CHRISTMAS LIGHTS

On a night with heavy rain, all the stars fell,

Washed down from the heights above my reach,

Their points of light gathered in clusters

Around tall trees, rooftops, and rooms,

Like flocks of birds roosting in spring branches

Or fireflies at the wood’s edge on a summer night.

I saw some flicker and blink; some stayed steady;

Some danced like animated piano keys. 

All of them played their own notes upon strings.

And if one faded out, others burned brighter

Like voices in an evening of music and song

Or an orchestra’s violins in a symphony.

These elfin suns blazed out of the dark;

Their constellations cast shadows upon ceilings,

While candle flames fired up in every window,

Like miniature bonfires set to deflect dark clouds,

And in the warm, wet air, each light-fingered bead

Became a near-sighted blur in the rain.

©cmheuer, 2015

WHIPPOORWILL

Sunlight exits stage left.  Moonlight enters stage right.

Starlight gathers at stage center.  Curtains draw back.

Windows rise for cool breezes.  A grandfather clock chimes.

Woodnotes call out.  Whippoorwill.

Heard less now.  But then, rooms appeared larger,

Days and nights seemed longer, and

Breath spread out beyond what could be seen,

Touched sounds carried by dark shadows and pale light.

Gray-brown-feathered, sight unseen, birds

Breed upon forest floors, perch on low branches,

Feed on insects, and speak of legends and poetry in

Three syllables--a refrain repeated like the ticking of a clock.

Until sleep corners the mind and dreams set a stage
In time with the woodnotes 
Creating rhythm and melody

For departing souls, sleepless eyes, and beating hearts

Tuned to birdsongs and light summer breaths.

©cmheuer, 2015

POINT OF VIEW

As the sun rides low on the horizon,

Cold air migrates from north to south,

Shadows have sharp lines, and

Light reflects unusual wavelengths,

As a singer might voice high and low notes.

Crest to crest each vibrant color code

Translates into a clear point of view

As illusive as the size of the sun or moon

Set upon a line between earth and sky

After summer’s humid, overexposed light.

Framed, corrected view placed over a haze;

Lucid distinctions and definitions override

Uncertainty and shadows more mysterious

Than the darkest nights or rooms;

Crystal clear creates apparitions of light.

Persistent haunts that cling to the mind

Even with glasses removed and eyes closed

Rims are still visible on the back of the eyelid

Darkness is framed. 

©cmheuer, 2015

OPEN CARRY

For every call to arms may there be a call to books

For every loaded gun may there be a book of knowledge

For every raised gun may there be a book opened

For every shot fired may there be a page turned

For every life lost may there be a story saved.

Only then can someone’s call to arms be silenced

Loaded bullets ejected

Raised guns lowered

Shots unfired

Lives saved to write their own stories.

Only then can school doors open

Form words into ideas

Create libraries out of thoughts

Replace weapons with works of art--

Only then can minds grow. 

(To each and every one a call to open carry a book.)

© cmheuer, 2015 

SUMMER DUST

Summer months are fitted and cloaked

With worthless layers of dusty fabric

Assembled by wind, kicked up by bare feet,

And cascaded by rapid wheels or birds’ wings.

Uncoveted, it collects itself on any surface,

Covers up the appearance of things,

Disguises the wilted and dying,

With a thin, archetypal mask,

Conceals the luster of what had been.

Shape-shifting vagabond, without destination,

Leaves my footprints in the doorway,

Leaves an imprint of the summer’s dry sun

On the deepest well of the collective mind

As I wash it away. 

©cmheuer, 2015

THE TIGER LILY

Wild devotion curbs wanderlust

In a subtle recognition of food left next to

The old fox hole for a feral, nursing feline

And her brood of five. 

