Beacon Centre For The Blind

Fruit Tree, In Three Parts

ONE
To the horizon is a sea of perfect, glistening white
Whatever direction you turn, you look, the same:
Smooth, perfect, blinding floor
Sparkling
As if encrusted with magical jewels,
It all seems impossible
And viciously infinite

The sun, high above, is terribly small
But blinding nevertheless,
The eternal white glares viciously
Yet delicately twinkles,
Echoes of starlight, assault of pure Heaven

There are but three things on this day that are not flat, cold, white:
To the left a deer,
Buck
Eight points,
It’s trail from the horizon straight;
To the right, a struggling, trembling doe
Too young yet to be maternal,
It’s trail meanders, lost and blind;
And
In the centre of all
Like a beacon of hope,
An ice-covered fruit tree—
Unmatched crystal beauty

Dangling from the tree
Two small, succulent, wizened fruit;
On the faces of the deer
Nothing but hunger

The frozen snow crunches like brittle bone
Under the hooves of the deer,
One approaching steadily, with resolve,
The other stumbling
Sinking
Fighting to win a futile race


TWO
The first apple is devoured
And tastes sweet;
The doe, still fifty yards (or miles) away
Stumbles, collapses--
Eyes glistening over with tear
Or fog of death

The vicious, blinding sun
Suspiciously blinks in the blue sky,
Dims
Recedes like a childhood memory

The war is over;
The battle is lost
There cannot be another

The buck
Proud, young and strong
Looks up into the face of the blinding sun;
He does not blink;
He hears the voice, the whisper
Carried on the waves of light through the cold of space
To this place
And this moment in all time

He plucks the apple
(As apples have been plucked since the beginning)
And
(As we all knew he would)
Shares the bounty of this bleak and noble land
With the only other one
Who too
Can know God
But is not
In fact
God

THREE
The white continues for it is infinite
As suspected,
The jewels continue to sparkle

The sun, so distant
The sun, so bright
Circles again and again
In perpetual majesty
Unchanged and unrelenting

Each night
In opposite directions
The trails continue to ever lengthen
Crunching and crackling
In this barren place
This barren place
Called the Human soul.

I like the concept; however, it seems to “wordy” which makes it loose its power

As an example I see it like this:-


The horizon, sea of perfect, glistening white
Whatever direction the same:
Smooth,
perfect,
blinding floor,
Sparkling
encrusted with magical jewels,
It all seems impossible


The sun, high above,
small,
The eternal white glares viciously
Yet delicately twinkles,
Echoes of starlight,
Assault pure Heaven

2009-01-02 19:42:06 by Alobar

A first look at the new Beacon Centre for the Blind in its development stage. www.beacon4blind.co.uk 01902 880 111 Wolverhampton Road East ...

Quest-I-On

Dreams of paradise escaped
From frustration in my mind.
They left no tracks to follow.
So, I stumbled after, blind.

For months i wandered lost
With no mercy for my prey.
Once though, I thought I'd found it,
It either died or ran away.

With inner urges beckoning,
I continued on my quest
For my dreams of paradise
That I alone knew best.

The hunt was very taxing
On my courage from within,
Until it seemed my quarry
Might be the victor in the end.

Summoning my strength behind
My dogs of determination,
I followed 'til they led me to
The "Queen of Captivation".

There she sat in splendor,
As a beacon on the hill,
Across a lake of time that posed
A challenge to my will.

My dogs had never learned to swm.
Thus, I was on my own,
With only her light to guide me.
Oh Lord! How bright it shone!

I swam across Time's Lake
To the base of her great peak,
Where I sat in awe and wondered,
So entranced... I could not speak.

I climbed in hope of finding
The half that'd make me whole,
In belief the richness of her love
Belonged only with my soul.

I carried deep inside me
My gift more great than gold.
Perhaps, I'd coax her to me,
Then watch our hearts unfold.

At last I reached the summit,
The end of my great quest!
There, sat the Virgin Queen,
Whom no man had once possessed.

I watched her from a distance.
Her face my boldness coached.
settling fear and hiding pride,
I carefuly approached...

A pale blue light was glowing
In her eyes as she awoke.
It drew me ever closer...
And that was when I spoke.

"My daring, Virgin Queen,
It is only you I seek.
You are too fair and finely-graced
To stay on this lonely peak.

"Come with me away from here,
To lands you've never seen.
For I am the Jack of Hunter's,
And you're a Captor's Queen!

"I have no cage to hold you,
For your beauty it would hide.
I've only dreams of paradise
With you there by my side.

"Come share some pleasures with me,
Swimming in the Lake of Time,
Explore the limits of ourselves,
Both joyful and sublime.

