Peak & Prairie
Rocky
Mountain Chapter's
Online Newsletter
June / July 1999
Edited by Vincent Piturro, Editorial Staff, Peak & Prairie
Welcome to the Peak and Prairie Poetry Page (where every submission is not submissive.) We will accept submissions for every issue, with just a few restrictions: Please limit your poems to not longer than 30 lines in length, and consult with the Earth before writing. Send your poems via email to Vincent Piturro at vinhol@earthlink.com, or for more information on joining the ranks of Frost, Byron and Ginsberg, please call Vincent at 303-534-7780.
by Nancy Andrews
I am set in motion
viewing the tall grass
moving air
my roots
are interlaced
in its biologies.
Though I wish for such
grace
as the winning flights of
birds
and the way the tall
grass
moves.
I burn like a violent
face
as I step on these
systems,
a great clod
covering with dirt -
balances, reliances
acoustical murmurings
layer on layer
I cover the delicate
brain
of the earth.
by Miriam Paisner
Winds
that blow
Echo
gently high above
Through
the pines
In
their forest song of love
Sweep
the misty
Whirling
snow from her cheeks
Winds
that blow
O’er Longs’ Peak
Where
the clouds
Are
swept along the summit’s crest
As
she peaks
Her
head up through them as to rest
Guards
her world
A
silent matron (of) all around
Knows
the call
Of
winds that blow!
Bridge:
Far below the meadow and the glacial
rocks all bowed
By trees and grasses swaying to the tune
Birds sing
thrilling songs of life
And lift their voices high
Soaring upwards as they brush the moon
Winds
that blow
Know
the tales of ancient past
Times
gone by
When
Long’s and Meeker’s hands were clasped
Still
they stay
As
beauty no one can compare
Winds
that blow
Winds
that blow
Winds
that blow!
Repeat Bridge, Add:
Forever
more
To
hear the call
Of
winds that blow
Excerpts from A Festival of Rain
by Thomas Merton
I had better get this said before rain becomes a utility that they can plan and distribute. By “they” I mean people who cannot understand that rain is a festival, who do not appreciate its gratuity, who think that what has no price has no value, that what cannot be sold is not real, so that the only way to make something actual is to place it on the market. The time will come when they will sell you even the rain. At the moment it is still free, and I am in it. I celebrate its gratuity and its meaninglessness.
…I came up here from the monastery last night, sloshing through the corn fields, said Vespers, and lit the Coleman. The night became very dark. The rain surrounded the whole cabin with its enormous virginal myth, a whole world of meaning, of secrecy, of silence, of rumor. Think of it, all that speech pouring down, selling nothing, judging nobody, drenching the thick mulch of dead leaves, soaking the trees, filling the gullies and crannies of the wood with water, washing out the places where men have stripped the hillside….
Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. It will talk as long as it wants. As long as it talks I am going to listen.
But I am also going to sleep. Because here in this wilderness I have learned how to sleep again. For here I am not alien. The trees I know, the night I know, the rain I know. I close my eyes and instantly sink into the whole rainy world of which I am a part, and the world goes on with me in it, for I am not alien to it.
Raids on the Unspeakable
The Abbey of Gethsemani, Inc.
New Directions Publishing Corporation
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