Lost In the Mists, Parts I-Iv

Poet's Notes
(Show)

Become a Premium Member and post notes and photos about your poem like William Masonis.


An awfully long one, continued in Part V, which finishes it, I promise.Hard to classify, but I think ite's basically mystiucal.

Lost In the Mists Parts I - IV

                                               I.

I ask these things, not understanding 
Accepting
The ephemera of answers:

How is it we come to be together
In this place and time?

Again: Whence came this world, with its teeming billions,
Hung together with threads of love, hope and fear
How we exist as a multitude of strangers,
Few reaching for any deeper understanding
Beyond the casual nod, the indifferent glance.
For this there is no answer,
For when I look for one through the doorway of my mind,
I see only fields of grey.

   Grey, the rainsky color,
   Nor black nor white
   A muddled marriage of light and dark;
   The blurring color,
   The color of doubt.

Many things are grey
Grey is many things:
Grey the time between sleeping and waking,
Grey the long hours of lonely lives
Morality a grey word,
For grey is always uncertain,
Down the long channels of cherished belief
Run currents of grey,
The color of doubt.

                                             II.

Today's good action is tomorrow's crime
What we save today will be cast away later
And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,
Down through the unknowable chain of future days
The right things to do will shift with the flux and flow;
The only constant will be change.

Those who question move through life
With an unsteady grace,
Their inward visions ponderous,
Deeds slow of execution.
Caution is their foundation;
Resting on a sea of sand
The rainsky color the shade of their thoughts.

                                           III.

Temerity is part of the human way
We dominate what we can,
Deride the rest
The heart speaks in terms the tongue cannot translate,
Suggesting our worst is yet a part of our best,
That ashen taste behind the use of our small powers
Tempers the pride of our triumphant hours.

Beneath the greening of the summerwarmed earth
Corruption proceeds in its slow work,
Feeding the living on the fruits of its breakage
Of the form and substance of the dead.

The cold rain slanting down from leaden clouds
Softens, enlivens roots deep in the loam,
The desiccated pulp of yesterday's life - 
Many voices softly speak
Through the pattering tears of the sky,
Many voices, not understood by the mind,


Not grasped by understanding,
But heard and interpreted in dark chambers
At the center of the soul;
Where the meanings of things old as this world
Quietly abide
Resting in the silent center
The fertile graveyard of our primal thoughts.

The rain speaks though the wall of grey
Addressing our pride
Mixing truths forgotten with truths shut out.

The rain speaks, saying, among other things,
What are these monuments of men, the work of a day?
The mountains the Earth brought forth,
In fevered fury, long, long ages ago
Have outlasted your whole race.
They are Her monuments, and yet
For all their strength and glory
I, the humble rain,
I have washed away whole chains of them;
for I persist, returning and returning,
An Age a moment to me.

We can watch our glories dissolve;
Stone upon stone, great edifices rise, crumble and fall again,
Forgotten, fractured, always replaced
By other stones upon stones
Which will decay in their turn.

Impermanence is the standard of human affairs,
The common complaint in which everyone shares.
Consider with me the few things which do last -
Thoughts and emotions need not fade with the past.

                                                IV.

Grey may be somber, but need not be hopeless
In grey is our suspension
Between unclear alternatives
In grey we form our judgements
And divide what is from what may be.

Listen,listen,listen
To the tired sighing of the winds.
They announce the advance of the evening's shadows
And weigh and form their opinions (in what else?) grey.

At any time,on two sides of this globe,
Daylight and Nightdark are meeting
In perpetual sunset/sunrise 'round the rim of the world
They blend in indistinction,
Merging with starstrewn space;
The Nothing which contains all.

In our tiny time we have dared to define
The Nature and Simplicity of God
And tried to dissect the clockwork
It formed and set in motion
Forcing Order out of Chaos
Meaning from Madness
These things we have described and defined
And fought about, unto the death.
Advancing and rejecting theories
Running in wide circles back to where we began.
And through every cycle the result is the same;, 
We drown our understanding in oceans of grey.

It seems that in the end God is just God,
A being Beyond and Above
Past the weak reach of new minds such as ours.

And the Ghost in the Machine whispers,
Telling tales not so hard to comprehend,
But we refuse to listen.

We are the watchers in the dim shadowland,
We the listeners for the voice of Truth.
We search for we know not what,
As we pick a few jewels along the way.

Copyright © | Year Posted 2020



Post Comments

Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.

Please Login to post a comment

Be the first to comment on this poem. Encourage this poet.

Get a Premium Membership
Get more exposure for your poetry and more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry

Member Area

My Admin
Profile and Settings
Edit My Poems
Edit My Quotes
Edit My Short Stories
Edit My Articles
My Comments Inboxes
My Comments Outboxes
Soup Mail
Poetry Contests
Contest Results/Status
Followers
Poems of Poets I Follow
Friend Builder

Soup Social

Poetry Forum
New/Upcoming Features
The Wall
Soup Facebook Page
Who is Online
Link to Us

Member Poems

Poems - Top 100 New
Poems - Top 100 All-Time
Poems - Best
Poems - by Topic
Poems - New (All)
Poems - New (PM)
Poems - New by Poet
Poems - Read
Poems - Unread

Member Poets

Poets - Best New
Poets - New
Poets - Top 100 Most Poems
Poets - Top 100 Most Poems Recent
Poets - Top 100 Community
Poets - Top 100 Contest

Famous Poems

Famous Poems - African American
Famous Poems - Best
Famous Poems - Classical
Famous Poems - English
Famous Poems - Haiku
Famous Poems - Love
Famous Poems - Short
Famous Poems - Top 100

Famous Poets

Famous Poets - Living
Famous Poets - Most Popular
Famous Poets - Top 100
Famous Poets - Best
Famous Poets - Women
Famous Poets - African American
Famous Poets - Beat
Famous Poets - Cinquain
Famous Poets - Classical
Famous Poets - English
Famous Poets - Haiku
Famous Poets - Hindi
Famous Poets - Jewish
Famous Poets - Love
Famous Poets - Metaphysical
Famous Poets - Modern
Famous Poets - Punjabi
Famous Poets - Romantic
Famous Poets - Spanish
Famous Poets - Suicidal
Famous Poets - Urdu
Famous Poets - War

Poetry Resources

Anagrams
Bible
Book Store
Character Counter
Cliché Finder
Poetry Clichés
Common Words
Copyright Information
Grammar
Grammar Checker
Homonym
Homophones
How to Write a Poem
Lyrics
Love Poem Generator
New Poetic Forms
Plagiarism Checker
Poetry Art
Publishing
Random Word Generator
Spell Checker
Store
What is Good Poetry?
Word Counter
Hide Ad