Re: happy thoughts

[John Paul Davis <johnd at antioch-college_edu>]

Oh, rhys, I like both of those very much. Esp. "on the shore gasping for 
sense". Great sounds, great breaths in between the words, great rhythm.

Since we're trading poems:

Snow Carol

Snow everywhere at dawn,
before anyone has written
their footsteps into it.
The sky black-blue
like the coat of some king
tossed over the back of a chair
before bed.

If you could walk out on snow
with no gravity, like Jesus, perched
on its surface tension,
travel marklessly right into the yawning
hot orange where the sun
peeks from beneath the coat,
little waking king,
you would find yourself
in a church not made by hands,
the sanctuary swollen with light.

The choir is singing it all, the cold,
bristle-bare trees, ice, departure of birds
and untouched lawns of snow.
It sings the crisp-cool nights, scuttle
of fallen leaves in wind and slow
ice in rivers. The carol is old;
verses accumulating over the years,
but the refrain is always
the same:

the sound of the day's
first shoe in the snow, the imprint
left behind, the satisfaction of sinking
into the inches, the trail of footprints
leading away from it to you,
the walker, wearing gravity's coat,
released again into life
from the mouth of sleep,
a blank landscape on which to write.

- John

-- 
John Paul Davis
Center for Community Learning
Antioch College

++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ned Flanders: Let's just agree to disagree
Principal Skinner: I don't agree to that
Mrs. Krabapple: Me neither
++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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