Roan Clay
  • Home
  • Roan's Books
  • Reviews
  • Bookstore
  • News/Events
  • Press/Media
  • Contact
  • Videos
  • Blog
  • Home
  • Roan's Books
  • Reviews
  • Bookstore
  • News/Events
  • Press/Media
  • Contact
  • Videos
  • Blog
Roan Clay

To Arlinga once more

10/30/2016

1 Comment

 
You stand on the path that leads to space,
Where star- and engine-flame would light your face.
Any moment now could take you there,
Bathwater boiling from your hair,
But stop! Turn to another path for now--
Run up to the places among the old trees,
And see, in the valleys spreading below,
The Lowlands and Villages laid out beneath
The savage high peaks, the hanging snow!
Put on a Sheewan cloak once more,
And slip behind the High City's doors!
Think in terms of wayside tea,
And have it with friends from places far--
Here's Byorneth, who led his friend to see
Places strange and standing stones!
See ancient carvings in tongues unknown,
The Highland woman who grew the leaf
That--No! Let them read if they do not know
The slave, the bear, the camp in the trees,
Tales of old times, the sound of the sea!

Muffle the knocker, bar the door,
And let us go to Arlinga once more!
1 Comment

October 22nd, 2016

10/22/2016

0 Comments

 
FAR SENTINEL

Is anybody there?


It's been ten days since the crew disappeared, and I was left all alone on this ship, hurtling through space. I was never meant to be here. I should have died in my life pod, my body eventually consumed in a star somewhere. But my life was saved by the people now gone, frozen in time.

I'm not awake, it seems. I've been dreaming for a while, and in my dream I've examined the hull around me, probing it for flaws with dream-fingers. Here in this dreamworld, I've found a place where my thoughts seem to go through. Maybe they're being fed into a black hole somewhere out in space, or materializing on a screen, or being spoken in a whisper by another sleeper in another world.

Whichever way, this is a comfort. Even though I know I probably won't remember this dream, I trust it will be a subconscious reminder of hope to my waking self.

The forest I grew up in was a giant one, now lost. Yet somehow, the very solitude of this ship seems to have a sylvan peace to it. Katherine showed me her favorite books in the ship's library, and it was as if she had guided me to a glade known only to her, where sunbeams illuminated a rare plant just coming into bloom.

I moved into the glade, and in the petals of that plant found Shakespeare, Tennyson, long novels nearly forgotten. I sit now on the bed of leaves, and read the flowers around me, and here within my dream, I dream once more. I dream the dreams that Katherine dreamed before she vanished.

Who knows--maybe she still dreams, caught between two moments in time, in a deeper sleep than I will ever know!

My waking self is Phillip Stack, and I am alone, with plenty of company.
0 Comments

Roan Clay Blog

10/22/2016

0 Comments

 

reading garden poem

Picture
In times long past were gardens splendid,
From the rooftops hanging down, and walked by kings,
And ladies strolled on mountain-terraced fields
Where fruit and blossom sweetened foreign air.
Below such heights were fields of fine tea,
Where sweating workers picked the leaves
For drinking in the midst of neighbor pool and fountain.
Tea is drunk in gardens, crystal water,
Some have wine, and in the summer tea is iced,
But here the drinking is of lovely odors, breezes.
The air is as the water, to infuse the leaves of books,
So this garden-air shall be a tea of tales.


How can chain-link fencing set a place apart?
For sounds come through, the roar of motors,
Voices far and high--and yet this place is other,
Set apart, secluded in the midst of traffic.
Trees watch over, clover carpets this bright spot,
With plots of flowers complementing plots of books!
And here kings walk as well, and queens,
Princes and princesses in their tiny, childish haste.
They're bearing stories! See here, there comes
The Amulet of Samarkand about a prince's neck!
Brave Achilles falls where that man reads,
The Bennets scheme a marriage in yon corner where she is!
Perhaps a scribbler struggles over stories new,
Her first grand effort at a wise and simple tale!
So the air is filled with pictures as they read,
And in these golden afternoons of summer, children play.


And so the poem changes, this poem wherein I stand,
For a garden is a poem--there, a rhythm of the tree and bench,
A complicated meter in the spacing of the tables,
A metaphor of pumpkin and of herb, three lines apart!
In such a garden might fair Helen have escaped the dread of Troy,
There a gunless soldier struck a truce with warring tribes,
There a dead Tyrannosaurus lies in Spinosaurus' grip!
Yonder there was Elrond's council in a time beyond recall,
And on this stage, see Brutus knifing Caesar first within that distant Globe!
If you listen, you can hear the engines of the spaceship we are on,
Churning out beyond the steel-lined garden,
And unfurling in the trees, the standard of the host of Alexander
Flutters up above where sit Joe Hardy, Chet and Frank.


But in winter, what becomes of these?
And is the garden truly gone until the spring?
The books were brought out into air, and came alive,
So where are garden-joys in times of glinting frost?
    Books are filled up with the summer,
    Taken in and put away,
    And opened up and read upon a bitter, snowy day,
    And so the summer is unleashed in spaces cramped with chill,
    And we sit in summer cheer upon a winter windowsill.







0 Comments

    About

    Roan Clay words that you can read for free!

    Archives

    April 2019
    July 2018
    March 2018
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    October 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.