The Seed

[Casey Butler]

The Seed

The seed;
The sprout;
The sprig.
The trunk;
The branch;
The twig.
The needle;
The cone;
The wind.

The seed ...

[Cate]

I Love it!

I watched the entire life cycle grow and float away to begin again.

They say a picture is worth a 1000 words , but look at the story you've told in 21 syllables.

Cate

[lizzytysh]

And rhymed it, yet.

This oughta be included in children's poetry books. It brings so much understanding to the process of nature. AND it's fun to read and say out loud.


~ Lizzy

[Casey Butler]

Thank you both! Cool. I've not shown that to anybody but family (sheesh, I guess that's still true).

I wrote it and several others when I was 22, in Chetwynd, BC. Canada broadened my love of nature beyond what good old Colorado was capable of at that time.

I was going to be a nature photographer up there, while my wife taught at the local church school.

I spent a month building a forty-foot tower with a tent on top, a "blind", so I could take pictures of two bald eagle parents raising their babies on the shores of Moberly Lake. I also spent a small fortune on a 400mm telephoto lens for the purpose.

Some church members volunteered to truck the blind in, and help me assemble and raise it, even though I was an "unbeliever".

It was fantastic. We anchored it to nearby trees and it looked directly across at the eagle's nest.

That's the kind of trouble some people have to go through to discover they're terrified of heights.

Last time I visited the area the remains of the tower were still there. I'll bet they still are.

Thank you for making my day. I'll dig up some of the others but stick to this thread. They sound a little like "pose" to me today, but they bring back a lot of cool memories:

A COLD DAY

Much is said, though little done
And all the kids have all the fun
When summer dies and fall succumbs
To winter's early evenings.

The days are short, the hours long
That lazy feeling comes on strong,
It's back in bed that I belong
Where dreams of spring are sleeping.

The sun has crept behind the clouds
Entreating me, I have no doubt,
To rest myself beneath the shroud
Of white precipitation.

Don't look so shocked at what I say,
It's cold out there, and here to stay.
It's just I'd like to spend the day
In peaceful hibernation.

[lizzytysh]

What a great thing to do at 22 . Do you happen to have any of those photos from that time?

I forgot to include that your poem oughta go into that children's poetry book with illustrations accompanying it.

I like the punch-punch rhythm in your second one here, with the last line of each verse gliding into its ending.


~ Lizzy

[Casey Butler]

What a great thing to do at 22 . Do you happen to have any of those photos from that time?

Most were Kodachrome or Ektachrome slides, and didn't survive our moves over the years. The two I took from the blind (LOL) are long gone. Did I mention at 40 feet there was also a tree branch in the way? Cutting it down (or shooting it down as some suggested) would have broken up the eagle family probably. The best eagle picture I ever got was around the same time frame at a place in Abbotsford, BC, where they rehabilitated injured birds.

So it's a close up of a wild eagle, she just wasn't at home.



Not even the original, and I've worked that over in PSP.

I like the punch-punch rhythm in your second one here, with the last line of each verse gliding into its ending.

Thanks, I know it has problems... but... "All the kids have all the fun..." being bad English is nevertheless exactly how my kids would have said that. "It's just I'd like to spend the day..." was originally "It's just I'd rather...". Both are terrible English, but some sacrifices must be made to maintain that punch punch. In this case sacrificing English was chosen.

That was my first long winter in the north too. CBC was all the broadcasting they got, so I was a Morningside nut and all the rest I can't remember now. Part of what brought this up in my mind was finding an interview with Leonard done by Vicki Gabereau - it was like hearing my mother talking again, I was so familiar with that voice.

But... I'm rambling. I suppose all our plots are too intense for old Pharoah today. All our opinions moot. As the Poet said: "The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before him".

Here's another. I wrote a total of ten poems. Not many rhymes. A small body of work, but it has survived!

ELUSIVE FRIENDS

A crystal curtain of snow
Opens grudgingly before me
As I walk along the trail made by me
In my travels to the river over the years.

