TRUE MAGIC

TRUE MAGIC

The purring of Eternity
as the waves roll onto
the shore, endlessly licking
the waiting sands—
true magic….

The leaves dying in multi-
colored hues, giving a bit
of joy to a heart fearing
the death-like cold of winter--
true magic….

The words dropping out from
your soul and then appearing
in another mind---
true magic....

The love that began in a void,
grew to the size of a giant,
and could not be killed even
by death’s dull dagger---
true magic…

ODE TO A SPARROW

I watch you daily
as you sing your plaintive song
and perch lightly upon your loss--
I wish I could help you,
little sparrow so light, but
my own wings were clipped
even before I even left the egg
and so daily I must learn to fly…

BRINGING SOULS INTO THE WORLD

You brought two souls into this world,
and from birth you saw your babies
as they took in everything,
not quite as strangers but like
you might appear when you visit
a place you had never been to before
yet you had the feeling
it was familiar...that you belonged.

EMERGENCE

Once…
I took long walks through the Universe
making giant strides across formless space
just the way a giant would)
thrilled to think if it never ended
it would yet be too soon.
People took me for a child,
were deceived by simple disguise
for I was seer, prophet, and beggar.

One day
as I was meandering across the Milky Way
movement stopped-- I had touched the Fear
and froze fast to It
with all the desperate and mad ardor
of a melting icicle for the roof ledge.

Unseeing days string into beads of blind years--
I became the criminal courting his cell,
a burnt out Prometheus on his boring hill,
an ox of ignorance forever pulling a water wheel
(but there is no water), or to say it another way,
a sleepwalker who dreamt he was awake….

I stopped looking for escape,
turned a key to lock chains that never were
the endless treading through nothing
until a push and a long, long falling
through a tunnel filled with nightmare
and madness and tears—suddenly
to awaken like Alice did
from the dreams of ants
to the dreams of Emperors, Kings and Queens.

Now I wear life as a jewel around my neck
and enter only houses with many doors.

Nolo Segundo, pen name of retired teacher [America, Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia] L.J. Carber, 77, became a published poet in his 8th decade in some 230 literary journals in 19 countries. Cyberwit.net has published 3 softcover collections: THE ENORMITY OF EXISTENCE [2020]; OF ETHER AND EARTH [2021]; and SOUL SONGS [2022]. The titles reflect an awareness gained when he had an NDE whilst nearly drowning in a Vermont river: That he has--is--a consciousness predating birth and surviving death, what poets since Plato have called the soul.