s fear
as surely as if she’d been sitting near.
I didn’t stay in the Scouts long enough
to learn the stuff of being a man
didn’t hunt with my brother
and learn from him how to take a stand.

Now an adult, I’m sorry I wasn’t wild,
too bad I became too shy and too mild
shunned risk and danger, stayed too clear.

Was it some thin metal strand from me to my mama’s fear
that robbed me of things that make a man?
I know I learned empathy and gentleness from her
and hold not a shred of anger
for her or Dad who worked so many hours
away from that field of dreams.
I know their love saved me from violent extremes
and made me cherish God, music, and art,
tragic, as well as sensual, and exquisite scenes.
So here I sit writing
reflecting with preludes, green plants and memories.

Harry, Prince the Duke of Sussex, Spare, Random House, 2023, p. 54

Her dark hair, red lipstick
slightly weathered but alluring face,
the swift efficient way she poured our coffee
a slight sheen of sweat on her cheeks
evidence of her ownership
and hard work at her cafe.

My friend and I having fished from the shores of the nearby lake
from first light
now basked in Pat’s femininity
strength, confidence, and congeniality
as she took our order.
We smiled knowingly at each other as she left our table
our mouths watering as we thought about
her and her pancakes-and eggs-breakfast.

She was never that close to her mama
who wished her kids independent
but there was the day mama taught her to drive
out in the field where the only thing to hit
was the single large oak in the middle of the pasture.

The old stick shift was a challenge
requiring all the coordination of legs and arms
the teenager could muster.
Then mama left her alone there to practice
and she was glad being by herself,
the intimacy of learning to drive with mama made her uneasy.

Being sixteen and able to drive
a turning point for her
able now to get away from home
to find boys with her friend gave them a thrill -
adulthood’s first stirrings.

They searched for dance halls
where Cajun musicians played
fiddles, accordions and washboards
and she danced the two-step
and boys showed off their moves.

Her mama gave her a rite of passage
with those driving lessons
cut her loose into a wider world
where she would go to India
have her first baby
and practice loving her children
into their own adulthood.

celebrity TV interviews
preening for the screen
they leave me hollow
but what am I expecting?
authenticity?
ha! rare if not impossible
as the camera shouts at the soul.

audacious introspection
from one who thinks he is enlightened
in a special way
blissfully unaware of the grip
of ego.

i say this aware
and repentant
of my pride.

So many hours of each day
I go about doing all the things I want
accumulating long moments
without a thought of you
but when I do stop to notice you
to commune I am again renewed
and filled with your love.

May I take a few long or short moments
with you each day
for refills.

I’ve said only half-jokingly
I’m a slow learner
of life lessons.
I was wondering about snails
if they learn as slowly as they move
but does our species
ever learn
really absorb
even the basic how-tos
of saving ourselves and our planet?

I might never sate my appetite
for ice cream, tenderloin, or fried fish
but sometimes
it’s hard to empty myself
and make room
for the other fella’s little world
or for God.

It is predawn and still dark outside
but I cannot sleep.
The cool of aching winter calls
but the oaks, still green,
soon their leaves will fall
like me who so easily slips away
from the grasp
of the universe
that always beckons me to join
the elements of its peace.

But too often
I choose the storms
the collisions
and scattering properties.

How sweet it is to close the distance
between us
to find each other
and dwell together
in moments of love, respect,
mutual admiration,
and laughter
that seem so rare
out there,
to abide in sweet and precious harmony
for a while.

Before I woke this morning
this title was peeking through the cobwebs,
eventually waking me before dawn.

Now with Bernstein’s Grofe Grand Canyon Sunrise
is playing before first light, violins barely audible,
mules waking up with their weird wail
ready to hit the high trail.
Those magnificent odd beasts.

My old body still  dull,
my left hip protesting the early wake,
my brain puzzling with this title
me saddling the mules
for their trudge down the curvey canyon walls,
young adventurers on their old swaying backs.

Here I am looking out over the trees beyond the back yard
into the gray dawn.
I write with the thought of visiting my old friends
on the poetry website,
they probably wondering where I’ve been for the last several months
with  nary a word posted there.

Last night, the Beatles’ White Album played,
those young shaggy heads
awake with popping images
tunes and words tumbling from John and Paul,
they  too, like me, oblivious of where the trail would  lead.

Put me back together.
That’s what the Great Spirit is trying to do
between my synapses
while they still stir up there in the attic
among the dusty old books and broken furniture
and the all but forgotten dreams there
among the silverfish.

Recently Moses was trying to teach me and the new generation
in Deuteronomy
before they crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land.,
his old body still holding on in the mountains
where he would finally be laid to rest.
I  never thought I would get anything from that old book
but Moses had one more old mind to reach.
I am grateful his words were preserved
for me before I too make it up
beyond the top of the mountain
finally put together.

One of its legs was broken
right atop the spring’s coil
the edges of the old wood
rounded and stained from rain
and oils of veined hands
hands of lovers who chose to toil
for a month of years
for their sweaty families
in from fields and factories.

This fallen veteran of wars
its leg broken in battles with the wind
and the weight of wet sheets
battles for dignity and respect
walking tall in clean clothes
to Sunday church.

Church where the broken are joined
bound to brothers and sisters
in union with their God
hanging together on the silver spring of faith
and their resplendent love.

