Nature and Meaning

The Law of Poetry

Do Stripped Mined Mountains go to Heaven?

Wasteland

They split open the month of June

and gut her eternity,

leaving the autumn rain

to pour down the naked wound.

The winter winds lash and weep

for their familar caress--only to find the shadows

of rocks and mud, the blood of heaven.

With April's fragile memory

they plant grass on the corpse

hoping to fool the horizon, hoping

to hide their sin.

Stop Mountain Top Removal in Appalachia

History's Heap

History's Heap

Ancient worlds created heaven

and truth and deities that rule.

We suffer their wisdom.

Those opposed dead for centuries,

with only the silent earth

to hold the other side

of our eternity.

Christopher Anthony Elder

Today my brother Chris would be celebrating his 48th birthday. I post this drawing and poem in his memory.

Christopher Anthony Elder
(1963-1987)
Stillness consuming its meaning
in my brother's face.
The sacred words cannot be heard
for the stillness is so loud!

It ignores the pleas from my tears
and pushes me away,
leaving memory's remnants
to clothe my naked heart.

Evening Shades

Life

The sapling begins
in the deep light of life
where the sun and breeze
tease the shadows.

The seedling is bound
by the dead debris of seasons
fragile, even to the speechless sky.

Confidently, it stretches
into the universe of colorful prayers
and burrows deep
into the darkness of faith.

A Life of Chances

A Life of Chances

A Silhouette of a sparrow, settles
in the center of a street light's gaze;
caught outside of day,
she waits
for the stars to leave.
What instinct betrayed her?
Leaving her stranded
on this pavement of chances.