The Lure

Tangled within
a germinating prescience;
skirting an oceanic rim.
Beyond the encumbrance
of temporal concerns,
drawn by the wildness of the sea,
its shoreline littered with things
torn from their moorings -
so shattered.

Flitting along the edge
like a sandpiper, snatching
minnows washed aground.
Running from the waves
that would sweep me
into dangerous currents
dragging me further out -
and under.

Whispers of the unseen
flirt like a child asking for attention.
All night the undulant splashing
upon the jetties of perception;
all night a high wind blows.
Through the waking day; resistance,
as it pulls me deeper -
and deeper.

I go under -
beneath the flowing sea;
blinded by the oppositional continua,
the sheer multiplicity of the physical,
the infinite skies of the ephemeral,
and see there is no choice
except to embrace -
or deny.


© 2003 Melissa Songer

Sweet lament of moments

Broken petals swirl upon
the water’s frothing edge;
curling into dreams
of paths long forgotten.

Bare feet tamp red clay.
The pines moan their vespers.
Thin fingers reach
toward visions of the past.

Beyond the sky
there are no gallant motions;
only stars held in place
by the wishes of children.

The magic has fled -
sprites swallowed by
disconnected notions;
lost in windy places.

Liberation hovers
with its high promise -
prodding the unwary
into a day without shadows.


© 2003 Melissa Songer

Where home used to be

I came of age in a place
where cattle and chickens
eclipsed the human population;
where green fields and fence posts
made a forceful horizontal statement.
And though I chafed with desire
to run beyond the pasture lands;
the oaks and pines and birches,
part of their peace had been planted
in my chest. Somehow,
I felt this place was sacrosanct;
would somehow always be the same,
though it had long been forsaken.

I left in 1971, and the folks sold out in 74
to some guy from NYC who paid
ten times what they had in 63.
He moved the house we lived in
to build one of his own.
Tore down the dilapidated barns and sheds.
Left the workshop Dad had built for a failed venture.
Took down the barbed-wire fencing,
uprooted the apple trees,
and never, as far as I could tell,
planted a garden.

Still, home was there;
intact in spirit if not in form.
But it was the surrounding development
that detonated my senses into disbelief.
Tract mansions and subdivisions
spreading like fungus everywhere;
consuming the meadows,
the forests, the occasional shack
that nestled inside my memory.
When I found the steep circle to
the boat launch blocked off,
it was as if the mind said - Off limits,
You cannot go here anymore.

I backed up - never to return;
gave in to the present.

© 2002 Melissa Songer