I took the train into the tunnel
the car lit with candle glow
there standing just so
my brother with a wan look and a slight grin
I leaned to kiss his forehead, felt the taut skin
Mom across from him,
I placed my cheek against hers
two tears from the deep cavern of her sadness
fell on my constant brow  
Dad faced me with dazzling cheer
eyes full of joy that his son was here.

Awakening from the abyss of night
I arose with a smile inside
grateful for an intimate ride
with that poignant cast
an interlude to abide
and flutter in the sails of family
arrived from a pulsar of the past.

That day visiting with friends
I hugged every one tight
cherished the lush
precious
present
of the living.

I dropped the pencil
had to pick it up
bent over my big belly
with a huff and a grunt.

Late for church
forgot to shave
with three days of stubble
I stood in front to sing
a sting and a red face
when I felt my cheek.

Didn’t feed the cat.
Forgot to get the eggs.
Left the lights on all night.
Forgot her birthday.
Oh me!

Each small thing
mounts a minor chord
sheds a shadow
of fear
what’s next?
       .       .       .

For all the little things
and the big ones
every day’s a hunt
running from the hound
in ceaseless pursuit.
I drop scraps from my stride,
dive into the river
and go with the flow
to yet another innocence.

An insect clinging to driftwood in choppy water
that’s how I felt
small alone bewildered lost
looking for a swift escape.
Not a good place to be.
Scanning the horizon for a buoy
a lighthouse a beach
any mooring.

In the next room she was reading
and with a timidity belied by the long golden strand
of our marriage,
quiet, almost shy I went to her
and said in a worn voice, I need to talk.

Me in my otherwise articulate self
was foundering throwing about for words
finally admitting I was dumbfounded
sodden by fatigue
from the self-imposed tethers
of friendship and loyalty.

Boundaries, she said, boundaries.
You have a young mind in an old body.
Let go and read some poems
and write one.

She knew what I needed.

I feel it creeping up on the outer margins of me
like one cloud trying to overtake another
or dusk draping itself onto an old oak,
a dream trying to invade the probable.

Uncertainty seems like home to me
because when I think I have the truth
I find my way back home
where I can be the dismembered me
and grace seeps into the interstices of my mind
reflecting light in the puddles collecting there.

Doubt seems a dangerous companion
but I take its hand and pull it along with me
because it awakens me from my dusky comfort
and beckons me to the sparkling lagoon of inquiry.

Uncertainty is a favorite cousin
who on occasion texts me
with a pithy Punjab proverb
revealing a mystery worth chasing
to the dark side of the moon.

White Opulence

Days in the desolate plains
of my steady gray moods
have sprawled and engulfed
what I once called
and now barely remember
exuberance.

But walking along suburban alleys
I glance to my left and there it is –
amid brownish green leaves
shimmering with the clouded sun
are muscular white flourishes
which ****** me
back to my Louisiana childhood
and a neighborhood paradise
of blooming trees.

I walk over, bend down,
inhale and feel a near drug-induced high
by the alluring, inviting, tempting
fragrance of a magnolia blossom.

I have slowly loosened the grip
of one hand on hell
for a slow and gradual gain
but its persistent flame
still licks at my soul
has made me old
and beat in its heat.

I will not win this fight
with the dark and hoary blight
til I loosen both hands
to be wholly free
for the warm and deep embrace
of heaven’s healing grace.

When I pause here
in this private spacious room
and allow the silence to swirl around me
I bathe in love and anticipation
of finding a free spirit
in the small details of my day.

Here I don’t hear the sounding horns
the low moans of trucks
the frenetic exclamations of TV mavens.
All I hear is a quiet voice
calling me to stay here
my attention undivided
if only for a few moments.

In this quiescence I discover
the depth and the richness
of just being.

You are sky and sea
beyond little me
You are inescapable
unable to be locked up
or corralled or expressed in mere words
words limit your being
yet they are what we have
for the time being
but we have music which is beyond mere words
we have light and dark
we have canvas and computers
but computers work with digits
ones and zeroes
in the sky in the ether
in infinite variety.

Infinite variety
that is who you are
always new
ageless angleless
It is what attracts me to you
you in your agelessness
I’ve always been fascinated with the new
that is one reason I’m drawn to you.
You are ever changing
yet religion speaks of your changelessness.
Why is that?

           Humans need patterns and habits,
           customs and values and norms
           to give them a sense of who they are.

          Yet what is fascinating about you is your changeability.
          You got it my boy.
          Thus the limits of religion.

The life of parents is gauged in teaspoons
of sweat, vinegar, blood and tears
in early mornings and tire of late afternoons
all collected in a cup of salvation for years.

Small sufferings and moments of pain
become sacrifice for a child’s little sins
so the youth won’t suffer the blame,
cost of loss, but the joy of life’s wins.

All these payments made without wrath
may never be repaid to them in their time
but lessons taught will etch a path
for a child to grow up into its prime.

Anyone who loves the unkind
or selfish or one who has spurned
virtue or left goodness behind
pays debts the errant don’t earn.

Oak and Elm and Redbud trees
stand stark against winter sky
long ago shed their leaves
their bony fingers reach high.

Waiting patiently for warm days
they tend their souls in soil
they teach us a hundred ways
to dig deep for spirit oil.

Winter’s a time to dwell inside
look in dark corners there
for what we’d rather hide
invite it up for a bit of fresh air.