Poet Heart

Poet Heart ~ L'assemblage by Michael Douglas Jones  ©2020

Original artwork SOLD / Gallery 322 

    My poet heart is writing on a pass of paper clouds moving left to write across the frozen northern fields; a crystal breath, billowing, filling the late afternoon with wonder and words that appear, and disappear, in moments of vivid crescent light and violescent shade.

    Crows flock in as punctuation; a caw here, a comma there, returning to roost in the fine handwritten script of bare maple branches. Turkey vultures sail in too, crossing the T's of hickory trees, and underlining the rhyme in blueblack. From my cottage, to the south behind, a faint scent of bitternut smoke colors this poem in bittersweet.

    And here I stand in the still, below the westwrit wind; my pencil in my pocket, my poet heart tucked up my sleeve. I raise my hand to write this down, to carry it in leatherbound, but the pencil pulls the poem apart, and all of this begins again.

    My poet heart is writing on a fade of falling dark.

                     
                                                                             
                                                                                ~ Michael Douglas Jones

…

Moving Through the Meadow

Moving Through the Meadow ~ L'assemblage by Michael Douglas Jones  ©2020

Original artwork SOLD / Gallery 322 

The beekeeper’s boy sits in the meadow,

in the murmur of the moment;

watching the movement of rising and falling;

the bees, their being, and non-being.

Watching, waiting, listening for the bees.

Was that their whisper,

was that the wind, 

or just the whir of white noise.

Colony collapse has finally hit the hive.

The beekeeper’s boy, who raised this rabble,

must now give them up.

The queen is quietly mercurial;

the swarm is more like mayhem.

Still, he had seen the miracle

moving through the meadow.

The beekeeper’s boy sits in the meadow,

 in the measured hours of this moment,

where future will not arrive, and past no longer matters.

The useful Arts and Mysteries, the apicultural history,

the architecture of Aristaeus, all have crumbled,

and lay like wax cappings near recently robbed hives,

like shell casings near recently robbed lives.

Still, he had seen the miracle

moving through the meadow.

…

Social Democracy

Angels in the Air © 2020 Michael Douglas Jones
Prints available: http://goo.gl/ue83F

I have friends and family on every spectrum of belief and knowledge; I love each and all of them, and will not sacrifice one for another during this pestilence. We are a community and my signature is on a social contract that I pledge to uphold every day that I live.

So, here we are; shouting about freedom, about liberty, and that is all well and good. If we are here to voice our wishes, our choices, as to who we are, where we came from as we made this our world, and in this voicing, we honor our ancestors that lived, that died, that came here to this land, to this life, to this day, to be the best that humankind, that human kindness could be, then, we are here to make humankind the best kindness for our children, and their children, and their children's’ children.  Our voice, in fact, our entire life, is based on one choice, and that is this; Love or Fear. At day’s end, what is it that you love; what is it that you fear? I do not fear inclusion; I do not fear diversity of belief; I do not fear the other, because there is no other.

•

   I have read the volumes about angels in the air, seen my share of Sunday sermons, stood inside the stunning limestone cathedrals, and sat beneath the vault of heaven, but this is my experience of faith, as I find it in every moment of the everyday.

You breathe out

and I breathe in;

where you leave off
and I begin,
I cannot say.
Where you leave off
and God begins,
I cannot say.
This is my faith,
simply said.

Muse Descending

Muse Descending ~ L'assemblage by Michael Douglas Jones  ©2020

Original artwork SOLD at Gallery 322

In the midst of this malaise,

the muse descended,

as quiet as a baby’s breath.

Listen; are those falling leaves

or tiny wings.

The muse comes,

not in grand gown,

but at odd hour,

with shoulder wrapped

and whispering.

She touches down lightly,

sprinkling gold dust,

stardust, rust,

and we are waiting here,

with arms open,

or eyes closed,

and still she comes,

as she is.

This always was;

always will be.

…