Reflections

window on another world
reflections keep things
just out of reach
yet still there
in your minds eye

Misty Moonlit Dusk

I can’t really explain how fantastic it was to experience this moment. Sometimes words are nearly useless and all you can do is breathe and wonder.

I Hope You Dance

Burnt Orange

All day the sun hid behind the clouds
grey skies swirled with wisps of snow
and sometimes cold spring showers
and as the day descended to the night
after a long day spent driving and thinking
reminiscing
listening to the music of my
past lives
past ties
past lies
I found a way to reconcile the pain of their loss
each of them
all of them
one of them only
who walked away in some unknown anguish
to teach me a lesson
I didn’t want to know.
I’ve felt this burnt orange sky
linger on my eye
for many long days.
How exquisitely beautiful
this pain of living

I hoped to dance
I hope you dance

Freedom to Fly

I hope that we all may find
a way to liberate our soul and fly
across freedom’s deep blue sky
to feel the rush of the silver wind
across the wings of your hearts desire
and to grasp the light of the sun
within the bright fingers of your mind
gliding over the terrain of solid earth
to land in the homeland of your rebirth

fly free and allow our thoughts to rise
above the daily desperation of our lives!

Ken Lewis 2007

A misty morning crossing

This photo is one of my favorite memories of the past 5 years. I took it very early one summer day in Alberta, Canada at the Writing on Stone Provincial Park.

When you think that scenes like this happen somewhere at every second of every day, you have to stop and think… why is it that we don’t see and experience moments like these very often?

Perhaps we are too busy with the life our society creates for us and the choices we make in living within that society.

I often long to step away from my desk, get out from behind my computer and see the mist rising from the river.

Watch a beaver leave the shore, a v shaped wake trailing soundlessly behind, then lift my head to see the mist part and a doe and two fawns glide through the water as though floating while enfolded by the gently rising mist as the dawn sky is pierced by the orange gold rays of the morning sun.

Does life get any better than this? well… there are many things in life that feed our souls, but this ranks up there as one of the instants in time that rest in a place where my spirit breathes in peace.

Misty Morning

I rose before dawn
to see what life
had in store for the day

Silence greeted my eyes
as the night faded gently
and I walked among the trees
of my thoughts
unfiltered by the noise of my desires

I saw the mist rising from the river
against the slowly eroding cliffs
as the soft light of the sun
crept up on the river bank

From the mist they appeared
silently floating over the water
testing their footing at each step
on the way to the far shore

I breath this moment in the song that never completes its rhyme, that never repeats its rhythm and always strives towards a harmony heard on distant days with a melody that follows the breeze through the whispering aspen leaves.

Ken Lewis, 2008

Last Stand Against Entropy

Once I thrived in this harsh land
my arms reaching for light
my green hands a sign of life
and I touched the blue sky
with my feathery breath
drunk under the sun’s energy
but my sighs faded with the night
and I drew my final gasp
though nothing marked my passing
but the skeleton of who I once was
and now only this ephemeral beauty
remains to tell my name to the earth and sky
in my long goodbye to the sun

Memories of Spring (Bright Heart Dreams)

Summer Days, a photo by Ken Lewis – on Flickr.

I recall those carefree days of grace
when I ran with the joy of a child
exploring life in vast open spaces
and losing my thoughts in the wild

living a lifetime in every moment
when each stray blade of grass
held the heart of my amazement
and my dreams were made to last

time stood still in the heart of an endless spring
entranced in my dreams and the wondrous ways
of an innocent child lost in nature’s bright ring
while I ran and played on long summer days

after sunset a banner of stars unfurled
gazing skyward on nights black as coal
I yearned for the silent truths of the world
to fill the hungry spaces of my soul

each passing day my spirit grew
nurtured by spring’s green light
with nature’s rainbow of hues
I weaved my passion into insight

bright as lightning and just as fast
childhood became a part of the past
I remember the eager wonder of it all
while my summer turns quietly to fall

by Ken Lewis and Brianna Hendrix
from The Poetry Game

Winter’s Garden

Cross Field Decline, a photo by Ken Lewis – on Flickr.

Winter’s Garden

My heart dreams of autumn
where the warmth of summer
breathes in the vibrant colours
of fall’s ephemeral foliage
then my thoughts turn retrospective
as Winter’s silence
descends from beyond
life’s fragile border

and Winter comes
always too soon
cold beauty blanketing the earth
leaving
always too late
joyous new life in its wake

It descends like a curtain
southward bound
as the sun declines
day by day
toward the low horizon
of
Winter

ohh Winter, that bright and clear
cleanser of the north
where ice breeds
beneath the frozen sky
while the skeletons
that survive the summer’s glory
wait patiently
for the return of light

Now the land lies shrouded
in her winter guise
content to rest beneath her new robe
freshly frozen as the tide ebbs again
and though the season of short days
is longer than my voice can sing her praises
the cusp is near and inevitable
tides turn, life returns
we have only one direction before us
and even if it always returns to the start
each day is its own garden
of tears, dreams and passionate hearts

and I will always move ahead
though the fading light recedes
before the burgeoning frosts
while from within the winter’s depth
I strain to recall
the tattered remnants
of summer days gone past

Falls at Upper Deer Creek

Falls at Upper Deer Creek, a photo by Ken Lewis – on Flickr.

Near Surprise Valley, at mile 137 of the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, a waterfall gushes straight out of a canyon wall. Seen from the approach trail, the water arches out in that perfect way gravity has of turning a natural phenomenon into a work of art.

Below the fall, an oasis of lush, green life has taken prisoner a small portion of the dry desert landscape. As you approach, the breeze cools and the wind-blown mist settles lightly on your skin, while the growing din of water pounding against the earth below sings its bass note upon your body.

Under the canopy of trees feeding off this surfeit of life’s precious liquid, the sun does not penetrate, though its scattered light illuminates the shaded passages and quieter pools of water below the cascade’s abrupt terminus. I, and several of my companions on this journey, climbed the steep path among the rocks to one side of the falls to reach the small cave immediately behind the falling tower of water. Saturated by the cool spray and inundated by her pounding beauty and ceaseless noise, we sat together absorbing the moments, not thinking or planning or doing anything at all. Simply being – for those few seconds we were privileged to know this place, this ephemeral and ever-changing space created through the magic of time and the tides of the world’s evolution from stardust to planet and back, in some too distant future.

I will carry this time and place in my soul as long as I possibly can, though I know the immediacy of the experience is already just a feeling and one day may fade to the memory of a memory. Someday, all the memories will slip away to eternity as my eyes close that final time, but the universe will remember, each moment living beside each moment in the stream that is also an ocean, till time stands still once again.