Though by no means do I regard it as my trail.
No, indeed, for this snow packed little path
Is maintained by many friends of mine.
I have seen but a few,
For they are a shy group
And elusive to an extreme.

Their sentinels are stationed high in the trees,
Always with a wary eye alert
For the unseemly types, such as I.

Below them on the forest floor
My friends go about their daily chores
With a dilligence that I can well admire,
I being prone to more dilitory ways.

But their business is more urgent than mine;
For the freeze is imminent,
And hunger would threaten the long,
Silent sleep soon to be upon them.

So now I step as quietly as my clumsy
Human feet will allow,
Thinking of myself as a shadow
Invisible to all those equally invisible
Eyes of my friends.

Stealthily I move down the trail,
Straining to see... Oh no!
A movement in the tree above me.
The sentinals!
Betrayed by a woodpecker.
With a scream he sounds the alarm;
And I hear the sounds of retreat
As my friends fade into the forest.

... A second later there is silence,
With only the chickadees singing their
Victory song.

I walk on now, wondering what was
Attached to that tail I saw flashing by,
Wishing that I was more than a mere
Interruption in this day in the life
Of my friends.

[Casey Butler]

The rest are about animals, pretty pretentious I guess, though they weren't intended that way. I'm still an animal nut, a wild nut - or nut for the wild I should say. Hmm... "Back to the hot box, Shears!" The American curse.


MAN WITH THE SEA

The sand is wet,
Cold to the touch
Of his naked feet.
The sun has fallen
From the sky
In a burst of
Broken color.
Now all is gray
And cool sprays
Of wind mixed
With the Sea
Pelt his body
With fresh thoughts
Of life renewed.

The peaceful
Cacophony of the
Waves, as they
Thrust the Sea
Upon the rocks
Of his memory
Bring calm.
The resulting mist
Cleanses his eyes
With the beauty
Of the Waters,
And fills his
mind with a
New desire
For an understanding
Of his strange
Love for the Sea.

[Casey Butler]

The Bald Eagle

Eagle.
Freedom.
Synonymous.
Soaring high, free...incredible.
Perched on a dead giant.
Watching. No, searching;
Searching the Sea for life
To deliver death.
A nod of the head,
And he is launched.
Grace ...
Taming the Wind on wings formed by God.
He stalls,
Hovers for a moment:
Stoops.
Like lightning but for his cry.
Talons out-flung;
The deadly grip,
The Prey.
And he soars
With freedom....indescribable.

Poets are the bald eagles of language. Though, as Benjamin Franklin pointed out, bald eagles are basically thieves if that's the easiest way to get food. They do live by a certain code of conduct amongst themselves and the ravens and crows. So do Poets fortunately. That an odd sheep like me with a dirty room and fractured character could be supported by God even in the midst of a Poet Pharoah's invented Purgatory for Prodigals is proof indeed that God exists and is the Great Programmer of Circumstance and Enabler of Diversity among what otherwise would be a herd of sheep blindly being driven by all Poet Pharoahs to a self-created slaughterhouse.

I have claimed the exalted status of Jew for some time now, but here in this forum is the first time I've actually felt like a Jew. And I'm grateful to Pharoah for that. The goal is diversity, not to be an overthrown populace soup as some would have us believe.

My own poetry is terrible, of course. I could never be a Poet Pharoah - for one thing because I could never implement false modesty properly.

Without that veneer of false modesty, and assuming I could write at all, I would at best be an Irving Layton, but never a Leonard Cohen - a master. If there was even a hair of originality in anything I wrote and people told me there was, literally worshipped me as though there was, I would be sincerely immodest about it. All the time, not just occasionally in interviews.

My Poet Pharoah audiences with the peasants and slaves would also have to be public, not private. I would have to hear the boring and uneducated folks out - just in case God meant it. My decisions would have to at least be open to criticism by my honored Poet Pharaoh's Court - if not actually open to Poetic advice and consent. I mean, should the Jester steal the thorny crown, the nation ought to be aware.

