Rock salted fields hard-by thwacking sea's
shorelines of wave-shaved boulders
a fluidity that mimics an oceans alien speech.
The fractured artifacts of tribal migrations
roll in the surf as grains of an ancient sand,
there are hints and a sense of raw faiths,
of the obscure paint of submerged visages,
facets only visible
through the eroded lens of a former doom.
On these shifting margins,
insipient nations as naked as any roaming wind
declined amidst their own young bones,
laying down to wither away in exhausted camps.
Rinsed by a ceaseless ebb and flow,
the stonewashed threads of the bygone
suggest landscaped formations
of humanity.
We have seen the rise and fall of the scattered,
their cultures a supposition of burnt offerings,
yet we should also
confess to a towering significance:
one that we estranged settlers
will eventually leave as a jigsaw of watermarks,
or as further innocent signs
of our own barbaric existence.
In the depths of ancient time, where history intertwines,
Lies a tale of human roots, in mitochondrial lines.
Mitochondrial Eve, a mother to us all,
Her legacy in cells, where tiny powerhouses call.
She lived in Africa, some 200,000 years ago,
A matriarch whose lineage, through generations flow.
Not the only woman then, but her genes did survive,
Passed down through daughters’ daughters, keeping her lineage alive.
In mitochondria, those energy machines,
Her DNA resides, in all our human genes.
A tiny loop of code, in every cell we bear,
A link to our beginnings, a story we all share.
Through migrations vast and wide, her children spread afar,
From Africa to Asia, to lands where oceans are.
Her legacy is global, in every race and creed,
A testament to unity, in our genetic seed.
So when you ponder ancestry, and where you might belong,
Remember Mitochondrial Eve, and her enduring song.
A mother of us all, in science and in lore,
Her story in our cells, forever to explore.
That one lost their tongue
somewhere along the way
long ago, the sound,
doesn’t come out the same
anymore, so they roll it up
like a carpet containing
a nakedly dead body
of blunt words
like unplucked violins
untuned to how it all
really works
begging to be heard,
and the flowery prose,
purple and bruised
like over-ripe fruit
teeth rottingly sugary sweet,
is now seen
day-in-and-night-out,
struggling with ease
way too much
like madness overgrown,
the dense overgrowth
of language unspoke
hides glittering gems
blushing shamefully
more exquisite than
the now daily averies
all penned in babel
that flow in glass jarring
anticipated patterns
of suffocating
paisley prose,
the simple beauty
in the plainly spoke,
never again
to be seen nor heard,
the mercurial metaphors
birdfeed scattered
to the begging migrations
of petulant bluebirds
naughty nightingales
honey trapping
wet-beaked hummingbirds
all beating hearts
with their wild wind flapping,
tossing sticks and stones
to those tongue thirsty
kiss lapping, lap dancing
love parched, gargling
swallows
Candide Diderot. ‘24
Libya, the endless tragedy
A shower, first thing at daybreak, washing away the night's excesses stalking the bleak corridors of the nether world and the dead bodies refused by the sea
are demanding a proper burial, like the man who built
the dams that bring sweet water to the coast.
How many died 10000 or more, no one cares like when NATO bombed Libya, deaths were not reported.
When the tragedy hammered the once proud state into
a breakable portion,, the migrations to Europe became
an unstoppable flood of lost humanity seeking shelter.
As this tragedy unfolds, oil pumped up from the ground
that is the only thing that matters
morning migrations
chirping melodies rejoice ~
spring's awakening
They are many: No longer Relevant:
Motions you’d better rule irrelevant,
To seek their points to around gallivant;
I won’t read The Written by Oliphant…
“We are not happier than our forefathers”.
Should men stop climbing Today’s ladders?
“Boys more important to parents than Girls!”
Simply, a motion that a boy’s head swells
“Women’s Education for The Kitchen”
Then, ‘Men’s’ for Shoe-Mending and Cloth-Stitching.
“Watching The Telly does more harm than good:”
A point by folks who’d remain where they’d stood!
“The City is better than The Village”:
A quest for migrations we can’t manage!
“Parents should choose their children’s life career:”
In the end, parents “Innocent Barrier”
“Rainy Season better than Dry Season:”
In Africa, crop yield the main reason
“Dry Season better than Rainy Season:”
In Nigeria much worse roads like Prison
“Teacher to be valued above farmer:”
Often time for Drama and poor grammar
truth is in fact an unreality
and unattainable
often outrageous and will
make you or your self image crazy
if turned into a fetish
the object being in every case
to avoid compulsion
the future expands infinitely
we know this self evidently
what else do we know self evidently
the rules of self evidence
come to mind in a fog
you burn fog with sunlight
whose vehicle am I
speak up if it won't
get you killed
this is where the steam pipes hiss
and demons prowl
but know their own
and in fact are capable of learning
migrations are history as writ
migrations are trouble for the archivists
but in electric terms
things ease a bit
a bit the size of Texas
what can be described
but what has been perceived
and judged and pigeonholed
acorns in the woodpecker's hole
birds are dinosaurs you must admit
six hundred million years
right in front of your face
forget that and swim in offal
there is a picture for our heads
that may well and truly
cause mass bedlam among the learned
it is of the first mammal
ever
finding a mate was a problem
therefore we are miraculous
and misevaluate everything
that's why the long faces
and a pale sense of beauty
They’re moving out of Jersey
and California too.