Obliged without measure, the mother cat

Staked out the house with patrols

To guard against strays and poachers,

Whose intrusions were met

With Roman back-tail arches and

Grecian serpentine hisses; she

Stalked field mice and moles with

Stealth-drawn, tactical maneuvers carried out

From dawn to dusk and from dusk to dawn;

Years of tireless and relentless gratitude,

Unspoken in the margins of a human world

There are unknown civilizations that build

Birthing beds out of the earth and befriend

Strangers who smile and place food at their feet.

© cmheuer

KNOWLEDGE LOST

Ideas unchanged and ingrained

Create a mind set in stone;

Brain cells languish among convoluted folds

All is assumed and thought disappears.

Words entertain multitudes like strings of music

Stamped out on stage or piped in for angry mobs;

Concrete sounds pump blood, adrenalin, and serotonin.

Conceptual sounds sink beneath the floor boards.

Hand-to-hand conflict and platitudinous verbal jousts

Leave gray matter unstirred by the action and thought

Laid bare upon ancient pages or upon the air of ruminating voices

Become stifled and buried like artifacts beneath unturned soil.

No room for humanity.  In a world of concrete sounds,

some parrot hustlers; some fill the void with their senses;

and some mourn knowledge lost.

© cmheuer, 2015

ASHEN COLORS

Before a summer rain there is a torpid silence,

Leaves face the sun, curled and wilted,

Dry with thirst and ashen colors,

Warped into dragon scales burned and strung across

Limbs that snap and fall to earth for cover;

Until the horizon changes.

Bearing gray over the sunlight

Leaves stir and turn their backs against a heavy wind

Picks up, beats out the morning’s dew,

Twists their arms behind their backs, and

Punches out all the light;

Before a stream of water drips over their edges

And clearly marks the surface dust.

Are the first signs of a heavy waterfall,

Rhythmic murmurs caught in a plunge

By leaves weighted and glossed over

By water too heavy to carry or hold

They bow to earth, dense and saturated in leaf tones,

With hypnotic, dulcet sounds, like insect hums,

Water steps forward and purrs in the cooled air flow

Leaves are dustless and hearing is restored.

© cmheuer, 2015

LIGHTNING BUGS

Broadcast at dusk or into the late night hours,

Signals blink on and off like beacons on dry land,

Dot and dash the dark wood line,

Grab my eyes in rapid flashes from left to right;

Erratic pulses of light meander and beckon,

Attract and confuse, leave the night in darkness--

Without a day’s illusions--

Create strokes on a dark slate.

Untranslated language written on air with light,

Messages I can’t decipher,

Transient words without sound,

Mating sonnets and warrior battle hymns.

With hands cupped to hold a heat-less flame,

I reach for one and then another, extinguished

Before my fingers can surround the flight

And seize a drop of light.

© cmheuer, 2015

SUNSPOTS IN THE WOODS

Sunspots wade across the forest floor.

Omitted tree and branch leaves

Publish and point out gap-streaming light that

Lingers until clock hands move and 

Change all the angles.

Trees fall, branches break, and

Empty spaces leave marks of different kinds that

Stretch across the earth or across my face.

Lost things spin out of place and disappear,

Unfound and forgotten in time;

Scars take their place--

Ephemeral light pale dashes that imply a

Back story of once upon a time

There were no missing pieces.

  

Highlight absence, draw a rough

Outline where the base of a trunk was set

In earth like a large foot and blotted the sunspots.

© cmheuer, 2015

NEW LEAVES

The Grand Opening begins with a simple wave,

Color-coded pale green and thin as paper;

Pollen dusts the air and every breath; and

Sun screens stretch across small ribs and veins,

As new leaves unfold in the pages of a new book,

Huddled together on the side of the read or the unread.

Each one takes its place in line;

Birdsong and petals are thrown into the air,

Scattered like sweets or confetti for bystanders;

Along the sprouting procession, there is a harbor of

Shade from the harsh, singed light spewed upon the

Growing march; it cools the rapid-fire production

Of a circus canopy spread across the tree tops,

Raised high on thick trunks, while wood-fiber sheets

Fan the air and stir the whispers 

Of what is to come before the next leaf

Opens, and each page read, instead of all others,

Collapses the wave. 