While we watch our befuddled Christian and Jewish friends and family, teachers and politicians, even those killers in high places who say their prayers out loud (or sing them out loud), as we watch them all march unknowingly and unsuspectingly into a hell of our own making, we ought to be clear on exactly what we're doing.

Just in case some sheep want to break the rules and give that rich man some water to cool his lips.

Sometimes by the book means by the whole book.

Casey

[Casey Butler]

This poem turns out to be remarkably similar to a description of the Lady you might feel moved to act merciful towards as God does to you. Her name doesn't matter, she's probably a different Lady for each of us, but all Women of this sort share certain characteristics - speaking in a general sense.

THE GYRFALCON

Glimpse the one who reigns in
Worlds where the Sun shines forever
Over peaks of ice that boil
The Sea into a raging turmoil.

Where glistening sprays of fog
Force their path through
Every crag and crevice
Of the granite escarpments,
Doomed to their demise
In face of the onslaught
Of a pounding, relentless Sea.

Feel cold, so fierce and
Cutting as to freeze the heart
At a mere glance of its
Knife-like blade of wind.

"Beware, Stranger," cries the Gyrfalcon,
"Be you swift as I
In your retreat that you may not
Taste the chill of death
Awaiting all who trespass on my domain.
For the wind is my bow:
And the ice, my missile;
And my speed, the envy of Eagles.

Beware, Stranger, for this is my home,
The glacier, my hunting ground;
The iceberg, my roost;
And this granite fortress, my nest.
Through the ages
I have ruled the Air
In this frozen kingdom.
So depart, Stranger, to enter no more."


Don't let her words intimidate you. Everybody knows that the pounding, relentless Sea and Global Warming have combined to make her much more accessable and less capable of controlling her realm.

The truth is she is feeling uncertain, unloved, judged, and terribly lonely. Her faith in God has been shaken to the point she has set out to be God herself, to decide who is worthy of life or death, to protect her brood, to continue a commission to a Spiritual war she won long ago, and now to wreak vengeance on the Sea.

The promise is she'll bow down to you, I know.

But you're still waiting?

Did anyone bow down to Jesus before He bowed down to them? Is not Jesus the Truth about God? Does not God bow down to us every day by letting us run things so chaotically?

Your Knowledge and your Love, your very existence as a Loving Individual because of her efforts down through the ages, are the rewards for her sacrifice. Show her the real God as Jesus showed Him to you. He is that Wonderful Lover of Poets who has led us all by a way we knew not, by His "Holy Spirit" in each one of us.

If there is a God, we are exactly where He knew we would be, each one of us, as we are, don't you see...

If there is no God, you haven't got a bloody thing to lose and a New World to gain.

It's a no brainer today.

That Fire for Joan of Arc...

The Poets say that God is Love. If "Our God is a Consuming Fire..." then indeed Joan of Arc is the wood, but our Love, not our Judgment, Lights the Fire.

[Casey Butler]

RESULT

The dawn as it approaches
Appeals more, I think,
To the world of wild creatures,
Both winged and legged,
Than to the intelligent creature, man.

For man sees only the beauty,
The scarlet light of a new day;
While the animal, the bird, and the tiny insect,
Await the light that ensures survival in
The intense struggle that modern man has forgotten.


Ah, that's who the candle represents. Using her words, the Love is directed at her, not at you.

In your mind! Sheesh. I love you. If that other guy didn't lay claim to you first I would! LOL

If reason is the goal, she needs your Knowledge. I've begged three times, I've performed supernatural (to me) feats before you. I have no voice. You have a voice, you have an army, for Paul's sake.

What's lacking, what's lacking???

"Do it!" Isn't that what they used to say?

[Casey Butler]

...Or for the Teacher. But she is his body right now. The lion, the bear, and leopard, etc...

THE TIMBER WOLF

From the shimmering tones of thunderclouds
His fur was given its sheen of mystery
By the God whose heart knows only love
For the nature which He sustains.

From shafts of moonlight his eyes
Obtain their eerie golden gleam,
As on the horizon his majestic form appears,
To howl in the loneliness of the hunter.

