Footprints In The River, Handprints On The Sky

My life is as dewdrops on a lotus leaf
spread above the quiet of Walden Pond,
disappearing slowly, inexorably, in the warmth of the sun
birthing an unending present – my unknowable future;
evaporating my sufferings
into the buzz of hummingbird wings
and the laughter of children playing,
no different today than in the days of Pericles and Gautama,
and certainly no different in those days to come
when my forgotten name will be half as old as theirs.
The American Ryokan, the Japanese Thoreau,
how glad I am of their gifts,
examples of living by principle –
content, enlightened, generous, humane, calm, funny,
engaging me with their words
the way their living engaged their neighbors,
waking so many from torpid lives of expediency
by the sheer force of example –
without exhortation,
their tangible traces, now, pure art.
And when I am gone what will be my legacy?:
the impish glee of a child laughing on the swings,
hands furrowing the warmth of the sand,
plunging through sweet air reaching for the higher bar,
watching ripples of light on the water.

24 November 2002

Clouds Over Mountain

I am a cloud over the mountain,
carried on the wind.

I am the rain out of the cloud,
falling to the mother.

I am the water sheeting on rocks,
the kiss of sky and earth now.

I am the stream scouring the mountain,
crumbled earth in a watery froth.

I am the river coursing the valley,
the womb of future mountains.

I am the outpouring into the sea,
the mother ready to embrace me.

I am the wide and open ocean,
the one whose thoughts are clouds.

I am the thought of life ascending,
exhaled from the all-embracing.

I am the wind over the ocean,
watering up the sky.

I am a bubble of ice chill rising
in an ocean of airy radiance.

I am a cloud over the mountain
snowing onto the mother.

I am the crystalline bite of an ice cap,
frozen solid with intent.

I am the rasping flow of glaciers,
furrowing the breasts that nurse them.

I am the warming tears of melt,
crying for joy to water the earth.

I am the water sheeting on rocks,
the kiss of sky and earth now.

I am a cloud over the mountain,
the still fresh memory of ocean.

I am the mountain under the cloud,
a memory of oceans and fire.

I am the river of time from mountain to sea,
the ephemeral stream of the eternal return.

I am the ocean, mother of mountains,
called home by the clouds.

I am a cloud over the mountain
carried on the wind.

“Some good, some bad, most just so-so.”

That is how Marcus Aurelius described his book of poems. I’ll split the difference between humility and pride, and assume the same assessment for my own poems. Here is my poetry book (you will find pricing information on the last page).

Mangogarcia Poems

Enjoy