Kauai
The morning colors of the wind:
blue waves dissolving in silence,
a mild orange outrage or red fury
subsiding in white light filled
with birdsong—a wild chatter then
(are they gossiping? Complaining
about a neighbor perhaps, or praising
some other bird who may or may
not deserve such praise?).
This pause
of wind won’t last forever—only long
enough to allow the massive chorus
dwelling mute within to evolve:
a slow stirring, pianissimo
then andante, rising to another
sublime symphony of birdsong
and wind, as the two of them
celebrate their perfect marriage--
an intricate dance of palm leaves,
the behavior of each fresh pattern
or set of steps adjusted to,
synchronized with, superimposed
upon the pattern that preceded it,
the rippling, wavering motion of
variety and surprise the essence
of the place: just another sweet
stunning morning in Kauai.
Sunset
My eyesight failing, I have waited
until mid-April to enjoy a pleasure
relished for as long as I have lived
in California: spending the hour
or so before sunset sitting out of doors,
reading, and savoring a glass
of smug red Pinot Noir.
My eyes
no longer tolerate direct sunlight,
so now I wear dark Solar Shield
glasses over my own reading pair,
and it has been convenient that way
to track some heavy words I’ve taken on
lately (David Chalmer’s The Character
of Consciousness), attempting to glean
a “total phenomenal state: what it
is like to be a subject”—to entertain
“a holistic rather than an atomistic
view of consciousness,” even though
I also qualify, now, for a “breakdown
of access unity,” having become
pathological when it comes to sight.
I take a break
from intense reading and close my eyes.
I remove both the Solar Shield
and ordinary glasses, sensing only
a mild orange scrim sheet of light
at first, but rapidly, roughly converted
into an unstaunchable radiance of red--
a revelation as stark, complete, immense
as Arjuna’s attack in The Bhagavad Kita,
when Lord Krishna reveals divinity:
the infinitesimal cosmos disclosed
in all its agony of events: everything
ever thought or felt or seen or
touched throughout the existence
of the universe.
My revelation
was an onslaught of transformed color:
that simple orange transposed, as
outrageously as Arjuna’s vision, into
a screaming overwhelming red
beyond any I have ever witnessed
in my life: my mind deliciously on fire
with it, no Hell, just an infinity
of red, red beyond red.
Talk about a trip!
I felt as if I stood upon the sun, surrounded
by all its glory, but unblemished, and …
like Arjuna, I could not sustain the sight
for long, so I turned away, replacing
both pair of glasses, restoring the printed
pages of philosophical speculation
(Do we have the equipment, short
of sporadic insight, to truly know
anything?), reinstating a simple garden
filled with flowers, many of them
a modest red (Amaryllis,
geraniums, roses) but none so bright
as to prevent a safe return
to this familiar human home where
brightly illuminated day, and a glass
of smug red Pinot Noir, shall softly
evolve into the comforting dark
of another night.
Bill Minor has published seven books of poetry, the latest Some Grand Dust (finalist for the Benjamin Franklin Award) and Gypsy Wisdom: New & Selected Poems. A professional musician since the age of sixteen, he has set his own poems to original music and has released three CDs: For Women Missing or Dead, Mortality Suite, and Love Letters of Lynchburg.
The morning colors of the wind:
blue waves dissolving in silence,
a mild orange outrage or red fury
subsiding in white light filled
with birdsong—a wild chatter then
(are they gossiping? Complaining
about a neighbor perhaps, or praising
some other bird who may or may
not deserve such praise?).
This pause
of wind won’t last forever—only long
enough to allow the massive chorus
dwelling mute within to evolve:
a slow stirring, pianissimo
then andante, rising to another
sublime symphony of birdsong
and wind, as the two of them
celebrate their perfect marriage--
an intricate dance of palm leaves,
the behavior of each fresh pattern
or set of steps adjusted to,
synchronized with, superimposed
upon the pattern that preceded it,
the rippling, wavering motion of
variety and surprise the essence
of the place: just another sweet
stunning morning in Kauai.
Sunset
My eyesight failing, I have waited
until mid-April to enjoy a pleasure
relished for as long as I have lived
in California: spending the hour
or so before sunset sitting out of doors,
reading, and savoring a glass
of smug red Pinot Noir.
My eyes
no longer tolerate direct sunlight,
so now I wear dark Solar Shield
glasses over my own reading pair,
and it has been convenient that way
to track some heavy words I’ve taken on
lately (David Chalmer’s The Character
of Consciousness), attempting to glean
a “total phenomenal state: what it
is like to be a subject”—to entertain
“a holistic rather than an atomistic
view of consciousness,” even though
I also qualify, now, for a “breakdown
of access unity,” having become
pathological when it comes to sight.
I take a break
from intense reading and close my eyes.
I remove both the Solar Shield
and ordinary glasses, sensing only
a mild orange scrim sheet of light
at first, but rapidly, roughly converted
into an unstaunchable radiance of red--
a revelation as stark, complete, immense
as Arjuna’s attack in The Bhagavad Kita,
when Lord Krishna reveals divinity:
the infinitesimal cosmos disclosed
in all its agony of events: everything
ever thought or felt or seen or
touched throughout the existence
of the universe.
My revelation
was an onslaught of transformed color:
that simple orange transposed, as
outrageously as Arjuna’s vision, into
a screaming overwhelming red
beyond any I have ever witnessed
in my life: my mind deliciously on fire
with it, no Hell, just an infinity
of red, red beyond red.
Talk about a trip!
I felt as if I stood upon the sun, surrounded
by all its glory, but unblemished, and …
like Arjuna, I could not sustain the sight
for long, so I turned away, replacing
both pair of glasses, restoring the printed
pages of philosophical speculation
(Do we have the equipment, short
of sporadic insight, to truly know
anything?), reinstating a simple garden
filled with flowers, many of them
a modest red (Amaryllis,
geraniums, roses) but none so bright
as to prevent a safe return
to this familiar human home where
brightly illuminated day, and a glass
of smug red Pinot Noir, shall softly
evolve into the comforting dark
of another night.
Bill Minor has published seven books of poetry, the latest Some Grand Dust (finalist for the Benjamin Franklin Award) and Gypsy Wisdom: New & Selected Poems. A professional musician since the age of sixteen, he has set his own poems to original music and has released three CDs: For Women Missing or Dead, Mortality Suite, and Love Letters of Lynchburg.