From the wind he took his name,
For he, too, can move swiftly and
Silently through the forest, or, at a whim,
Boldly reveal his deadly intentions.

From the forest shadows he formed
The character that remains legend,
Even in the minds of his only enemy,
Who first taught him fear.

From the world in which he lives
He takes life for the sustenance of life;
He hunts, he stalks, he kills.
And he is condemned.


Suffice it to say the candle is a device for deflecting the Love aimed at you back to where it should go. That triangle... Love God and you will Love all that He Loves as much as He does. The goal anyway.

I know you know all this, but it's how I learn. That backwards crap still confuses me.

What you have to say won't confuse her anymore, if it's put forward. I'm positive of that. Don't you see this olive branch in my beak?

Casey

[Casey Butler]

EVENING'S GRACE

The oven is cooling.

Finished with the day's business of maintaining life,
The sun drops in a fiery finale of red cottonballs
To light the day in different worlds.

Good riddance.

For the parched earth here testifies of his rigorous
Efforts towards the annihilation of this dry desert world.

The very air with its aroma of roasting vegetation
Stands as witness to his ruthlessness.

Only the very wild live here-
The coyote;
The mountain lion;
The roadrunner;
And the rattlesnake, who slithers from shade to shade
Seeking shelter from the sun's searing heat -
All living in a furnace of rock and sand
Where only the cactus provides a splash of green
In a world's end of muddy grays and browns.

The Joshua tree raises its jagged limbs
To the heavens as if to flaunt its very existence
At the bright aggressor.

Desicating rays of sunlight challenge every form of life.

But the land is not without respite;
For the evening finally arrives.

The heat becomes warmth,
The air is once again fresh.

The dazzling light is subdued by a cool violet
Iridescence, making the landscape unimaginably beautiful.

Life now becomes tolerable.

The rattler begins his deadly prowl;
The coyote's soprano warns of the night;
And the whole of the desert beats with the rythym
Of survival as the Grace of the Evening descends.


From the desert in Hurricane, Utah, Gate to Zion National Park... The End of Casey's Poetic Adventure while on a Minister's Permit to Canada.

[Casey Butler]

Can't you people count! Likely you don't read my messages. But I said there were 10 poems in my old Canadian repetoire... I forgot one. I should post it now, it's fun:

A NATURAL QUESTION

If the day had had something in it
That he could have depended upon,
Perhaps he would not have chosen the night.

But the furry little creatures he loved so well,
Themselves had a preference for the darkness.
And besides, somehow the mystery of it all,
The sheer uniqueness of hunting
In a world darkened by night,
Excited his instincts beyond control.

After all, he had the eyes for it.
Slightly large, perhaps,
Though all the better for gloomy moonless nights.

Those eyes.

For some reason they had always
Embarrassed him just a bit.

Many days he had watched the hawk enviously.
His eyes were just as keen (he thought them better),
But how he longed for the noble stare
Of his raptorial cousin.

The night would hide these massive yellow orbs,
And serve as a shield from the endless
Ridicule of which he felt he was the target.

Of course, he knew that despite this vain
Diffidence he was fairly intelligent.

He had heard many call him wise,
For he flew on wings as silent
As the wind that carried them,
And he loved to eavesdrop on the less agile.

Adorned in robes of avian magnificence,
he reveled in flattery.

Thus, he reasoned, a life in the secrecy of
The night would bring him unprecedented renown.

For when he allowed himself to be viewed by others,
Who would not gaze at him in awe?

Who?

---------

Please allow me to introduce myself... :-)

Casey

[Cate]

Can't you people count!

Cripes - you didn't say we had to count! This is the poetry section, not the math section
Don't blame us for trusting you that 10 is 10 and not 9, although in the future I'll be suspicious.

My favourite is still your first - The Seed - I like that style.

I also enjoyed the Gyrfalcon - with your commentary and the Man with the Sea.

Cate

[Casey Butler]

Thank you, Cate...

Casey