The Carbon Cycle II: Shape of a Painting

Brushes coming in from all sides
or maybe only one
painting me solid
Someone watching; studying
Cold chemicals wash over and through canvas
from opaque to translucent to transparent
then clean again – gone.

Pencils on paper
black and white, shading, giving way
to depth and life
The same judging – necessary?
To an extent.
Pressure, soft plastic on paper
From dark to light to blank
A silhouette remains.

Cells merge and divide
Born from ideas: in the future
They will make way for ideals
They are still judged – always judged.
Cells of carbon born with nitrogen and oxygen
And life together from love
From smooth to rough to cold they may go
Ephemeral as the others (this time - another error?)
Harsh chemicals, smooth plastic; sharp, shaped steel
Cleanse another creation away?
Prepare a new slate for creation – in what way?

Yet choices close in time
Breath begins and life lives
In carbon, from carbon, always carbon cycling
Still projects come alive
New judges open eyes and see

Fated to grow rough and weathered in time
Harsh and bitter in time;
fulfilled and gratified in time.
Then cold but remembered
Still and silent, yet ever alive in a way.

---

2009.

There were another couple lines at the end but I think I like it better as it is.

The Carbon Cycle IV: The Old Man

I had a brother just like you.

he says, as I relinquish some change to the tender
a young man of perhaps eighteen
a hopeful high school senior

Take your cup of coffee and sit.

An old man beckons
A young man listens.

He wears a hat and holey coat
sits down, takes his cap off
He is gray and patchy

He was just like you.

he says, the old man
the patchy, gray, holey, old man

His fingers are nervous yet his voice is warm
warm and desperate for something
Comfort is all, I believe.

There was a time, when I was young -

He says, mouth chewing on a straw
Eyes looking lost and wandering

I used to take medicine when I was young -

Brief insight and clarity into an old man
the gray, sober, old man

But that was long ago.

Chewing on a straw.

My brother would have needed medicine.

Eyes looking down, at the table
Anywhere but me.

So much medicine, so much care.
We would have done it, too - anything.

A reminiscent old man.
Coffee, cool enough to drink.
Light but still bitter. Hot but not burning.

I used to garden when I was young -
My brother might have gardened, were he able.
Now he is able but I am not. Our timing was not so good, was it?

The old man gets up and with the slow swing of a door is gone.
Wondering and wandering, yet with a purpose in his step.
On the street, walking home.

Even I am someone’s brother.

----
There are four poems in this series. Chronologically written and by sequence, this is the last one.

I apologize, I cannot get it formatted the way it should be read.

The Carbon Cycle I: Desert

Sprouting, struggling, finally living
A blade of grass grew in the desert,
'til a seed blew in beside it.
Another blade sprouted in the desert,
and more rose forth and spread alive


rippling green,
rising yellow.

Then decay,
age set in
entirely too soon, it would seem,
and no grass grew in the desert.

One day a blade of grass emerged
and another,

another,

'til once more three had grown.
but flawed and fatal seeds they sowed.
Fragile husks of pulp and water
withered with the day before them;
died in the sun above them,
under the sun that shone upon them.
and crumbled again into dust.

'Til another grew,
and another.

In their roots, they remembered
things never grown before.

Life once more diverged triumphant,
into green and yellow,
over pulp and matter,
decaying, living, growing upwards:

remembering.