© cmheuer, 2015

BREAD CRUMBS

A pittance for the scavenger.

Scattered at the edge of the water to feed

Minnows that swarm in shallow depths;

Spread along the dirt path for birds to find;

Swept from the table or counter with a

Curved hand and flicked wrist.

Caught up in a twisted roll of the dice,

Scarcity asserts itself in bold deprivation;

Hunter-gatherers search for open landscapes

And the end of hunger in a noon or midnight

Crawl, flight, or stumble towards food

With desperate haste to break through the numbers’

Lock-jaw claim on the set of those who are starving,

Who scrounge for what can be found along the way,

Who battle against the odds,

Who covet tokens gleaned from stone.

While others bear arms;
stock guns and bombs;
take hoards;

destroy plows, herds, fields, and homes.

No more than a set of villains
who worship a dead-end set

and leave wanderers in stunned silence with

Bread crumbs in their pockets.

©cmheuer

TOTAL ECLIPSE

Candle-smoked pane of glass to view a ring of light;

A circus hoop on fire for a tiger to leap through;

Orbital motion foretold with atomic clock precision;

A new moon’s umbral shadow cast on earth

Tracks a round silhouette and cat eyes

Gathered in silence and darkness.

Minutes of time to see the paler fire wall,

Prominences and filaments,

Spewed out and seething,

An angry lion’s ruff;

An inferno around a black hole;

A sun eclipsed by a moon;

Reason eclipsed by myth.

Deep in the forest, light returns,

Cat eyes subside and slink away,

An unlit face slips out of sight

And in deep time will be too far away

To cover the sun.

© cmheuer, 2015

WASHING WINDOWS

Pollen streaked, dust smeared, and soot fingered

Until line of sight breaks, distance smudges, and

Vision reduces to a clouded lens.

Traveling light stops, and the past,

Thrown up against the glass like a bird in

Running flight, does not pass through.

Surged crest, fallen before the gaze connects,

Flounders unseen and lost at the edge of

Opaque squares set among the walls. 

Windows sketched in rooms and buildings,

Rag-washed and dried repetition clears a path

Through grime and soil for countless scenes. 

A long line of frames stored like album prints

Pocketed in clear, slip-in sheets for preservation

Grow pale and unfamiliar, disconnected.

The foreground uncoupled from the background

Until ladders are hauled out, cloths are gathered, and

Washing windows begins again. 

©  cmheuer, 2015

OUT OF MIND EXPERIENCE

Moonless and starless nights

Overcast with charred air,

Laid down in deep layers,

Give rise to a ghostly form

That hovers above my mind’s

Shrinking amorphous shape,

Sees insubstantial, sumless parts

Laid bare of their senses with a

Doppelganger’s swelling rise and reach

As it sifts into dark corners,

Stretches around my shrunken head,

Embodies a classic form with arms and legs

To walk toward a beacon of black light

While sleep waits in the wings.

© cmheuer@embarqmail.com

SUN

I can see the sun on the other side of the woods,

After the leaves fall, a growing flame,

Hidden for most of the year, draws a thin red line

Behind the tree trunks and as the night-sea crossing ends

Curls up and stares from low on the horizon

Into the windows (another version of yesterday’s light),

Red-eyed from a long unblinking night,

The solar wind casts shadows and polishes the walls with

Fleeting hand-glass images that disappear without a trace.

Tempting in its full-crested rise of hope,

To see all and to know all at the day’s break,

There is no Faustian bargain; only illusion reigns;

Omniscience hides behind a wall of light,

Behind trees of knowledge,

I see no more than a glimpse of all there is.

Dark hours and dreams vanish, forgotten.

The sun climbs trees in gusts of color,

Pen and pastel pencil ends sharpen the day,

Stream through blank spaces, yet

I know no more than I did yesterday

Even though I can see the sun rise

On the other side of the woods

After the leaves fall. 

© cmheuer, 2015