Between Then and Now

By Danny Smitherman

The lush, sweet and green

�� Air of summer

Is certainly gone now

�� From this bare and cool green of fall

When morning is only

�� A small orange fire

On the western fringe

�� Of the low and heavy grey clouds

Where, on a hill

�� To the northwest,

A few hundred feet above Missoula

�� I am breathing

I am drinking in a wet kiss

�� A wind from

Sleeping Woman Peak

�� Her rocky breast

And to my left,

�� The south, toward the light,

A hill�s dry, gold grass

�� Stands in my view

Of Lolo Peak,

�� But I know what I�d see:

Her head, down to her shoulder

�� Bathed in a silver grey

Shower of rain

�� And snow her sparkling veil

I also know that behind me

�� Down the hillside

Is a doe, a whitetail

�� Almost invisible in camouflage

And brown grass

From here �

�� From where I am now

I can see these things

And in between then and now

�� Lies a city

Sleeping in a concrete sleep

Lights like dreams

�� Blinking, winking

Off glass and dark dawn

�� Winking like the eye

Of a troubled mind

A mind with eyes open

�� All the way

But still twitching with instinct

�� Like a cat

Blind to color and light

Coming awake like a Greek

�� (Or must it be a Spartan?)

A bright blade blooming

�� In his scarlet chest

In his dying on a rocky dry isthmus

Where one tear alone

�� Can flood the dust

Like a river

�� Or opened vein

___________________

For My Father*

�My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori�

�I woke to black flak and the nightmare

fighters�

Or another, Father,

One that tells it for you,

Clearly,

Like yesterday and the

Cold, the small

Cold cockpit at bare,

Numb fingertips, young wife on

Hot heart tip, young

Children, quiet and small

Birds, blown

With warlike urgency and rudeness in a

Bombs-bursting

Sky of thoughts?

* Bombardier and pilot in WWII and Korea

_____________________

�� Participation

The mists,

�� White-robed virgins

�� Run out to meet the Sun, bright Groom,

�� Shimmering spirits, dancing light

Or rising, curling steams alone?

The mists, white-robed virgins

Run out to meet the sun, bright groom.

Shimmering spirits, dancing lights!

Then rising, curling steams so soon.

_________________________

God�s Mask

Nature is a mask

And god hides

Like a mist across the sun

And god burns

The moon eclipsing

And god flares

A dark thundercloud

And god blazes white and sharp

Like a soft deep snow

And god thrusts tall jagged blue

Like a bunker hides blazing guns

Tall grasses disguise the beast king�s roar

Like a sleeping gown makes mystery

Of a wife�s body

god�s mask falls

And nature burns

_________________

�� Participation II

A planet, hung in darkest space,

A pearl set in a necklace,

A goddess bathed in golden rays,

Or Logos and Anthropos in transforming embrace?

Balls of distant but earthy fire,

Heroes, lifted from our mire,

Punctured dark vault, uninspired

Or phenomena at our hire?

Voice from the bush in its burning,

A message in the stars� turning,

My own throat rich with groaning,

Or the chorus for which we ache with yearning?

What of the crushed grape to wine,

The wheat, the same, if it rise,

And the seed, if the oak be prized,

Flesh to spirit, rationalized?

O, thin body, must you shrink,

O, skin, bruised, to living drink,

Thought freed from brain�s coat to think,

Thought freed on spirit�s brink?

And me, from before time began,

Me on earth, again and again,

Me on earth, my self defending,

Me on earth, myself remembering.

�December City

Grey sighing sky

�� Droop down, wet and heavy,

�� On high,

�� Onto sliding, slick buggies

�� Rumble carts,

�� Flashing liquid bright,

�� And splashing,

�� Sighing back at the sky

�� Whisper ash,

�� Murmur acid,

�� Sulfur yellow hush between

_________________________

Little Bighorn

Billings, Bozeman,

Casper, Buffalo

South from high grasslands

Where the blood flows

Cleared the mists of myth

At Little Bighorn

Small white stones

Alloy of dreaming and bone

Acid neutralized

Quenched in its complement

Bloody precipitation

Dark coagulate

Conscious and dream

Bow lost in bursting flame

The grass�s green

Dulled silently

A soul is lost

A cloud forms

Rain wets the air

Thunder groans

________________

� Danny Smitherman's first published poem appeared in a high school collection, and began: "When will it end / This state of utter confusion". He has continued mostly in that spirit to this day. He's had poetry and other written work published in The Austin Chronicle, Missoula Magazine, and The Journal of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association. He is the author of Philosophy and the Evolution of Consciousness: Owen Barfield's Saving the Appearances, and is currently working on a collection of essays tentatively titled A Phenomenology of Wilderness. The last half of his life has been shared with his wife - scientist and green thumb - and his daughter - artist, cellist, and high level WOW mage.
Contact