Survivors

Survivors

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

The Sacred Groves


© by Steve King
All rights reserved


The sacred groves have all been hewn to render fences, dwellings, and their neat décor,
and rafts of other transitory things that will not shimmer nor bend with the air.

Not so much for temples and their ilk; not sanctuaries nor remote retreats
to shelter mendicant reflections, or to echo with those quaint old prayers.
Gone, the children’s hiding place in sheltered fairy-bowers;
gone the shamans and their daylight charms; gone the wise birds and seers.

I’ve read that in old days, those times gone by when gods were still with us,
with powers fit to fill the ready air, their large presence would inhabit the woods;
and for the gift of hospitality they would endow the golden boughs
with full song of spirit to hymn the notes of the enlivened leaves,
bidding winds to sing; granting grace to those who dreamed as kings,
if only over those small shaded realms, if only for a moment.

And now the sacred groves are gone, and gods don’t live by ready air alone.
Vacant are those airs, and stilled the voice that echoed all around;
and scattered on the open ground, the ashes of what once were golden boughs.

13 comments:

  1. Yeah nothing like that resides in most now a days
    Setting such areas ablaze.
    Or mowing them down
    To make a new mall in town

    ReplyDelete
  2. Gorgeous, flowing , golden and a lot of other adjectives come to mind here--the sadness is palpable, and one that resonates in a world where everything old is forgotten, everything durable, alive and real forsaken for plastic toys and greed...but I digress. ;_) The end lines, and the phrase "remote retreats/
    to shelter mendicant reflections..." really stand out for me. Excellent poem, Steve.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Beautifully written! Sadly, those little pieces of paradise are disappearing faster and faster.

    ReplyDelete
  4. yeah - great flow for sure steve - i tranced into it and drifted
    around in your construct enough to feel the shape of it all...
    the forsaken parks of peace and paradise laid waste by the modern
    machine matrix - well crafted and designed to lull - great write steve :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. ugh man...a beautiful piece...love the flow and feel of it..but the massage is what saddens my heart...not just the loss of trees but because they were my playground...gone now to a budweiser plant out back my parents yard...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Sad to see things happening..your words capture these emotions best:

    Gone, the children’s hiding place in sheltered fairy-bowers;
    gone the shamans and their daylight charms; gone the wise birds and seers.

    Lovely write Steve ~

    ReplyDelete
  7. Beautiful piece...sad to see things unraveling...the sacred groves are gone, and gods don’t live by ready air alone....... great write, Steve.

    ReplyDelete
  8. There are not words for how much I love this poem. It will occupy a space in the temenos of my inner being.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Fewer and fewer such sanctuaries exist. It's hard to find such places where one can sit and listen for the gods.

    -Ravenblack
    http://theotherdayplace.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  10. Having an awful lot of trouble registering a comment here. Hope it takes this time // I loved this beautiful lament. We are all fallen angels, we earthlings. But every so often we turn the earth and find petrichor...a window of hope...At least I'd like to see it this way. Lovely write, Steve!

    ReplyDelete
  11. this has such a wide and sad feeling to it...beautiful flow and kinda lulled me in with the rhythm...but then the ashes...great write steve

    ReplyDelete
  12. It does indeed move from wonder to sadness, perhaps elegy. The span of awareness of what was compared to what is now transpires in realms of dispossession, the sacking of the shrines of imagination by greed and despair. The poem moves, almost against its will, to its end and brings us to its consciousness that awareness.

    ReplyDelete
  13. rafts of other transitory things... love that line... and a mournful truth you have written and written well.

    ReplyDelete