refrain in a planed vein

'is the pain retained,
as it's plainly ingrained
in our plaintive, waning strains?

does it plumb the depths
to encumber their lumber?
splinter their cinders
or hinder their tinder?

does it trouble the murdered
listless flowers
in their glassy,
stilted repose?

and must i explain
though lifeblood has drained,
lying here helplessly,
achingly missing the rain

what it felt like
to be embraced by
sun-dappled birds,

and the hope spun in nests,

and the confidences laid up
in scurrying
surreptitious scratches?

faint echoes shimmer
in the weave of grieving leaves,
rustling empathy
for their stories.

like the call of
phantom branches
i never stop feeling,
keening from that
unabated hunger
to give them shelter

from which they'll
forever abstain.

in quiet mornings
i think i hear
their trilling songs
and something inside me
seems to shudder.

who decreed these
inconceivable,
irretrievable gifts
should be squandered
by those who
can't even see them?

and what of weathered seasons,
and the constant,
ineffable yearning
in that
oh, so infinite reach?

has it all been in vain?'

"that's what i hear,"
she said
as her fingers lingered
on the unexplored,
heartbroken surface
of vetted and fretted,
life-indebted wood.

* **** * *** * **** * *** * **** *
- Evan Hawthorn, the 30^th of June, 2017

a Pondering on Ponderous Pilgrims * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * (a Preposterous Celestial Lament)

conflicted by his
orbiting affections,
tending towards shyness
rather more than he ought
whenever he's pulled
into Earth's opposition
our second cousin Saturn
is inclined to be distraught.

the arc of revolution
sends him into a spin,
where ringing with conjecture
he's crossly overwrought.
thus frazzled and bright,
he stays up half the night
but finds himself unable
to resolve a single thought.
* **** * *** * **** * *** * **** *
- Evan Hawthorn, the 17^th of June, 2017

our mother's other children * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * (a canticle in search of compassion)

beyond the scripted,
convoluted ken
of the zombie army of corporate operatives;

outside the profit-ridden
failure of imagination,
with its sanguinary conceit
of imaginary borders;

past the putrid, narrow confines
cast by racistly conscripted,
patriotic glasses

our broken hearts connect
with frail human hands

so easy to recognise
(even in their hundreds of "inessential" millions)

by their humble aspirations
and fears for their children;

by their unexpressed longing,
unsuspected courage,
and soul-wrenching grief;

by their faults and their spurnings,
and their weary,
thankless trudgings;

in the stunning resilience
that radiates its question
in the stony, deadened face
of a centuries-old,
disparaging dis-empowerment;

in the fleeting, bracing glimpses
that grace those daring eyes
with an angelic vision
of their ebullient best;

in the secret, private callings
that breathe a billion beckons
from the numberless weave
of empowering paths;

in that spin of the ineffable,
incomprehensible kaleidoscope,
shimmering its facets
wrought entirely from dreams
and precious,
unique gifts.

these are the hands
of our mother's other children.

these are the strands
of our grandchildren's hopes.

they would bring us past the breach,
within compassion's
sweetest reach,

where our brothers
and our sisters
genuflect their careworn mirrors
that bathe our ancient yearnings
in the earth's resplendent peace;

where each of them harbours
a splendid, tingling piece
of our
ever so lonely,
oh, so human
selves.
* * * * * *

- Evan Hawthorn, the 4^th of June, 2017