Poems

pilgrimage

In movement,
in genuflection of curved air
         they remember
the bodies of children,
closed eyes lit by notes
          of lost song

curved silent
                   reflection
curve again -

into vaulted space, shadows dance across
trappings of failed religions, question
bleached impressions of icons - remnants
of a first forgiveness,
                                          a last confession,

the second and last coming defined in

turned tone
                  genuflection


turn again -

into the morning where
                            ash road patterns
pass windmills brooding, like vacant crosses
on the Appian Way but they dance forward
through a sea of corn, centurion stalk-spears
threatening,
                                                                     questioning

where do you take
                                your rhythms?
                which of you
                                is the leader?

what truths
               do you hope to find?

The sun with all its power to gift life, deny days
or quicken death, blesses motion repeated
               by the dancers, arouses the grain husk wind
to lift dust to
                          camouflage their hearts.

Keepers of movement - 
be our futures, 
remember us,
               embrace our past of

danced rhythmic

                    inquisition
dance again -

at the rise of the moon to guide feet
on journeys deemed impossible in sun’s glare
where rhythm must be light for footsteps,
in darkness to outline gestures, the fusion
               of phosphorous and vaulted moon.

Dancers understand steps
              they choose,
know where paths will
                              take them,
to where journeys
               demand breath, poise,

& silent space at its solemn velvet edge,
to where feet stop memories dissolving
one by one, eyes open, finding lost song,
turning our pasts, one by one

turn again
                  dancers
      &
return to the path

    for in tomorrow’s trinity,
silent reflection,
    tone genuflection,
    rhythmic inquisition
will return in movement
                                         again
Jim Mackintosh

of
     navigation

Together,
              hush standing,
                            seaward facing

with palms inward yet expectant,
they are the paths to the corrosion, cleaves
that each rhythm maker has come to heal
in an act of unity.

Dance the union
                  of
the winds.

    The spray has
                      soft hooks:
the ocean - the muscles an element
of deep dark and cliffs mocking
the innocents light.

Nothing of rock determines ways, only
                                            the roof of clouds
dreamt in the run can choke the reality
of their journey. 

Dance the touch
           of
                 water.

In the gloom the chaos
unravels, and the dark speaks:
Listen to the dark

                   the voices
of ancestors
                   whisper up

The weaves of crevice are mouths to pasts,
the arteries to our tomorrows.
Dance the union of ancestor to the unborn.

Is the horizon
                                      waiting?
                       We will know
soon enough.

Dance
              the distance
– close
the mystery.
Jim Mackintosh