‘I wish…’, ‘Taking off’, ‘Meditations on this Morning’s Misadventure’, ‘Fine Threads Stolen in the Night’ & ‘Slowly Returning Back to the Woods’

Photographer - Tobi Brun

I wish…

…we could sing the world alive

like the ancient ones did,

blue and green, holy and mysterious,

forming from the throat,

painting the sky,

from the lips,

painting the sea,

from the tongue,

painting the world.

Aeronauts whispered and flew,

compelled by different virtues.

Gods yet to settle the debate

of whether we should join or not.

So, we decided.

We joined in such a way to make the body shiver

in excitement, horny to create, and overwhelmed.

Animals heard the words, understood them,

participating in the ways stars do,

like the ocean does with the moon,

in a forever partnership.

Then we got greedy, expectant.

We attacked.

Magicians fled, those practicing

soul medicine, fled.

Dreams gave way for the ground, we landed,

hard with the extra weight of gravity.

There we stayed, desiring to return,

thinking space is the same realm.

It is not. We fell too far.

For a moment in time, however,

the trees and mountains weren’t just beautiful,

the jellyfish wasn’t just dangerous,

the deer weren't just boundless,         

they were us.

Taking off

I wasn’t found in the city,

far on the other side.

Nor in the fields of wheat,

beyond.

They could not locate me

in the forest, with the trees

beautiful trees, towering, yet

rooted to the earth.

They looked, the land lovers.

Maybe I would be amongst the

waves. It was radical enough.

They could not conceive that one

would enjoy feet off the ground,

as I did, swaying.

They did not look amongst the birds

who watched over me, curious,

cautious, with biting beaks.

I took off, loving to fly,

the flock surrounding me,

new wings.

I was here, I was gone,

rising, I was here,

I was gone.

Meditations on this Morning’s Misadventure

Oh magical merriment of a meeting once meet,

in a meadow of masquerading madams and men.

We must have mastered our musings of the masses,

for at midnight, we moved like meticulous mice,

and materialized on the mythical plane,

and migrated into the mental mind,

minding not the musk and muck,

as we manipulated marvelous mathematical mystics,

into a motley gang of messy metropolitans,

meaning monsters of magnificent measure.

Oh, our matriarchal mother, a macrocosm of might,

masked this moment in miffed madness,

muttering, "must you mess with the minds of

such modest mathematicians?  

That’s a massacre of manners!

It’s mutated morals!

Major mending of this myopic maneuver is mandatory!”

We moaned and felt melancholic at this misfortunate meeting.

So to maintain a manageable middle,

we manifested medieval mead,

and meditated on this morning’s misadventure.

Fine Threads Stolen in the Night

Take this thread,

weave a partial coat,

cover me up,   partially.

Red, blue, yellow, gold.

Fine threads stolen in the night

from the pillow of the king.

Still, never enough fabric

to cover the grief of a broken world.

Bread swiped from Shelly, Blake,

stolen from Stafford,

warm and hidden under my shirt.

I could take a bite, really.

Instead, it was passed on to that man

on the street. Remember him?

The one you stepped over.

Little did we know,

there was salmon skin

stuck to the crust,

blistered from an open flame.

Wisdom demands vision.

Kings demand loyalty.

I have my preference.

Slowly returning back to the woods

Rambling through the leaves

through uncertain ground,

I wonder who put river rocks

here, where there is no river?

Two doves fly down to greet me,

or were they ravens?

Lives intertwined

Braided morality.

On this day, I could understand

the birds, their language.

They said, strange night,

the wolves forgot to roam.

I didn’t understand until years later,

When, having left the woods,

I found what felt worth forgetting

for the safety of my kids.

In the early morning light,

sheltered in my study,

I look at the things now owned,

considering in the language of men,

maybe I forgot too much.

Brian Rohr is a writer, poet, and performative storyteller based outside of Portland, OR. His essay, “Living in a Broken and Magnificent World: On Being a Story-Carrier,'' was recently featured in the two-volume book set about Jewish Storytelling, P’ri Etz Yitzhak, Fruit of Yitzhak’s Tree. He’s the founder and director of “The Stafford Challenge,” an international poetry project inspiring over one thousand participants to write a poem every day for a year, influenced by legendary poet William Stafford. His feature-length poetry book, Shaken to My Bones: A Poetic Midrash on the Torah, is forthcoming from Ben Yehuda Press (September 2024). brianrohr.com | staffordchallenge.com