Poetry by John Kirkwood

Love ... Faith ... Early Work ... The Environment ... Odds & Ends

I watch the rain patter down

As it dampens the whole town.

Little leaves

Flutter down from the trees

 

Spokane, Washington, 1951

 

The night is cold.

The moon is bold.

The weary world is sleeping.

The stars are bright

With ancient light.

Their ageless journey keeping

Sing out! Sing out! For lo the bells

Toll out the passing year.

The season's brightest moment

Is softly drawing near.

 

As these silent patterns cover

The failing veins and hues,

May this Christmas season cover

All sad and mournful news.

 

May Christ and all His angels

Help the coming year to be

Enlightening to all people

And a blessing until thee.

Art thou a dog? Art thou a dog,

With fur as black as jet?

Art thou a dog? Art thou a dog?

I look and look and yet.

 

Art thou a dog with hazel eyes

Of droopy ears and whine and bark?

Art thou a dog of riven flank

Of misty nose and history dark?

 

Thou art not a dog of black and bark

But a man caught up in a cage

Waiting with a patient heart

For the freedom of an age.

I love the tide and wavelet,

That are on every shore.

I love the slapping water

And the combers ever more.

I love the oceans, seas, and rivers

And the dripping water drop.

And the reason that I love them is

They never, never stop.

 

Moscow, Idaho, 1955

They wonder as working the long years through

If men are false or if men are true.

One kills and steals and then he says,

"I'm far too good for Alcatraz."

 

In and out the long years through they go

Killing and stealing and fighting a foe.

How, oh how can they abide

With no one for a faithful guide?

 

They pick one here and pick one there,

They do not know nor do they care.

Why don't they look up far above,

To find their guide, their guide of love.

 

Moscow, Idaho, 1955

No light of the Pleades, no song of the lark

Breaks through the fathomless, bottomless dark.

Each step we have taken, each creed that we've fought for,

Has brought us no nearer the dawn that we've sought for.

 

Now to the eastward appears a new light.

A harbinger telling of an end to this night?

Could it be possible this darkness to brighten?

This load to be lifted and us to enlighten?

 

One Man who has died for the earth's population

No one passed over, no matter what nation;

This is the luminous saga we've hoped for!

This is the prophecy in the blindness we've groped for!

I love the tide and wavelet,

That are on every shore.

I love the slapping water

And the combers even more.

I love the oceans, seas, and rivers

And the dripping water drop.

And the reason that I love them is

They never, never stop.

 

In the days of the end there was a ship of humble ways and unpretentious image which was built in the city of Jerusalem and loaded aboard it was a cargo of great value. And it came to pass that the ship ventured out on the sea and was beset by

great waves and small waves and all manner of serpents and few fishes. And the

waves did lash at the ship and the serpents did bite at it that they might wear it down.

 

At that time and at that moment the captain looked out at his cargo which was on the deck and which was loosely bound and saw that the waves and the serpents would wash it away. The captain saw that this was not good - hence with great work and much labor the captain opened up the hold of the ship which was the heart thereof and did stow his cargo of great value in it. And the captain fixed the covers of the hold and sealed them with locks both great and small and cast the keys into the sea.

The black man stands in awe and fright

As armies say what's wrong and right.

Their mighty leader now is jailed

The nations courts have been curtailed.

 

'Tis little wonder that this man

With ancestral brain horizons scan

A thread of truth in vain to find

To help console and right his mind.

 

A heartened man his way would make

But is this way the one to take?

He knows not where his footsteps lead

To rock bound coast or Carybda's greed.

 

This way is dark and that one doom.

Behold! They all are filled with gloom.

The African --- he needs a light

To guide him through the storms dark night!

When I lived in San Francisco

I can remember times

At the beach where I

Built castles in the sand.

Those were bright clear days

In the surf and green water,

Water that pulled the sand

From beneath my feet,

Days when the cool breeze blew

In across an ebbing tide.

Stranded jellyfish dotted the beach

Like whitecaps in the surf

And I watched as white seagulls

Quarreled over scraps of fish.

Some afternoons the fog

Would roll in and drip from the wires

Here and there like rain.

Often in the morning my mother,

Two sisters and I

Would go to Golden Gate Park

For a picnic lunch or a walk

Beneath the large fragrant trees.

I watched the sheep and their shepherd

And played in the creek

That flowed through the park.

One day a tug was pulling an enormous raft

Of logs past San Francisco

When a terrible storm came up

And broke the chains that held the logs,

Then drove the logs

Up onto the beach.

For years after that,

People who went to the beach

Used these logs to build bonfires.

These experiences

Have influenced my life in ways

That I will probably never know,

But there are some obvious trends

In my life that came from living by the sea.

I love the ocean and the combers

That boom and spray across the rocks.

I love the pebbles, sand and seagulls.

Truth is like the light of day

That fades the fog of doubt.

A beam that brightens every way

And does confusion rout.

 

The agonies and sorrow

That are distortion's friend

When taken out into the light

Will in submission bend.

The railroad's roar and clackety clack

Sail on through the fog bound night,

Sending a message of whistle shrill

And steel steam-drawn might.

 

The railroad's sound is often mistaken

As noise of the open road.

But to me it's the sound of messengers

Bearing a nations load.

His beady eyes were ever on me,

Followed closely as I rode.

As staid a stance as ever met me.

Quivered not nor moved the toad

 

Lumpy, green and vitreous he was.

A sentinel through dark and day.

Thus the winkless rookerie watchman

Crouched alone, a craft of clay.

Cleaning house before we move

Seems to me it would behoove

Us to throw out some crumby stuf

Like grity boards or old pants cuff.

But when we start to look at them

What about a stitch or hem . . .

Could be a rag? It surely could.

But what of that we've got lots more

Way over there piled on the floor.

Hey! Look here, What ever is this?

I think it's just a little gizwhiss

No it isn't. Look at that. It's a periwinkle hat.

Throw it out. It can't be good.

Good Will it then? Perhaps we should.

Where's the phone book? Out of sight.

Push the switch. There is no light.

It's amazing that we do

Get moved at all before we're 'through.