‘Time’s Celerity’ and other poems
By: Michael C. Seeger
Time’s Celerity
Time’s celerity astonishes me;
Hastening death with its insatiate clock —
Remorselessly tick-tocking a decree
Numbering my days and hours in its lock.
Ignored in youth, the days went unnumbered.
Misplaced time seemed to go on for hours.
In my second childhood I oft slumbered,
But awoke to find a loss of powers.
I know now what I know and write it here,
Middle-aged, reflective, and subtly wise —
Life’s long, yet brief, and all things disappear,
So play, “seize the day,” and all that implies.
###
Mythos: What’s Felt to the Bone
In a recalcitrant space
A desert in the psychic landscape
Begins taking place;
In the mind ideas shape
Experience into the sheaves
We use to escape,
Transcending this world like waves
Above quotidian drudgery;
Each of us survives
Through myth of recovery.
Unshakable, you are working near;
As always, lovely.
An ingrained faith seems to steer
You through obscurity and reason;
Sometimes it’s not clear.
Though fear comes each season
A redemptive understanding heals;
Changing seems treason
As silent spinning Time wheels
Us along through labyrinthine years,
Sounding like death peals
Slowly winding down its gears
Pitching the mind beyond where its grown;
The metaphor steers
Us to what words cannot own,
To that which can be known but not told;
What’s felt to the bone.
###
Moving Closer
Last night moving closer I heard a train;
Listening faintly I thought of the stars
Above and their distance, I could hear cars
Traveling outside but something in my brain
Apart from me, some diversion that bars
My focus entirely would remain.
What is it in us that produces thought?
Causing us to contemplate the heavens,
And the gravity of life, yet leavens
Us with a sense of humor which is fraught
With emotion: like rolling elevens
In craps and winning, or so I’ve been taught.
How much am I of what I feel and think?
Sounds leading to thought often provoke
Questions which bring images to evoke
Memories that can be the missing link
To most questions posed in the mind or spoke;
I’ve no answer now, but feel on the brink.
###
Pantoum for Dark Weather
Something tells me it’ll always be this way.
I stand here thinking about the way things are;
Part of me is afraid of what may come someday,
Seeing the changes, it may not be that far.
Standing here thinking about the way things are,
Outside spring’s brought an explosion of flowers.
I’ve seen enough changes, it may not be far;
Sometimes life seems to be measured by the hours.
Outside the spring is exploding in flowers,
Marmalade orange and delirious red.
Life comes down to a few decisive hours;
In times like these one gets a feeling of dread.
This delirium has got me seeing red!
I’m afraid that someday you will disappear,
And I can’t seem to shake this feeling of dread,
As this darkly private weather brings a tear.
I’m afraid that someday you will disappear,
And I can’t seem to shake this feeling of dread,
As this darkly private weather brings a tear.
Something tells me it’ll always be this way.
###
Faithful Persistence
At twilight, pondering eternity
Enhances the grandeur of the night
As this soul tries to grasp infinity,
Noting that the heavens above aren’t quite
Of my understanding, and neither is
The Infinite; I consider the stars
And their distance, listen to passing cars
Thinking about all the millions on this
Planet and what’s beyond the ruin of thought.
The Gordian Knot of our existence
Cannot be untied, can’t even be bought—
Depends instead on faithful persistence.
###
Desert Refuge
“I never found the companion that was
so companionable as solitude.”
— Henry David Thoreau
Desert sand arrives in droves,
restive and vulnerable
exploding into dunes,
as Mesquite quietly
darken with clemency.
This barren refuge lures me
prevailing in perfect desolation
saving me with its silence
suddenly, like a cloudburst
felt instinctively within.
Even here, among the ruins,
Nature is still ever-present,
lightly enhancing the world
with invisible spores and
these dunes of burning sand.
###
Hiking Oswit Canyon
“We need the tonic of wildness.” —Thoreau
On the trail my boot heels land
Prints upon the rocky sand
Through the morning solitude
Distancing all desuetude.
The dancing rhythms of my stride
Connects with me all I espied.
My bones inhale the desert air.
My empty thoughts are without care.
All that I sense I am a part
I hum the hymn “How Great Thou Art.”
A rising sun wakes up the realm
(a sight that does not underwhelm),
lighting up the mountain line —
a glorious range from palm to pine.
Purple sky and camel earth
indicate an immense worth
The beauty of this place allures
The sound and sense of it assures
I am Thou and Thou is me —
I look into eternity.
Into my eyes there comes the show
of Oswit Cone in alpenglow
While spanning its alluvial sweep —
for rattlesnakes and bighorn sheep
the desert fox and bobcat hide
as raptors in the thermals glide
My weary legs no longer ache
My eyes adjust and double take
The canyon beckons me to stay
while welcoming the break of day.
In rocky sand my boot heels dig
To reach a wild and ancient fig
next to a pooling waterfall
descending on the mountain’s wall.
The vine appears as old as time
(To see it makes it worth the climb).
The cooling water a surprise —
its pool reflects the orange sunrise.
I feel its warmth within my heart
And hum the hymn “How Great Thou Art.”
###
A Rue Life
Trembled hands of yesterday
now those days have gone away
dark clouds and rain subsided
with the aftermath collided —
body and my soul divided
I felt rage, compassion, too.
Fell in love (what could I do?),
in random sexuality
absently in agony —
never knowing who is me.
Never felt too happy or sad.
I never was real good or bad —
always harboring some shame,
shouldering some unknown blame;
never entering the game.
All those years I lived with pain
Saving never made me gain
If I had it all again
I’d be more real and not pretend
and spend and spend and spend and spend.
###
It Won’t Always Be This Way
Play with your kids when young,
Before their song is sung.
They learn so much from you;
Stay every bit as true.
Then Time begins to show,
Everything they know,
So play with them today
It won’t always be this way.
###
Michael Seeger is a poet and educator residing in the Coachella Valley near Palm Springs, California. Prior to his life as a middle school English instructor, he worked as a technical writer for a baseball card company and served as a Marine infantry officer during Desert Storm. Some of his recent poems have appeared in Ariel Chart, the Scarlet Leaf Review, Pioneertown, and the Desert Sun.
powerful writing