SOUL REST
Quietude is my peace
My rest, away from fellow humans
It is in the midst of a blowing hard, moving rain.
Driving against a window pane,
In the night while all sleep
Howling
Woooing, splattering, tapping hard on a roof
Or tent,
Wind and rain
Wailing forlorn and lonely
Deep into the strings of my soul
The kind of thing that makes me
Hurt and cry, but brings me fullness
And peaceful quiet
Kind of like
You get in an old west ghost town
Dust and tumbleweeds fly
Across an empty street
No one else around, but shadows
Quietude and peace is no one to talk to
An empty house in the country
Only a June bug and it’s high pitched
Frequency shrill piercing
The air yet still, so still, so quiet,
Ringing in my ear
Quietude and peace is me and a mild wind,
In the west, my home,
My rural country
A breeze drifting from a far away arroyo
Dried creek beds filled with stones
The crackling sound of a jumping grasshopper
Yellow camouflaged on silty soil
Me sitting under a cottonwood
Following the scent of the wind to those
Smooth foothills, purple and brown
Not far away
Quietude is my peace
No one else around,
The smell of sage
Looking up that cottonwood’s leaves
Just me and
Leaves stirring, stems turning slow
Sparkles of silver,
Then turning fast,
The wind blowing from far away
Speaking softly, impressions to me while
Twisting leaves wildly, reflecting grey,
Giving them rustling voices
Peaceful sounds, like wind chimes
Onionskin paper
I sit at peace and in quiet
With high noon’s dancing light,
Shadow and light mottled moving all
Around the ground at my feet
The pungent smell of bark and musty soil
Lonely coooo, cooooing of a beige, grey dove
Undisturbed, high in the branches
Just me and a small
Beetle trudging in the dirt below
At my feet,
In the shadow of the cottonwood tree
Peace and quiet is trekking on a trail, at 12,000 feet or more
In the high sierra,
Hot summer day, sharp stones underfoot
Brittle, sharp sounds like dense shards of clay
Rising from my soles
Poetic sounds
Creaking backpack, slow rhythm of motions
In walking for miles
Sand’s grit, . . . soft sizzling sound,
Smell of body sweat, bright blue sky overhead
Breathing in, . . . out, in, . . . out
Heart thumping in my veins
In the quiet, I hear, “Why do you walk, why do you climb?”
In peacefulness of the wild places of the Sierra Nevada
I hear a voice, “You walk and climb because it’s there.”
Then, I contemplate, and find it hard at first to answer
“No, that would be in vain,
I go to these places to escape myself
To hear sounds I can’t hear at work
Or when surrounded by people,
Even those I love
To be alone and just let
Be
Alone and just let go
That place where no one wants
Anything of me, or me of them