Ubi Sunt

October pulsates

above strands of

wildflowers, the juniper

charred along

the slopes of a slow

winding canyon.

Hayfields lay themselves down

in the valley; their bodies

stare up into blue-beat eternity.

A mustard stain

of rabbit brush runs

down a small ravine.

How could a freeway be anything

but heartless?

We drive on, wired

to MP3 players, thick smoke

clogging the Beaver Valley.

The Tushar Mountains burn again

on the edge of Armageddon.

A haystack leans, a rail fence

leans, and old tractor rests

under the shade of a spruce

along the almost dry river.

It all looks so forties America.

Oh hell, maybe things are only

half as bad as they seem.

Long after anyone still knows

the sound of gravel popping

under tire

on the way to check the back forty

there will be video games,

chat rooms, cyber sex, maybe a pop

-up picture to remind you

of the changing seasons.

--Steve Brown, 2010

On My Knees Beneath These Trees

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God,

that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; 

and it shall be given him.

--James 1:5

 

Dennis & Irene Jones, who played a big role
in my coming back to the Church, visiting our canyon,
near our very own grove of sacred maples
where I always feel peace.

Cool, damp earth beckons me
to where I need to be,

on my knees beneath these trees

in supplication to my God,

an honest prayer to meet my needs.

God, help me; I am confused.

In a world of competing voices,

I want to do thy will,

but I don't know where to stand.

Great darkness closes in,

taints like the world,

touches like the adversary,

tries to entangle me,

bind me, bow me 

down to grovel,

to beg, to plead,

to make that coerced deal:

trade my temporal need

to feel safe, to breathe,

to get a release

from this thick, black ick

in exchange for my silence,

my willingness to void

my personal connection 

with my God, who I have come seeking

and who I have been promised

is my inheritance

if only I am willing

to open the door

to the universe

that is waiting:

endless wisdom,

endless light,

endless love.

At that moment

when I fear all is lost

and surely I will be ground down

under a weight far too heavy

for a boy of fourteen to bear,

Suddenly, I hear birds sing.

I feel light so loving, 

warm and pure

grow intense.

Without realizing it, 

my eyes are opened,

my head is raised.

In wonder, I behold

two personages glowing 

brighter than the noonday sun.

The elder points to the younger,

smiles and simply says,

This is my beloved son.  Hear him.

I know without a shadow

of doubt

that I am with the center,

the origin,

the heart

and soul,

the very essence 

of everything,

the great

I am.

My life and this world

simply can never be the same.

Ever.

About this poem:  I woke up early the other morning.  I'd had a dream.  Pretty simple.  In a beautiful pastoral setting at sunset, the songwriter Sting was singing the first verse of what is now the poem.  I wish I could have written down the music as it was quite beautiful.   Instead, I got up and wrote the words down.  I only had the first verse, but as I continued, I realized I was writing Joseph Smith's first vision.    

I wake up frequently from dreams lately with just what I need.  For the first time in my life, I feel fully open to a full range of possibilities.  There is growing evidence that the world we see is only limited by what we are open to perceive.  Whatever lenses we cling to define our reality.  View light as a particle, and it is so.  View light as wave, and it is so--even through the objective lens of science.  Not that all visions are real.  Believing something does not make it so.  Not believing, however, does void it as a possible glimpse into an unknown universe.  You cannot see light you are unwilling to let in.  I'm done narrowing my world to what I see through pinholes.  It's time to float around, almost weightless, and explore this great big complex existence called life fully.

I'm so grateful for life, for this continual journey, to learn, to grow, to evolve over time into something more than the simple innocence which we come into the world as.  Experience is grand indeed.

A Poem About Walking Smith and Morehouse Road

The pen lay flat on my desk

Next to some trinkets

my old boss, a poet and publisher,

had mailed me.

 

I was worried he had died,

but he hadn’t.  He’d moved.

Why?  I don’t know, but he had.

He was cleaning out his office.

 

He’d sent me at least a hundred decks

of those tiny playing cards

that you used to get in a gumball

machine in a globe of clear

plastic. There were also old

books and folded

poems.  One was wadded

up in a ball.  It came

with a note:

 

“This is shit; I give it to you,

not because you deserve it,

but because we get shit

thrown at us now and then.

Remember that when I’m gone.

‘We all get shit now and then,

when we least expect it.’

Knowing that ahead of time

can make all the difference.

So can not-knowing it.

Be safe.  Be strong.

Cry as much as you need to.”

 

Later, I found my old boss walking in a parking lot

of an unknown city.

I thanked him for the pen,

the trinkets,

especially for the wadded up and discarded

poem.

 

He invited me to his new office

with walls of rosewood and mahogany.

Somehow, it was just around the corner.

He wanted me to write a poem.

 

 

I wrote a long poem about walking

Smith and Morehouse Road,

though I’ve never done that—

neither the walk nor the poem.

It was horrible and went nowhere,

but I liked it.

 

He said, “Wad it up.

Throw it at someone

who has had crap come their way

when they least expected it.

That is life,

and that is what makes it all worth living

even if you’re dying.

 

And of course, we are all dying.

If you search through the hundred decks

of cards, you’ll find two hundred jokers.

