Friday, November 12, 2010

Protected from the Night

The kind of night where all huddle protected from the
wind and cold—the rain slashing down—seeming death to any traveler.
The predators and their prey snuggled in their dens securely from the storm
burrowed in mounds of leaves heads sleepily bowed.
Yet I walk alone through the blackness with a measured step
frigid drops dripping off my old rain jacket—ice forming in puddles—glassy and smooth.
Tramping through the leaves, up hill and down
spying the occasional glimpse of cheery lights
from little houses in the valley so far below.
Imagining what it is like for those inside
warm and dry and protected from the night.
Am I one of them, fearful of the night?
Or am I something different, closer to wild?
Does it really matter which I am?
Perhaps I am both whether I like it or not.


Chuck Connors, October 12, 2010

Wy Don't We Dance?

Why don’t we dance, dance through the leaves,
Celebrate the autumn of another year?
Each one us pirouetting on the graves of family long gone;
Doing the two-step of our very lives.

Why don’t we dance, dance to celebrate, the ending of another year, finally gone by?
Our whoops and our shouts amongst the bonfires,
All cheerily burning, the pyres around us,
Maybe the last year, the last we will ever know.

Yes, why don’t we dance at the death of the world?
Celebrating the end of all things that we know?
Releasing to the universe our blood and our pain,
Letting go of this life—stepping through to what comes next.

Chuck Connors, September 17, 2010

Unbreakable Bonds

Darkest night—endless highway,
Speeding small universes whooshing along.
Dazzling head lights, light up the sky lights,
Cones of sight, cut through the inky forever.

Each month I go on--I take this journey.
West from the mountains,
East to the coast.

What drives me onward, mile after mile,
Down the ribbon of highway,
Across the endless flat land?

There’s nothing greater
Than the pull of a son’s love
To a mother who cared from the very beginning

These unbreakable, unshakable bonds,
Forged by father and mother in ecstasy,
Continue on, a remembrance of love.


Chuck Connors, August 11, 2010