Coherence (2021)

Sunrise, sunset, throes of time –
Then a thousand more
Nightfall, daybreak, causes bind
Now, again, before

Pushed above colliding giants
Into air that roared
Forgotten fragments scarred my face
Sculpted, frozen, thawed

Towering, yet anchored;
Holder of their breath
Locus, shadow, turning point –
Backdrop to their death

The sweep of days that moulded me,
Immense among the mists,
Crafted also people who
Would struggle, grasp, resist

One such life unfolded here;
She wept beneath the moon
Exiled from her former life;
Hiding, waiting, soon

I saw around her all things change –
Each a past component
And I, too, was nothing that
Endured beyond the moment

I watched her live among her thoughts –
Consumed as each occurred
And as she drowned in memories,
The past survived within her

Vicious fears and vicious frosts
Had followed her, it seemed,
Through every moment of her life –
Though sometimes my slopes gleamed

Dread dispersed and passed away
A process was undone
New coherence followed soon –
But, in that, I found no one

Crumbling rocks near her old grave;
I break and fall in time
And, as each piece is blown away,
Which part of me am I?

Instrumental

The ridge had long hinted
At strong and at weak –

Both threatening wall
And welcoming peak

A taunting horizon
For shortening years

One sun, but two shadows:
Equidistant fears

For my life I have watched you
Like my father before
Do I die without knowing?
Or climb to find more?

Compelled to discover
With answers so near

And with thoughts so contorted
By a limbic leer

With the bristling awareness
Of a fate not yet sealed,

A decision is reached
That the great peak shall yield

Looking back, I now see,
Having long since set off
Though in first breaking trail,
Of course, I could not –

That the struggle continues,
Tearing sinew each step
Sensing one fear replaced
By its twin, in regret

Growing nearer, hope holding
Simple foothold; a fall

Damaged limb, but not fatal –
Just a moment, to stall

Rising up, now mere steps
From the summit, look down

To stare out across that
Which was already found

I am here, at the crest
Where my eyes always fell
Did I leave them for this?
Frozen lips cannot tell

Looking back, I now see,
Having long since set off
Though in first breaking trail,
Of course, I could not –

That my time, and this mountain, and my father before
But a cycle of reaching and striving to claw,
Moving higher, hands clasping, eyes looking for more
Not a thing left to find, in all that I saw

As his hands threw the net,
His mind drifted away.
Fragments of voices, faces, words – yet
Each, having passed, was like a dream,

Leaving echoes that brought others to life.
A churning current carried him along,
And barely noticing them writhe,
The man pulled the fish out one by one.

In the mountain’s shade his shins grew numb.
As stung fingers drew the final net,
Within the lake, he heard a hum
And saw colours dance beyond the shoals.

Its form seemed without boundary.
Its message without words.
Yet it whispered of his glory,
And endless joys to hold.

If only you could reach me,
The others would admire.
If only you could grasp me,
The struggle would expire.

Without heed; without a doubt,
He slogged into the lake’s expanse.
Resisting as he waded out,
The water grew around him.

But all those steps would lead to nowhere –
His motion masked futility.
For all the effort he could bear,
That thing would come no closer.

The zeal drained into regret,
Had he been down this path before?
Each time, it seemed, he would forget,
That it would never resolve.

So, giving up, he turned away,
But once again would find,
That each and every move he made
Would simply bind him tighter.

Recursion without resolution,
Purpose to justify itself.
Boundless striving, fear and passion –
To end in nothing, as it started.

Perception collapsed around the shore,
Where he could not believe –
A fisherman, once lost in thought,
Was staring back, and through, him.

And as the man came ever nearer,
Both entangled; one aware,
He mouthed a warning none could hear,
And sank into the silt.

Instrumental

The mountain kept a trove inside,
That was known only to the three –
Closest friends now that their greed
Had burdened them with things to hide.

The entrance was a hidden window –
Punctured through a narrow vein,
To crawl inside as light would wane,
And come to pitch in caves below.

In secrecy, they would converge
To split the rocks and mill to dust,
Revealing spoils within the crust,
From when those peaks had first emerged.

Blurred intent through eyes that stung,
Their fingers cut upon the slate,
While stale air would suffocate,
And sap the vigour from their lungs.

The taper’s flame was just enough
To see each pick from fall to rise –
So desperate that they find their prize
Before the wick would finally snuff.

But when one paused to heave a breath,
Their friend’s hand would conceal, it seemed,
Which caused a thought; had something gleamed?
And trust began to sense its death.

What if he knows that I saw?
And what if he decides to strike?
But what if it was nothing more
Than light’s deceit and failing sight?

From just a flicker in the mind,
The thought would twist, consume, then grow,
And with each wave, doubt would erode,
‘Til all he knew confirmed his bind.

Those ancient paths bore only fear,
That, left unchecked, had overflowed
To shatter balance he had known
As shrinking walls began to near

In pebble’s bounce—the avalanche.
In falling drop—the bursting dam.
He gripped the pick, and looming, then
Swung an arc that killed his friend.

He barely saw their third had fled,
As febrile haze evaporated
And with it, certainty faded –
Abandoned now for churning dread.

Endless whispers from the void,
Each offering narration.
He searched the body frantically,
And begged for vindication.

Instrumental

In gleaming morning sun we ran
Each day the day it all began
A flare was lit between the worlds we wandered
We bounded over broken log
Across the steppe, beyond the fog
To life in tiny fragments all felt bonded

By chance one noon we saw someone
Our words reached out – they heard us come
But when eyes met, we glimpsed their hopeless sadness
We asked but found we could not fathom
What had sewn their sorrowed pattern
So we fled that lake and all its madness

But still we knew that life was good
And through that scare, our joy withstood
We found new thrills to chase and thoughts to wonder
Our days unfurled with troubles not
Through thistles kicked and thorns forgot
‘Til one day something new would drag us under

In dappled light that time we roamed
On higher land, our senses honed
A place so cold and new we had discovered
But then we saw we weren’t the first;
A dreamer lay there, frozen, cursed
Much more was lost than ever was recovered

We ran, but this time with no joy
Each stumble shaping man from boy
A truth wept through from just behind life’s curtain
What drove them to that lonely end?
Is this the wound no one can mend?
A bleeding out of all that had been certain

Still others since have crossed our path;
That man of buried aftermath
And she who seemed to wait and hide forever
So many moments came and went
Yet none were kept, as dreams were spent
And in this way old truths emerged together

We can recall, I think, a time
When footholds held and stories rhymed
And now we see that those we met were grasping
We know that they had felt it too,
Until it left them, as they grew;
To leave them looking back at us for asking

Those elders smiled through gritted jaw –
A deluge held, but held no more
And as it broke, it brought new kinds of knowing
Return the mind to where it was;
We try, but it won’t go, because
That mind has gone, and with it went a glowing