"My goals and ideals center on
My seeing you are wed
Before you're tricked by just a man
Into joining him in bed.

"Your chastity shall be awarded
An honor on this day.
For I would rather die myself
Than see you drawn astray.

"Now, at last I've said my piece
And described my heart's desire.
Answer now. Will your breath of life
My dreams of paradise inspire?"

W.O. Bryant, 1983

17 years later, I married a "Virgin Queen" I found online in Puerto Rico.

I have long enjoyed poetry proving itself prophetic. The problem is that too few poets admit to becoming part of their art. For some reason they like to pretend that they are writing about the past. Well, with the exceptions of Nostradamus and Mother Shipton, at least. It is fulfilling to live ones art.

2009-07-11 19:07:28 by We never left!

It is with the most exquisite, and morbid, irony that we pause to reflect on the transience of our mortal existence. How insufficient is the familiar three score and ten for compassing the extraordinarily diverse and richly nuanced offerings of human experience. Yet paradoxically, does not this very brevity, and the occasional sense of urgency it engenders, render life’s mysterious trajectory more accessible to reflection, even while emphasizing its vicissitudes? Indeed, is three score and ten not poignantly balanced as a span scarcely adequate for the fulfillment of our dreams and, at the same moment, as a sentence of unbearable length, choked with contemplative yearning for lives unlived and potential selves lost irretrievably in the mingled scream of weltering tempest and plangent wave.

Every day, as I see my fellows scurry about, rushing duty-bound from one appointed task to the next, I grow by inches more wistful and melancholy in the realization that I move with them, draw by many of the same dark compulsions and dire necessities. Alas, the beacon of introspection, guided by Time’s injurious hand, reveals the somber shadow that falls between the realm of dreams and the daylight world’s dull web of discontents. The practice of self-reflection also forms the basis for what must be one of life’s deepest ironies — the subtle workings of a keen, metacognitive mind hold implicit within them the profound recognition of impermanence I all human affairs. Sic transit gloria mundi. The miracle of human consciousness, the capricious crown that seems to leave our species poised tantalizingly between the gods and the creatures of the forest, is poised only to fall to earth, another leaf brown, embrittled, and withered by time. Time that gave doth now his gift confound, and all within his bending sickle’s compass come. It reminds us of nothing so much as the abyss that opened up, according to Roman historians, in the center of the Forum. According to Livy a brave young knight, Curtius, in obedience to an oracle, to save his country, threw himself, armed and on horseback, into its blind depths to propitiate the gods.

Is not the chasm merely one of the devouring mouths of that pit of blackness that lies beneath us, everywhere? Ay, the firmest substance of human happiness is but a thin crust spread over it, with just reality enough to bear up the illusive stage-scenery amid which we tread. It needs no earthquake to open the chasm. A footstep, a little heavier than ordinary, will serve, so we must step very daintily, not to break through the crust at any moment. By and by, we inevitably sink! Vanity of vanities, for Rome itself was devoured by that pit of blackness; temples have tumbled into it, armies with triumphal banners raised have marched into the great chasm, with martial music playing as they stepped over the brink…

Alas, we are never assured a full complement of years. Our time, however brief, may be dramatically foreshortened by disease, or mere happenstance, yet further. The understanding that so much exertion, and pathos, must be contained in so slender a vessel renders the meaning of those exertions, with all of their sublunary ebbs and flows, more poignant. It ushers in the intimation of the experience of living as more poetry than prose, for in the former the compression of meaning imposed by the formal strictures of rhyme and metrical foot — and even of brevity itself — heightens the sense of each word, each syllable, each breath as singularly important in itself, precious and irreplaceable. Each seems to spring forth, expand and fill space, resonating and blending there with all others in an exquisitely arresting balance of dissonance and harmony. And, like poetry, life’s own mysterious aesthetic can be no more contained than the wind.
For my uninformed respondent, a score is twenty years, a decade is ten years. I've made no effort to use 'big words', only the correct ones.
It is remarkable that people who are so concerned with concision require so many words to tell you that very fact... oh well, another of life's mysteries.
I'd hardly call this a complex or long piece of writing, just a passing thought instead... albeit one that returns frequently.

This is a very deep piece of writing and therefore requires a large amount of thought.This is exactly what I have been looking for in Yahoo! Answers for over a month now!And while it might not be my place to say it,"Vet" it's supposed to be deep that is the way that many people like their writing,they want to be able to pick different meanings and ideas out of it,they don't want to just look at it and say"oh well,I it seems as though it can't be looked at from a different angle."


Bravo,you have created a very thoughtful piece of writing!

2009-01-18 18:26:33 by Peter