The Tree

The tree stands in silent witness.
We do our worst.
It remains a tree.

Even if we cut it down,
Send it to the mill,
Grind the stump,
Sell the planks,

The ground bears
Not only the scar
Of our angry ambition
But the silent witness
Borne by the boughs

Through the currents
Of time,
The sea of breezes
On which it rested
And grew.

Today,
There is another scar.
Where before,
Shade and shelter,
Now, bits of bark
And broken leaves:
Barbs of time.

And somewhere else--
Please, let it be near--
A root has taken hold,
A seed,
An idea,
A prayer,

Curling down
Timorous,
Tremendous,
Toward the center.

--Mr. Gobley

The Contingent

All the cords connecting us
Are thin and frail.
All the fibers and filaments
That weave us together,
Illuminate us,

Depend on
Rest:
That diadem
In the crown
Of brave
Being,
That wraith
That beckons
From the shore of
The ever-shifting
Now.

Let those whose cords have broken
Go on to the
Now
That is only
Always.

Let us mend the brittle braids
Of those who ache to hold on,
And bind up the wounds
Of the weary.

There is no healing
Where there is no rest.

Bring silence,
Bring light:
Only what is sheltered
Grows strong;

Only she that
Is held
Is helped;

Only he that
Surrenders
Can at last
Overcome.

--Mr. Gobley

Pool of Souls

In the office park
There is an artificial stream
That gathers into separate
Symmetrical pools

Emerald green
(Thanks to modern chemistry),
Mock-contemplative,

Bereft of the
Deep-disordered
Harmony
Of nature's
Equipoise.

One pool:
A slowly circulating
Flotilla
Of autumn's castaways,
Dressed in a hundred hues
Of passage;

A second pool:
One leaf, poised
On upturned ends--
A miniature catamaran,

Sailing alone.

--Mr. Gobley

Past All That

The past is never
Here yet.

It is always arriving
And yet not fully here --
A train forever entering the station
Of consciousness.

The present,
So rarely apprehended
Until it is past,

Is like a doll's house
In its precious mimicry
Of all the memories
On which it's modeled.

i stand at the
Parallax point
Of this moving instant

And gaze back
At the vanishing
And yet moving union
Of the twinned trails
Of my journey.

And so
And ever so
i recede
Into the present

--Mr. Gobley

Holding on to Letting Go

Regarding the thing you find yourself aching
To let go of --
Hold on.

At least until you have found the source
Of the voice that loosens your hold.

And of that to which you would hold fast --
Let go.
What is held is merely a spectre--
The fear of loss,
Not the thing itself.

In the grip of rededication,
In the release of the newly found,
Lies the black pearl
Of all Presence:

That graceful defiance
That makes room
For
More life.

--Mr. Gobley

In Praise of Psalm 23

My own hymn of thanksgiving:

Whatever may come,
i shall remember,
eventually,
to be grateful.

The smell of new-mown grass,
Its blades crowned with
Diadem-universes,
Will gladden my heart.

(There may be no Shepherd
But we are surely sheep.)

Even in terror of my own death,
i see all encompassed before me

Through eyes that glimpse eternity,
Through hands that both restrain and revive.

And in this way am i nourished,
Despite all,
Resplendent,
Completed.

Awake.

--Mr. Gobley

Prayer Over Coffee

Fossil fuel of my soul
Black light of my veins
Course through me
Quicken me

Sharpen my senses
Dull my pain
Deepen the penetrating gaze
Which i fasten
On the route
Of my
Inner
Iditarod.

Sing to me.
Breathe your black magic
Onto the coals
Of my soul.

From the mountain of your birth
i look down
On the vale of my sorrows
And laugh.

Water is fine,
Yes,
And clear;
Water nourishes the body
And restores the soul --

But to what?

When restoration is not enough,
And hope must be injected,
I stretch forth my neck.
Drunk on the black blood
Of your pulverized essence,

I howl down the avenue
Of my day
And relish the heat
And the friction
Of life
Under your
Slightly
Sweetened
Spell.

--Mr. Gobley

In Praise of My Depression

i set aside the pills

and settle,

like a leaf in a pond,

into the absence of color.

i am aware of the dangers,

and aware, too,

of the blessed relief 

of authentic being,

with all its

shortcomings 

and quotidian terrors.

able at last to settle 

for who i am,

i discover that

it isn't so bad.

this scrim of suffering

is only that,

a scrim,

a veil,

a partition between

what one might wish 

and whatever may be.

Certain that we 

deserve better 

than to be separated

from our ideals,

we medicate our way

to a pale perfection, 

consisting of timidity

and troubled sleep.

evening by placid evening,

we become strangers to ourselves,

Lonely for something similar to a memory,

"liking" other lonelinesses

while the books

biodegrade

on the shelves.

i have been away from myself.

coming back from the long journey

into the second dimension,

i inhale 

into the gray

of a soft, perpetual grief --

and am grateful.

--Mr. Gobley

In praise of Leap Day

We should leap every day.
Once in four years is a travesty,
A sin of ingratitude
Against the
Crazy liberation of
Bottled-up
Being.

Today of all days --
Today is the day to shout:
We are!
We are!

We should leap every day --

But we can't, of course:
There is too much loss
To leap over,
Too much darkness
To dispel.

Gravity will prevail.

This day, though, should remind us:
Time spirals out
From within all,
Unfurls

A being that is
Becoming,
A becoming that is a
Departure.

Leap Day
Stands outside
What it stands within.

It stands within its
Proper, square,
Joined to the others
But hanging over
The Void.

It exists
Here
But points
Beyond,
Proclaiming
That the leap into life
(Like the eventual
Leap of leaving)

Is a gift
Which even
The angels
Covet.

--Mr. Gobley

In Praise of February

On this gray morning,
Every branch has a droplet
Suspended at its tip,
Like a bud
Or a pearl of milk

Nothing moves

All is suspended
In the equipoise
Of a mild
Midwestern
Winter

The barking of dogs
The sighing of traffic on
The expressway
The whir of an
Appliance

Spiral out into the
Waiting air --
Signals
To the waiting Spring,

Semaphore to the
Seeping aquifers
And sleeping ants,

Drumbeat of the deliverance
Of the Sun
As it ascends once more
To its black
Throne

We who hope
And wait

Hear the crocuses stirring

Smile as life
Comes
And the drops swell
And fall

On the waiting
Earth

--Mr. Gobley

In praise of reading

When all that is read
Ascends into the mind's eye
The letters evaporate into images
And rain back down from
Clouds of being,
Pooling again
As letters --
Drops
Coalescing in the
Ocean of Ideas.

What we receive in reading,
We give in writing,
We adorn with speech.

All that we are,
All that we uniquely are,
Resides in
The Letter
And
The Word.

The strings of glyphs
Run along the transom
Of our mind

And through the apertures
Of our organs ---

And we are gifted
With
Sight.

Transformed,
We move into the world
Glittering with thought,

Anointed with the oil
Of ideas

Able to reach out,
Or in;

In a word,
With a word,

To save

And be
Saved.

--Mr. Gobley