They flee from New York and D.C.
So where they running to?
Folks are mostly headed south,
and Florida I hear
is number one. As of now,
that state’s not slowing down!
Texas sure is growing fast.
Here are things I know.
They’ve got no state income tax
and cost of living’s low.
Google will not say this, but
I think that folks have fled
away from mostly mandate-states
since freer states are red!
Jan. 27, 2022
For Joe Maverick's Alberta Texas Florida Poetry Contest
Many would question the errant journeys,
Without direction or focus in their claim.
Yet some explorations might similarly be described,
Though varied sponsors and fortunes are to blame.
Unsettling as the drifting often seems, there's a
Cause to reflect upon the migrations impact.
Where idle gossip looks to nomadic shadows,
Even when rooted in fiction, not fact.
While roaming open roads or back alleys,
Seeking resources that few others would find.
They could often see value in what's discarded,
Quick to re-purpose and give thanks to the blind.
It does appear that there's greater sensitivity,
Towards those without a home, and possibly lost.
As those roving aren't simply itinerant vagrants,
They were neighbors and friends . . .
That couldn't pay the final costs.
Graceful flamingo flocks prance into spring,
And trees budding green host hordes on a wing.
In pine trees, squirrels scamper to sunshine,
And dragonflies and blooms grace the tree line.
Crickets chirp whole summer nighttimes away,
Then vast herds of elk run all through midday.
Butterfly bliss means pink mass migrations,
While enthralling people teem proud nations.
Through mountain meadow, vale, forest and sea,
Spring's bursting all over, warm and carefree!
Written on 3/21/2021
For: Rhyming Couplets Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Janice Canerdy
The snow covering the ground
Out my window
Goes on like torn-out pages
From my empty journal
Striped with a shadow from an old Red Maple
A bookmark
To the Monarch’s migration
From the mountains of Mexico
To here
Where we wait the four generations
It takes
For the butterflies’
Arrival
To drink from a cup of Michigan milkweed
Pedaling their wings
On the lakes of our wind
Weighting the Earth just enough
To keep the orbit in its gentle place
Rippling around the violet sun
And from these passing quiet gestures
My book of pages stirs and flutters
I look up
Find a prayer of words to move forward.
It once sang in Berkeley Square,
So the song goes,
An ode to it written by Keats not in prose,
The lady who had a lamp,
Had its name too,
A fairy tale Anderson told a tale through.
They just sing at night and it’s only the male,
Too woo all the females, Hope migrations fail,
They've created hospitals with this birds name,
So glad to my garden a nightingale came!
I long to be the top new-green leaf
on the tallest swaying spring breeze tree
in my florid fragrant late-spring neighborhood.
Not to lord myself
as superior to all my more fundamentally plebeian brethren,
but to celebrate this vast sisterly view
of who we sunlit glowing are
becoming toward summer's climax together,
Then falling gracefully
in full colored autumn,
when I will have the longest downward flighting float
of all migrations
Becoming, once again,
a sacred part of snow-covered soil
feeding next spring's tallest new-green leaf
of All transregenerators.
The saga set
In blinding light
Upon a barren stage
Players hunter and prey
Eyes the marrow of this bone
Peering thought the slit aperture
The nuance of the scene
Otherwise lost to a midnight sun
Sharp and cold as the landscape itself
He surveys
The old hunter can attest
To the proclivity of the caribou
To their and his own temerity
Making these grueling migrations to feed their family
The sun descends
A no show
He removes his ilgaak and walks off stage
*Ilgaak - Inuktitut, snow goggles carved from bone, antler or driftwood
11/05/18
For John Hamilton's
Eight Word Challenge Poetry Contest
No healthy humane man
of mature integrity
is a disenchanted island.
No individual is entirely orphaned.
Even an island has an associated understory,
below water's surfing surface
lie deeply rooted
anciently fertile connections.
And above water's surface
birds migrate outdoor voices
and digestive tracts
and trends
visit,
co-invest regenerativity
of ocean tides
and wind storms.
Those who celebrate only their autonomous island-ness,
are those who do not actively include
how we already live as multicultural peninsulas
leading back to mainland ancient healthy multicultures
and leading forward
to where we can once again
applaud diversely landscaped roots
fertile soil and soul migrations
visitors of nutritiously remembering curiosity
co-invested leaders in courageous fertile multi-solidarity
on this one planet island
Earth revolving within an interdependent sanctuary orbit
of synergetic understory,
Milky Way of warm wet soiled and souled
enchanting
surfing maternal womb memories
of ocean tides
as wind storms.
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