Human, Naturally

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Elaine Stirling, poetry

The seas of my imagining I bring
to bear in pewter cups, to serve
in life what some define as greed
and I as sweet prosperity.

I do not fear to lose a drop
for anything that spills can only land
on ground I’ve sown and tilled until
the evidence surrounds me singing,
soaring, resting in the highest boughs—
be they bobcats, kites, or whip-poor-wills.

Each of us to Nature is attuned
as animal, both human and divine,
immortal and enclosed in time. No thing
unnatural exists except belief, and even
this bi-pedal truth is brief and fine,
bestowed as mine through dendrites,
glial cells, and appetites—in joy
I thrive, in sorrow, seek relief.

What higher gnosis do I need,
a human naturally, to calculate
the cause and source, the birth
and death of anything?

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2015

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Epitaph

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attitude, Elaine Stirling, fun and silly rhyming verse, plurality, poetry

I much prefer the company
of those whose expectations lean
toward outcomes of prosperity

inclined, each day, to gravitate
toward what might be
the greatest of societies

which cannot even hope
to be if I degrade toward what
has been, or murder with comparison

replacing I don’t know with sure
is far less pained a leap for me
than that of no to mediocrity

and when they carve my epitaph
or scatter carbon bits across
some vast untrammeled sea

somebody with unguarded heart
will catch a passing phrase
of overweening, slightly corny,
loudly rhyming poetry
and wonder—was that me?

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2015

Gaiman on the Beach

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#NeilGaiman, Elaine Stirling, poetry, sonnet

Reading “Bitter Grounds” from Fragile Things by
Neil Gaiman on the beach supplies a kind
of tantalizing peace I do not find
by tracking with a realistic eye.

I know the risks. I’ve felt the acrid burn,
the pressures of intelligence contrived
by some base fear of disappointment, tried
to be content with what’s already learned.

I just can’t do it. I choose neverlands.
And if my preference to imagine proves
some chimera to be, I’ll learn new moves
of fantasy until I understand

the axis mundi of the personal:
perceiving one affects the universal.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2015