Notes From Near The Cedar River

©  Steve King 2015

All Rights Reserved

I cannot see the way from here, out of

this darkness, and the weight of every dream—

strange transients, each one too brief to mark

its meaning on the face of any mood.

The night brings unmapped worlds into my view,

a dark vision that shares no grand display

beyond a bare perception, though I look

to every star, on each grim shape alive

in phantom silhouette, to reflections

that dance on surfaces, yet flare as deep

as any sky-bred fire in distant keep,

all borning to this unquiet intent.

The flow I hear, and I can sense movement

upon this world; a leaving, and the gift

of bringing far to near; a sense of old

and of the yet unknown, but never one

to mark an easy instant here for me,

to substitute for what must suit as now,

that holds no comfort, either of my place,

or where any horizon may yet call.

All cause remains a mystery to this:

each testing thought only hypothesis,

no startling conclusions to the fore,

no matter what another may conceive

about these musings, or the nascent brief

of any notion set to flourish here.

If wishes led, then might I find a path,

for I have spent a soul on each desire

that raised me to make bold in sentiment,

in faiths and perspective, in loves and song;

and more, when art has failed to every end,

and I aspired to music of next best.

Yet I cannot imagine better things,

or different half measures to embrace,

than to behold myself in every way

unfinished, and awaiting fuller days,

each draught of expectation just enough,

compelling me to silence at the last;

but decent silence, not forlorn escape,

nor uneasy retreat from some unknown:

these scattered stars remain and they may leave

no disarray.  It is for me to trace

the measure of those ageless ones complete

in every shaded meaning cast below,

in latent music teasing all around,

which holds no cadence for impatient hearts.

For there is art to spare in this waiting:

imagining the shapes of destiny,

and forms to fill out every half-cast dream.

Each hollowed moment gathers to the point:

how hopes must find their birth in emptiness—

a dark invention of the soul’s escape

from all that weighs; how hoarded memories

wake to remind of each thing fallen short;

how each unspoken, unremitted sin,

in its reluctant rising to fresh light,

may gain a grace to turn its burdens right,

or even find brief peace within the folds

of some abiding ambiguity.

A modest triumph, to outwait a night

and gather modest truth; for I am where

all meanings must devolve if any be;

if meaning may be recognized at all

beyond the murmur of the shifting airs,

the roll of waters, and the moon’s new light.

Such modest triumph, teasing beauty so

from each intruding thought, each pausing word,

in sudden longings that would steer my heart

if only I might let an old one go.

And so I hold for newness and surprise,

and cede a patience that is rare in me.

The old night, calling faintly to its own,

with a new irony smothers old dreams;

I am a page awaiting its new marks

that render paths to where old souls repair.

Withholding judgements now, and past all care,

I shall remain, ‘til beauty shows me there.


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