Tell me there is no God
And I shall die in my garden
Breathing the wonder,
My brain obliterated
By the green spring
And the blackbird
Fluorescing
Music and magnitude
And wielding the shrill knife
Of beauty’s grievous wound,
And I will say nothing,
But put the pen
On the paper
And write my pitiful, joyous attempt
At the writing of it,
And die in my tears
And laugh in my tears,
And cry for the love
That kills me
As I feel
Its world-ending enormity.
The Scots pine glows red-skinned
In the morning light.
He is always there,
Watching over my life.
Sometimes he stands out,
As beautiful as beauty itself,
And sometimes he is invisible.
Today, his presence is called
And warbled by the birds
Hopping among his branches.
The breeze too has its say
In the vibration of a myriad needles.
I walk in reality, breathing the breath,
Feeling the body, seeing with the eyes.
The world is beautiful
For it happens
Despite the thoughts in my head.
The garden grows, expands into spring,
The foliage lush with promise.
The cat sits by the pond, under the
Blossoming trees, and amid daffodils.
He breathes the air too,
Watching, always watching,
Thinking not one moment beyond the
Moment he’s in.
New air,
The first in the world
And light as spirit imbibed,
Holds the scent of morning.
And there is twittering
Of innumerable birds,
Joyous as the magnolia buds
In voluptuous opening.
For all things are expressing
Their being in timeless rebirth,
The song of spring
Once more alive.
The morning is fresh
Upon the dew soaked forms
Called to their greater love
In the body of the sun.
Everything is light
And as apparent as my condensing breath,
The world and my heart alive,
Brought by a transient glistening.
Moving in the garden
My body is free
As new expectant air,
Mellow in the coming.
The push of bulbs
Rises through my limbs,
The sap called by the source
To come and become.
Is there better than being,
Just being?
The gnats know,
Ascribing their wisdom
In choreography
Written on the breeze
Where the afternoon is nothing
But a pale yellow light.
©Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2017
In millennial silence
beings conceived at the very beginnings
unfold as they have timeless
known revolutions diurnal
and the cyclic swing of earth
in its year long voyage
in praise of wisdom
gifted by the star sol.
To know a billion years unaltered
and be in generation’s span
of always true to sun –
receiving the endless flow
of time’s nourishment
and the gracious matter
felt by every quivering leaf
as heat’s warm bosom
and light’s so gentle hand
– is first and only truth
within the kingdom
of father in heavens certainty.
To flourish is birthright
upon the world’s good earth;
and moss, guiltless in the whole,
takes its rightful place
among the children,
and thoughtless absorbs elation
as it was so lovingly sent.
Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016
The finches and dawn tits
Make an avenue of the gardens,
Traversing boundary and fence
As if they weren’t hurdles
But opportunity along the way.
Each March they make their highway here,
Gathering seeds from spent winter stems.
And from pods, crisp in bunches, they cling,
Feeding as if the wait were over
And the joyous work of spring begun.
Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016
Beneath the succulent leaves,
In the shadow cast
Where harsh sun
Fragments
To a gentle dappling,
Proboscis flowers
Scent the musty undergrowth
With sweetness derived
From intense concentration.
Like the artist
Who dedicates the hours
To find a pure manifestation,
The flower too
Is single minded
In its delicate craft
And delights in its creation.
copyright 2016 Ben Truesdale & distilledvoice
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