Judgement by Henry Rivers

                                                                Judgement

People pass judgement
on those who are dying
and those who are just born

and ages that are dying
and those to be born.

And people pass judgement
on those with broken wings
and those with a left foot

and those afraid of night.

Just to make it harder,
just to be all-wise?

just to feel like a hawk,
a boy running in the wind?

And then,

there are those who are silent,
who don't pass judgement

there are those who smile
and take your hand,

these are called by some
the 'outsiders'
and by some
the 'kite runners'.

I met a man once
and he walked in darkness,
and he came slowly down the road
and into the field
where I was listening to the well,

and he said
'I hear the singing -
is it night or day'?

And I told him
it was day,

and he smiled, knowing,
and took my hand
and we talked down the road

together.

Night Flight

Night Flight by Henry Henry Rivers
Art work by Marie Pierce

Across the migration
of winds
and stars
and the city
of the moon,

buoyed by the sea
of darkness
and the warmth of earth -
rising above the hills,
rising above the plains
and the moving streams, -

calling to their fellows,
touching our tree-tops,
singing the ancient
antiphonal of North
and South,
of warmth and cold,

singing the mirror
of sea and tundra,

singing the mirror
of the falling horizon
where land and water -
where dreams and waking
meet.

A whisper of wings
and they are gone.

February 17, 2013

Blue blue windows

Behind the stars

Yellow moon on the rise

Bid birds flying across the sky

Throwing shadows in our eyes

Leave us helpless

      -Neil Young Helpless