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Index of poems:
We gather here to see faces from which we need not hide our face, to hear the sound of honest speech, to share what dreams have etched upon the sleeping brain, what the still voice has said, when heavy hours plunged us to regions of the mind and life not mentioned in the marketplace: to find and match the threads of common destinies, designs grimed over by our thoughtless life -- A sanctuary for the common mind we seek. Not to compete, but to compare what we have seen and learned, and to look back from here upon that world where tangled minds create the problems they attempt to solve by doubting one another, doubting love, the wise imagination, and the word. For, looking back from here upon that world, perhaps ways will appear to us, which when we only struggled in it, did not take counsel of kindred minds, lay undiscovered; perhaps, reflecting on the Babeled speech of various disciplines that make careers, we shall find out some speech by which to address each sector of the world's fragmented truth and bring news of the whole to every part. We say the mind, once whole, can mend the world. To mend the mind, that is the task we set. How many years? How many lives? We do not know; but each shall bring a thread. (published in various places -- this is my "signature" poem)
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Love's Catechism
© Esther Cameron
That water may be taught to flow uphill, The sun to rise out of the western ground; That lively ichors from cold stones distill, That our lost years may somewhere yet be found; That roses blossom at the arctic pole, That freshets purl across the desert path, The swift-sent arrow will not find the goal, Nor the slow tortoise feel Achilles' wrath; That there may be two hills without a dale, That lions may be taught to draw the plow, That moth-wings make invulnerable mail, That war-ships founder on a drowned man's brow: All these false things true lovers must believe, For the world wears worse, when these illusions leave.Back to top
Poets in Law School
© Esther Cameron
Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.
~ Shelley
We take to law because our love has failed.
We study how to sue instead of sing.
We still plead; but our pleadings have a sting:
They're meant not to reach out, but to be hurled.
Farewell, the uncorrupted word that held
In visionary light each common thing,
That fitted symbolism like a ring
Upon the hand of the abandoned world.
Here we avoid each other's eyes in shame,
Learning our lawyer tricks, earning the blame
For half the evils of this addled time.
Wish that other folks had valued us
When we spoke to them in truth and trust.
They cast out reason, when they turned from rhyme.
While dancing on the grass I saw a monarch pass, Arrayed in robes of black and golden red. I raised my net up high Between him and the sky And brought it down, and caught him in my net. I closed the net and eyed The captive wings with pride That I had caught so beautiful a prey, But it was grander yet To open up the net And see him flutter gladly on his way. (published in The Eclectic Muse)
The Unwritten Poem
© Esther Cameron
The poem I have not yet written
whose first line would be the doorsill
to another space
The poem I have not written yet
whose form would be that space domed for meeting
filled with its own darklight
like the shine from invisible candles
The poem I have not written
whose words would be humans met
in understanding
The poem not yet written
whose voice would be the inner voice of all
that poem
I would send you
(published in The Hyper Texts)
The world reflects itself in every soul, a far disturbance agitates the near, within the body of the cosmic whole past, future and remote are now and here. So those who live at ease are prey to fear, the quiet feel the stirrings of a rage that racks the antipodes; a distant tear can leach the heart of happiness away. Yet if there's no retreat from the world's fray, there's no one without power to repair: some portion of the world's good, every day, is mine to aid or hinder, slay or spare; the orb of empire and the healing wand while conscience keeps its seat, are in your hand. (published in Sonnetto Poesia)
