Senescence

The science of the self
The relentless chemical reactions,
cell death and rebirth,
digestion, peristalsis and
respiration.
The chemistry of turning food to energy.

And what of the non-physical self
what changes there?
So subtle, immeasurable even,
But over the course of a lifetime
those changes, minute though they are,
Add up and
Can be shown by the crooks and furrows
Shadows, chiaroscuro,
Atrophy and tone of our
facial muscles teeth hair hands skin ears
Lose elasticity, change color
Develop a cauliflower immovability, a stoop, a staunchness.
Alas a weariness.
We seem to wear the earth
Becoming the earth's twin or a
Reflection of the earth's timelessness.

Gaia

Gaia
A living, breathing, loving
Finite mass of intergalactic matter
Fused into utter perfection.
She has given birth to us.
What have we done for her lately?

War's Smallest Cries

Children do not walk in straight lines
To avoid landmines or missile heads.
They have no concept of dying.  Wait.
That's here but not there
Where body fragments lay rotting in the
Rubble of bombed out dwellings.  Everything, everyone is
Covered in dust, soot and sand.
And there, the people scream because they
cannot hear.
The bombs have blown away their eardrums.  And
All that remains is the buzz, a sound very similar
To the little lamps on the nightstands next to their little beds.

Ode to Autumn

My senses are always grappling with the true nature of time.
But I anticipate
the loveliest transition,
that of summer into fall.

I become aware of
Arctic tinged breezes which chill through to the marrow
causing my joints to ache and my nose to run.
All around cinnamon colored leaves are ceremoniously offered
in a ritual of fiery sacrifice,
The incense of which burns my eyes and singes my nose.

Numbral angles become repositioned as on a sundial;
Allowing for the equidistance between night and day.
And as the night grows longer, the closer we are
to aphelion.

The once downy feathered peartree
has born the last of its fruit.
Wind becomes void of bird songs and cicadas
Yet pregnant with the Norther's blustery seed.

Golden wheat and corn stand at attention ready for the reaper, as
pumpkins become ghouls, twinkling their fiendish grins
All along twilit landscapes.
All Souls Day is nigh.

So, come away, come away
'tis Autumn's first day
Helio's chariot must rest 'til May.