They’re to remind you of all the fools

who don’t get that—just incase

at the moment of your greatest despair

you faulter and forget

and blame instead,

your God,

your universe, or worst of all,

yourself

 

instead of life—

that wadded up ball of crud

that in the long run unfolds

most spectacularly with smudges

and tears and smears

and occasionally a rupture the size

of the Gulf of California

into the fabric of your

being

 

that crusts over

hard as steel

so you can soldier on

in your very own customized suit

of bent, mangled armor. 

 

Good luck, Amigo.  Cary on.

I hope your walk down Smith and Morehouse Road goes better

than your poem has.”

 One Red Balloon

Andrea and me, 1980-something.  Photograph by Marsh.

I dreamt I walked
down a steep cobblestone
moss-caulked lane
on a wet, stone-gray day

wrapped deep
in layers against
a brutal spring
wind

someplace lavishly dismal
like Dublin or Duluth.

All that was ever needed
to sink deep
into that limp perfection
so needed in letting go
was there:

wet stone,
black gas-lit
street lamps,
rain-slick bone
trees beginning to break
into delicate green
tears.

I felt Andrea near
as North Central Texas
ever was—those long drives
down gravel lanes
carrying us both away
from what were then
two broken lives.

Better to be broken together
than alone apart.

We listened to George Michael
and sang in empty grain silos.

I know that doesn’t seem to go together.
Nothing did for either of us then.

Andrea, I found you one day ice skating
across a linoleum floor
in your tiny kitchen
dreaming of a better life
in Minnesota
which you one day finally owned
with Marsh.

Again, I was walking
down that wet
cobblestone lane
on a brutal Dublin-like
Duluth-day,
cold as hell, wanting
to get home,
and to the right
was a small stone wall on this side
that dropped dizzily far
to where the road curved back
on itself below.

If I hopped it, I could cut out part of my journey.
I thought about it. But the retaining wall was so slick
I hesitated, picturing myself plunging.

Andrea, it’s as if you know
in ways small to painfully grand
we are plunging

Yes, plunging--

in grief, in tears and mudslides,
avalanches, really—of memories, pain,
sorrow, joy beyond belief for the privilege
and opportunity to have known you--

When I looked back up again
to begin my journey—

There on the farthest lamppost
before the switchback
a red helium balloon bobbed
in the rain tied to steel
with pink ribbon.

Andrea, I knew it was from you.
A sign. A token.
Something small
not to be forgotten,
and that I was not the only one
to receive one.

I think you were feeling like a child again
pretending to be the Easter bunny
while playing Peter Gabrielle
on that little baby-blue boombox of yours,
and I know you had a message for Marsh
(or Marshal as you used to say
singling him out from the rest of us with his full name
perhaps before you even knew you were doing it.)

Rest your head
You worry too much
It's going to be alright
When times get rough
You can fall back on us
Don't give up
Please don't give up

There are, I believe,
balloons of one sort or another
placed here and there
to touch, to taste
to smell, to hear,
to reassure us

when the time
and the light
are right.

Red balloons matter.
Don’t wish them away.
They are every bit as important
as stone-gray days receptive
to owning one’s own pain.

 

 

Blue in a Baroque World

Through some worm hole

there is a cobblestone lane

lined with oil lamps

and pocked with rain.

Galaxies of light unfold

in ripples spreading out

in gathered darkness

puddled at the bottom

of a high hill.

The ragged man

with the blue glow

hears a violin in his soul

cut a coarse chord

that says I'm so damn tired

of this.  It isn't his loneliness though

he knows as well

as high halls

and crystal chandeliers.

He'd like to pound a harpsichord

until it squeals like a pig.  For

some reason he can't explain

he knows traces of God

puddle in the mire

at the bottom of the high hill

where a long tide pushes in

to fill the mud flats

obsidian pocked

by cold hard rain.

© Steve Brown 2010

El Paso Miles Away

These are hot dark electric days

when clouds gather and the atmosphere boils,

and heat and heaviness stick to the soul.

Yet, the clouds will not break.

Oh, there will be a downpour—

lives swept away briefly

for eternity. Days and months of not knowing

how to stop

the mind grinding, how to drown

the dull jack-hammer pain, how to fill

the gaping—

A life here vanquished from its time

and place in the big spiraling fecundity

of existence that stares from the corner

of the couch towards a loved one.

Where one should be, now sits absence smiling terribly.

Oh my God, how do they carry on?

These are hot dark electric days

when clouds gather and the atmosphere boils,

and heat and heaviness stick to the soul.

Yet, the clouds will not break.

Oh, there will be a downpour—

of love, of sympathy,

of prayers to our God,

of pledges to be more open,

to be more human, to reach out—

And then there will be

a dark heavy silence,

a not naming of the parts,

a thick, toxic politeness.

The air will wait.

And we will wait

for the next roll call

of the voided

in some other city

that matters

to somebody

else.

©Steve Brown 2019

Desert Music

I dreamt that Marci yelled at me

when I wouldn’t put six boiled potatoes

and a stick of butter in the clothes dryer

and tumble up a batch of mashed potatoes

for Thanksgiving dinner.

I protested because we were in Page,

Arizona, and there was red sand in there.

But when I acquiesced I found

it made a kind of music.

As the family raged outside

the laundry room/bathroom

I sat on the toilet

and listened to rocks & butter

fight their way to a soothing

almost silence.