Gravity and Water

Why does the full moon affect us so
Is it the increased gravity pulling on our bodies
Do we realize the gravity of the situation
Is it some primal instinct we cannot comprehend
I stand by the water on this moonlit night
The mountains rising high above as silent sentinels
As I try to understand the gravity
The light is bright, I can see everything
Except where I go from here
Gravity pulls me in directions I was not prepared for
My senses seem to sharpen
I hear the water lapping against the rocks
I see the snowfields and ridge lines above
The air is clear and cold
I long for her touch.

Crap....I'm not a poet. No matter how hard I try to be profound with words, I always end up falling back on my standard prose. So, yeah....the moon is full and it was an amazing walk along the lake. I tried to just talk as thoughts came to me, and at first it sounded pretty good. Then I lost my train of thought in how quiet it was, so I grabbed my phone and started recording with the memo recorder. Yeah....that train of thought left the station and I was left on the platform. Oh, well. I do better trying to string words together in full sentences rather than try to be something I'm not. Some people just have it, and being a music freak I like to pick out certain songs that by themselves would be great works of poetry. In fact, I'm listening to one right now......


Listen, hear, he is inside
One who lives while others lie
I close my eyes and walk a thousand years
A thousand years that aren't mine
It seems he's near me as I walk
One who loved what love denied
He lives these years that I walk blind  
All these years cannot be mine  
Tomorrow begat tomorrow 
A thousand doors a thousand lies
Rooms a thousand years wide
He walks in the cold sun and wind  
All these years will not begin  
Tomorrow begat tomorrow

Fuck.....Why can't I come up with something like that? Maybe because I'm currently residing in the former stomping grounds of Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder, and I'm looking at the same mountains as they did.

"I had to wait and get to see the face of reality – and it finally comes… it comes in these words: “The void is not disturbed by any kind of ups or downs, my God look at Hozomeen, is he worried or tearful?... Why should I choose to be bitter or sweet, he does neither? – Why cant I be like Hozomeen and O Platitude O hoary old platitude of the bourgeois mind ‘take life as it comes’… All I have to do is wait 30 long days to get down from the rock and see sweet life again – knowing it’s neither sweet nor bitter but just what it is, and so it is." Kerouac

Down valley a smoke haze

Three days heat, after five days rain   

Pitch glows on the fir-cones

Across rocks and meadows

Swarms of new flies.

I cannot remember things I once read   

A few friends, but they are in cities.   

Drinking cold snow-water from a tin cup   

Looking down for miles

Through high still air.

 

Snyder