by Thomas Davis
The round, close face,
Soft like gentle hills
And as misty as the sky
Full of coming rain,
Inspires this song—
The beauty beyond thought
And love beyond the beauty.
Tag Archives: love
Of Love
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
Hiding Places
a love poem by Thomas Davis
I have hidden my face.
The green grass has grown wild about my house,
And the hiding places of the heart
Have multiplied and become numerous.
Spring croaks and thrashes at the wind.
The stars grow plump like yellow pears,
And the trees stand up, straight and proud,
From the soils of the earth.
I chant the words of love
And let my tongue grow dry with history.
I sing out the beauty of the sky
And tell the clouds to be silent
And to cease their rumbling.
Summer is the promise of the sun.
Conflict is the garment of drama.
O woman, you are the wind
And the sound of the wind.
O woman, you are the spirit of the stars.
I have hidden my face.
The green grass has grown wild about my house.
The hiding places of the heart
Have multiplied and become numerous.
O woman, on slippery ground
I will catch you and hold you in my arms.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
24. Rising Sentience
an epic poem by Thomas Davis
Inside her cave, emotions traumatized
From feeling how Wei’s eyes had looked at her
And seemed to strip her essence from her spirit,
Ssruanne instinctively sent out her thoughts
To Mmirrimann inside his nearby cave.
The ancient dragon dragged his shrouded spirit
Toward his bed beside the cave’s deep pool
Exhausted, beaten by a journey taken
In desperation that he could not curb.
The sense of Wei’s bright eyes beneath her scales
Exploring deep into a dragon’s self
Dissolved when Ssruanne felt the song of chaos
Reverberating uncontrollably
In Mmirrimann’s unconsciousness as if
He’d faced his doom and somehow was alive.
The aches she’d felt from feeling violation
Wisped out of her and, with an eagerness
Pushed by a rush of fear, she stood outside,
The mountain winds soft on her golden scales.
What had her ancient lover tried to do?
She leaped to air and glided to his cave.
The leader of the mountain dragons slumped
Onto his bed and stared at golden eyes
That whirled at where his head was pressed in stone.
He tried to order thoughts into his mind,
But images replete with nothingness
And roaring sounds of endless chaos made
Him close his eyes against the fierceness burning
In living dragon eyes that stared at him.
He had to live, to leave the nothingness
Infecting who he once had been behind,
But in the roaring thought was tenuous,
A string of self that could not know his self.
He willed the window from the chaos closed,
But in the cave the stone walls wavered, motes
Solidifying, then dissolving into motes,
Light flickering into his mind, then sweeping
Into the roar of silence swirling, swirling. . .
Ssruanne stared angrily at Mmirrimann.
He’d gone too far. She saw the journey braved
Past dragon memories into the realms
Where time and living spirits danced in chaos
More spectres than a memory
Of life once lived upon the living earth.
What will had brought him back into his cave
Was past an understanding she possessed.
His scales seemed insubstantial, light, not flesh.
He did not seem to have the strength to open
His eyes to see the safety that he’d found.
She knew the motivation driving him.
She heard, inside her mind, the rage Sshruunak
Spewed from his mind into his followers,
The great young males that saw his massive strength
And did not see how puny human strength
Had sent him, wounded, fleeing to his cave.
She saw what rage and mindless joy in strength
Had done to dragon lives through time, the long,
Dark spiraling toward a time when dragons
Were only myths long lost from memory.
His courage blazing, Mmirrimann had braved
The chaos where the spirit beasts brewed life
From nothingness and came to feed
Upon earth light and dragon/human lives.
He’d tried to find elixirs that would lead
The mountain dragons past the young males’ rage
Into a future guarding dragon eggs
And dragon wings and dragon sentience.
“You are a fool,” Ssruanne said. “Just a fool.”
She walked into the cave and pressed her scales
Against his scales and tried to warm the cold
Chilled deep into his spirit by the wind
That was no wind, the place of deathless souls.
She forced her warmth into his cold and strained
To find the order still inside his mind
And tried to reach the will that he had used
To bring his body back into his cave.
“The dragon race is not gone yet,” she said
Outloud, her voice an echo in the cave.
