The Warden & the Coyote from the conversation between my parents I eavesdropped as a child My father loved his tiny office, his new world: the old wooden desk, the rickety chair; his new job as a warden; low pay but better than the old job, police officer. The solitariness, the pine trees, trees; the meditating woods; the silence; they mind their own business; don't bother to know what the new warden is like; if he's square but sane and righteous guy. One afternoon, returning to his office from the routine work, checking round the woods, my father found a coyote in the chair, with a smug smile. It resembled to the sly one he'd seen at the old police station. He winced at the dark memory; filthy as the frothy sea waves. What are you doing here? He frowned. Just checking on you. Coyote narrowed an eye, still smiling. In this remote place, you could get killed and no one would know. Ha. Why you care? Father stepped on the cigarette butt. I know why you are here. He took a bill out of his pants pocket and toss it to the animal. Go buy yourself a little bite and don't come back! The coyote grabbed the crumpled bill, the warden's precious daily allowance, and jeered, see you later, warden. My father's eyes trailed the skunk between the trees. In his mind, image of him drifted away in the red wind. He shook his head; not this time. (Note: in this poem, the coyote is used as a symbol of self-inviting, sly man who used his tactic to take people's money.) ©Byung A. Fallgren
Author: Byungafallgren
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I Apologize for the late delivery.
The Man Whose Voice has been taken from his Throat
The Man whose Voice Has been Taken from His Throat Naomi Shihab Nye--1952 remain all supple hands and gesture skin of langue fusing its finest seam in fluent light with a raised finger dance of lips each sentence complete he speaks to the shadow of leaves strung tissue paper snipped into delicate flags on which side of the conversation did anyone begin? wearing two skins the brilliant question mark of Mexico stands on its head like an answer
At the Arts & Crafts store before Christmas
At the Arts & Crafts store before Christmas hustle and bustle of the people to buy the ornaments as if wishing the magic tree colorful balls crammed in the clear bag look at the shoppers, wondering if rainbow spirit is finally blooming at the artificial flowers' shelves blooming four seasons arranged neat and gorgeous with absence of scents like empty beauty pageant ©Byung A. Fallgren
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Early Morning , My Birthday
Rain
by Mary Oliver
4
Early Morning, My Birthday
The snails on the pink sleds of this bodies are moving
among the morning glories.
The spider is asleep among the red thumbs
of the raspberries.
What shall I do, what shall I do?
The rain is slow.
The little birds are alive in it.
Even the beetles.
The green leaves lap it up.
What shall I do, what shall I do?
The wasp sits on the porch of her paper castle.
The blue heron floats out of the clouds.
The fish leap, all rainbow and smooth, from the dark water.
This morning the water lilies are no less lovely, I think,
than the lilies of Monet.
And I do not want any more to be useful, to be docile,
to lead children out of the fields into the text
of civility, to teach them that they are (they are not) better
than the grass.
Mary Oliver won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 and the National Book
Award in 1992. She is meditative poet, intent on capturing and
celebrating the vitality of nature, aware meanwhile of
mortal limits.
Moment of the Sun in the Shadow
Moment of the Sun in the Shadow When we don't see the negative appearance of within, the reason for being narsistic or be wild goer, while the cells shrink. The reflection in the mirror or still water points to what we miss to see; how we correct the wrong; the mind, the real us; where the dark lake turns clear to mirror the blue sky and the clouds; where the snake can be morphed and born a sainthood; or the moment of the sun in the shadow; if only we could grab it safe, the gay youth, full of dreams, would've grown to reach the peak. ©Byung A. Fallgren Matthew Shepard, who was gay, died in October 1998 after two men beat him and left him tied to a fence on a plot of land outside Laramie, where he was attending the University of Wyoming. Today, a portrait honoring the life of Matthew Shepard is on display at the Washinton D.C.
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The aim was song
The Aim was Song Robet Frost--March 26, 1874--January 29, 1963 Before man came to blow it right The wind once blew itself untaught, And did its loudest day and night In any rough place where it caught. Man came to tell it what was wrong: It hadn't found the place to blow; It blew too hard--the aim was song. And listen --how it ought to go! He took a little in his mouth, And held it long enough for north To be converted into south, And then by measure blew it forth. By measure. It was word and note, The wind the wind had meant to be-- A little through the lips and throat. The aim was song--the wind could see. The Aim was Song was first published in The Measure: A Journal of Poetry Vol. 1, no. 1, March 1921, and later appeared in Robert Frost's collection, New Hampshire, Henry Holt & Company, in 1923. Mark Richardson, professor of English at Doshisha University in Kyoto, writes in The Ordeal of Robert Frost: The Poet and his poetics that "through us nature excess itself in form, Frost says, and brings us to the place where nature evolves into culture, where chaos resolves itself through human agency into something "created" orderly. The Wind is articulated or measured out in speech, and not only into speech, but song--poetry.
Winter Blue Remedy Song
Winter Blue Remedy Song
As a remedy we tend to
think of the ones shivering
in the cold, in the land near and far,
while the senile ones on the top
play the game of war.
Another winter blues, the one you can see
in the dying plants;
in the tears of a mother;
in the shudder of the moon; remedy
yet to be found;
hidden in the bottom of
the conscience, gem in the rock;
wish it points to the light.
©Byung A. Fallgren
Byung A. Fallgren 