Two Tracks

A morning philosophical conversation

approached the hard euthanasia question..

A saddened room as several with tears

recounted their special tragedies..

their own close life endings..

Other reflections revolved around

considerations of laws and rights..

troubled preferences for dark 

decisions made now...

An afternoon wildfire with exploding fury

a sudden jump of canyon walls

raged into a city surprised..

Mass evacuations.. decisions right now..

demands of how to choose life..

Still many transfixed by the terrible beauty..

 orange..billowing.. burning.. chaos...

Assessments reach both forward and back..

questions of rehearsals for future nows..

inadequacies of many decisions past..

Somehow in our heat today.. a continuing

blaze not yet contained..

new  awareness..an urgent plea..
to experience life's beauty and
constricting pain.. already enclosed

in an expectant now...

Prodigal Seasons

by charles coon

A home
un-bounded love.. and light
with growing
dark hidden fissures
from stabbing inquiries..
each day's exhortation
to depart and exhale..
fierce need to locate
the source of his
heart's agitation...

Inheritance pleaded and won
exceedingly more than
the packet he carried..
exaltation.. expanding.. exhaling
a journey begun with
destination promising the
solutions he sought...

Arrival unease..inquiries
begin to unfold..
gathering clouds.. dark
shadings of fear and doubt..
questions persisting once more
desparate need.. to inhale..

At last recalling inherited light
remembering.. immediately
he knew..
a season now ending
his identity now clear
confidence leaping.. inhaling
electricity flowing
home-bound...

A welcoming light
celebration and feasting
soon shaded by
a brother's irritation..
sharp glances absorbed
with joyful glow..
he recognized an echo
of recent ventures below..
brother's birthing pains
a gift
of precious in-sight...

New departure now pending
spring's budding and fragrance
life breathes with seasons
inherited light
zestful.. exhaling
new creation.. calling
from those places
below.

fires

 by charles coon

fires

in colorado

central blazes and

extending fingers..

manitou and other

evacuations

shelters filling

animals retreating

smoke billowing 

community responding

air and ground resistance 

order and chaos

finding each other..

a summer burden

dry mountains

waldo canyon 

others

nine fires now

perfect fire storm

pray for rain...

a fractal poem

by charles coon

recent recognition of

surprising butterfly

power

wings with influence

both near and far..

science’s magic

a poem might share

finds joy and strength

a freedom flight…

a poem as bone

a spinal light

iterates downward

then loops back..

4 words

3 words

2 words

one..

one word trembles with

joy/suffering..
finds its home

on the spine alone..

a punctuation  /

introduced above

our fraction slash

a new poetic linkage

a vision evolves

separates/joins

our fractured world..

a special invitation this /

new awareness

finds dimensional paths…

poem’s spinal light

expands

vibrates
curves and colors

on many scales..

simplicity/chaos

butterfly/wings
two names with slash

an eternal dance..

poem’s garment

weaves
light/chaos/suffering..

she must stand right here /

absorb this darkness

become this pain..

locates at last

the waiting bone

spinal light connects

once more and

once more…

our butterfly/wings

even now returns

freedom flight arrives

a prayer

   a poem…

the perfect picture

by charles coon

a family album
perhaps especially
or happenstance discovery..
breathless vistas
seashore places
evening laughter gatherings
stark recognitions not
mistaken..
precision abiding..

and then
sudden emergences from
nowhere..
habitual viewing torn
prompting new explorations
awakening patterns unseen..
iceberg revelations
now realizing our settling
assumptions
deceptions and unexpected
origins..
other slices
parabolic mysteries
left and right..
perfect picture now..?

chaos

chaos

by charles coon

an assembly or
better named
a clump
of multifarious flotsam
presenting its untidy self
on a recent passing
streetcorner..

a hesitating photo records
a drifting pinecone
centering a stained
and shredding newspaper
a broken sharp stick
red rocks of scales and shadings
flecking dried green leaves..

order imposed by
framing and shaping of
the sidewalk corner..
might other forms emerge
with a focused patience?

a partial headline reads
...sound without the wires..
news of expanding connections
outside a material realm?
headline seemed embedded
in thick advertising bulk
announcing a continuing
culture of material weight..
much else of red and green..

the centering pinecone
occasional pineal symbol of
higher dimension entry..
somehow rightly here
in the dark center
of this mess

this a brief experiment
not yet for most an answer
a question now of mining
finding patterned varieties
in large nature's trove..
patient visions residing in
gathered fragments
if gathered they be..
expectations of more
in what persists
of this and that in
time...  :)

pointing

 by charles coon

golden setting sun

converging telephone wires

point to golden end

and gathering darkness

unnoticed small bird

high on pole

a sole witness

tech and nature

pointing...

murmuration

by charles coon

watch the starlings
synchronizing
their collective dance..
each bird deciding for the all
each on the edge of
chaos and fall..
local decisions on moving
coupling a mysterious
non-local intuition..
all spurring our wonder
our disbelief

are we forced to consider
our analogous place
each one of us poised
on a delicate line..
each needing to master
a courage to reach
transform near fear
take that one step our own
trust knowing all steps..
holographic truth at last
each differing step
stimulating
new wholeness and light

watch the starlings
once more..
locate where you now stand
my edge in my time
absorb the starling's miracle
murmuring our own
murmuration

Abundance

by charles coon

Two antagonists

joined and evolving...

prevailing scarcity

far rarer abundance

a forked pattern

through millennial time

new century

visions holistic...

technology sightings

viewing through lenses

holographic

wholeness appearing in parts...

promises of science

now simply profound

clear water and plenty

hungry billions soon fed

innovations cropping from

the boisterous crowd...

standing robots astute

heavy labor performed...

global nervous system

growing and formed

by the web...

residue and waste becoming

power transformed...

optimism breaking long

history's confines

questions

large and looming give pause...

the antagonists mentioned

are they soon to transform?

abundance and scarcity

new parents

new consciousness birthing...

awareness with awe

in one simple moment?

ancient spiritual light

is it now flowing

holographic vessels to fill?

what might the

newborn be named?

should she simply

be called... Enough?

this name also naming

a bright center glow...

daughter scarcity now

absorbed and lining

her abundant light...

new strength

new vision

a new fork

in our road?

SOMETIMES

Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest

breathing
like the ones
in the old stories

who could cross
a shimmering bed of dry leaves
without a sound,

you come
to a place
whose only task

is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests

conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.

Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and

to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,

questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,

questions
that have patiently
waited for you,

questions
that have no right
to go away.

~ David Whyte ~