She felt his reaching out toward her warmth,
The fiery essence of her dragon mind.
She forced her thoughts of Wei to disappear
And placed a block upon Sshruunak’s dark thoughts
To keep them out of Mmirrimann, his cold.
She laid beside him on his stone smooth bed
And sent her memories of watching eggs
Begin to wobble as a hatchling struggled
From darkness into light and dragon life.
She felt again the joy of seeing life,
The promise of another generation,
Continuing the glory of their race.
She nestled close and soaked his cold with warmth
As hours passed day toward the winter night.
“You’ll live,” she told him in the ancient tongue.
“We’ll face Sshruunak and keep the war
He’s brewed from ever happening. We will.”
He formed a thought, then lost its substance, fought
Toward his sentience, fell back, then felt
Ssruanne beside him in his mountain cave.
He reached toward her warmth and living mind.
He loved her. She loved him. A thought
And feeling formed inside the chaos, let
Him feel her body pressed against his body.
He sighed his rising sentience and grinned.
Click on Rising Sentience to listen to this section of the epic.
Note: This is the twenty fourth installment of a long narrative poem, which has grown into The Dragon Epic. Inspired by John Keats’ long narrative poem, Lamia, it tells a story set in ancient times when dragons and humans were at peace. Click on the numbers below to reach other sections, or go to the Categories box to the right under The Dragon Epic. Click on 1 to go to the beginning and read forward. Go to 22 to go to the section previous to this one. To read the next section click on 25.
Filed under Poetry, The Dragon Epic, Thomas Davis
Memory
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
A memory
of rain
in a night
when
the wind filled
and spread the sky
a
rain
upon us
and
through us,
on sounds
little known
as feet
of deer,
a rain
falling
between us,
upon
two voices
almost heard
above
the wind.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
The Waters
a love poem by Thomas Davis
The waters have come clear to my soul.
I have sunk into the abyss of deep waters.
Like the currants clustered upon the vines
I have taken nourishment from the leaves
and roots of the earth.
Song O song of my love into the deepest night,
eyes dark like pebbles on the bottom of the sea,
Can you not hear the waves running like elephants,
gray and huge, as they crash on the rocks of the shore?
The waters have come clear to the soul.
I have sunk into the abyss of deep waters.
Like the currants clustered upon the vines
I have taken my nourishment from the leaves
and roots of the earth.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
Romance in Paris
a photograph by Alazanto, Kevin Davis, our son
Taken on November 15, 2009
Filed under Art, Photography
The White Bird
by Thomas Davis
Rainwater falls…
Falls…
Into puddles,
Upon rain-shining stones.
Amidst the stones
A lone white bird
Sings of cherries, sweet and black,
and spring.
You sit upon a stone
In the rain listening…
Listening,
Hearing rainwater
And the bird mingling melodies.
Life is strange,
For the rain, the white bird,
you, and the songs
Form a beautiful image.
The rain…
Falling…
Falling.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
One Moment of Madness
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
One moment of madness
in a thousand is enough
when the brain slips
back into some old wound,
a wound made almost painless
by the shading of years.
Yet the old grooves
are easily found—
like a seal of shame
worn open in the sun.
And in the splitting of madness
all is lost to one emotion,
but regained
in the clear-formed thought
as seeing the precious stone
occasionally in deep rock.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
Beneath the Willow Tree
by Thomas Davis
Beneath the willow tree she lies down
beside the river that runs to the sea,
near the reeds and long stems of grasses
that fall gently to the flowing waters.
Has there ever been a woman so graceful?
She lies her head back and her hair cascades
Like willowy branches upon the bark of the willow.
She stirs, and her body moves in dance.
O, let the rain fall down from the skies!
Invite the thunder into the place of your house!
Rejoice that the sun is the cock of the morning!
Laugh when the wind blows through the trees!
My love is like a strumming banjo!
Touch her, and she responds with movement!
Speak to her, and her voice lifts in song!
O heart and soul of my love, do you hear?
Note: The love poems I am posting are from the earliest days of what is now a love affair that is 45 years old. I am looking back in time and celebrating who Ethel and I were when we were young and who we have been through all these years of our lives.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
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