Present

author's note:

Certain poems I keep returning to for medicinal purposes.  This poem may be one of those.


PRESENT

Because they once swept
they still sweep
this Earth
with their white hair--

in the trails
left by those long locks
I find reservoirs
of tears--

reflecting on these pools
of their baptism
I've come to accept
all this rough washing
I must endure...

by stopping
in these dark woods
I can hear

strands
of their unseen presence
instructing us
on how one can become
quietly great.

© 2012, Michael R. Patton
searching for the new mythology