Five Poems by Michael E. Theroux, pen name ‘Teru’

 

Sunday Morning Nap

 

Softly, you lie

tucked into a slow Sunday nap

breathing gently

drifting through only the kindest dreams.

 

Outside, it seems

the sun should melt the frost, and yet

the grass still sparkles so

the deer remain unseen

their quiet presence felt

just inside the bramble.

 

Morning light

drifts lazy, as smoke in calm air…

loose leaves

turn once, again, to the slight breeze.

 

Winter thickens light

slanting through iced window panes

sweeping out last night’s gloom

to walk broad swaths

slowly across our room.

 

You have curled up

under mounds of covers

tucked into a late morning nap

all soft and curly

dodging the lazy sun

swirling with golden motes.

 

If I am quiet

I can match the steady surge

of your sleepy breathing

            to join you in this cosy space

            I’ll tell the day, “Go elsewhere,

                        we’re napping…”

 

 

Touch

 

In the waning hours as the veil thins

Mortality bears such honest witness:

Life's one precious gift is Touch.

 

Beyond presence, essence remains

Yet solid substance falls away

Leaving lips bereft of other's lips

 

Seeing lingers longest, for Vision spans

This gulf of spirit, spurred by thought

Yet sight alone offers little warmth

 

Other senses tease: smells, tastes

Sounds are more of memory than mass

Without density, we are ephemeral

 

All of existence is perhaps reduced

To the metric of sub-atomic closeness

Energetic sentience in constant flux

 

This birthing, a harmony in the flow

Found briefly, sublime coalescence

Loose electrons formed molecules!

 

Cells make more cells, to animate bodies

Awareness again assumes residence

Divinely, this thickness triggers Life.

 

While we remain so firmly formed

Momentarily, as a You and an I

I say Revel! Revel in this Life's Gift

 

… and Touch.

 

 

Riptide of the Soul

 

Riptide of the soul under a deceptively calm surface

Lose my grip so easily, there's so very little purchase

 

Just below communal glamour lies the light of our inner star

Where we each go about the business of being what we are

But what we are, are Human - just an animal that predates

Upon itself, upon its children - many to wield the hand of fate

And plenty more, the willing victims - no will to rise to fight

Nothing but acquiescence when frozen in a prey's fright

 

We write our apocrypha and work to make it so

Pretending that the story was writ so very long ago

Man's final Rapture, the hallowed righteous end

Blasphemy indeed, for this species to pretend

We keep being so Human we’ll still witness Wonder

Much more likely that we’ll blow ourselves asunder

 

Resettle among the flotsam of my daily show

Ride the surface carefully, a riptide lies below

 

 

Odd

 

Odd people I'm not sposed to see

Odd places I'm not sposed to go

Odd ways I'm not sposed to be

Odd things I'm not sposed to know

 

No matter what others may say

I'm who, what, where I am today

 

My odd path does surely twist

My odd thoughts to some, absurd

Some swear that I never listen

That I haven’t Heard the Single Word

 

Their incessant babble, a fitful wind

At my odd end I’ll be my own odd friend

 

 

Life’s Wine

 

Sometimes there comes

to one so hungry

A melancholy resonance

Sublime Wonder prevails:

 

Tip to the river’s skin

a willow leaf shivers

Touching once, again

Timed to deep currents

 

Laconic quiet

tuned to time’s passage

Not awaiting any future

Nor dwelling on any past

 

Life’s wine

spills slowing from my glass

 

I do not reach to catch the wine

I cannot staunch the flow of Time

 

This very acceptance brings the pause

That sets my soul a-shimmering.

Michael E. Theroux, pen name ‘Teru’ - Writes incessantly from his home office in Northern California. His careers span includes classically trained botanist, environmental health specialist, green energy developer and resource recovery web site editor. A life-long word smith, his publications have primarily been professional papers supporting these careers; a full CV is available upon request, and see samples on our industrial web site Teru Talk. Now at 72, Michael has done a hard pivot from hard science, and is seeking publication of his cache of art writings, including around 400 poems, stories, memoirs, vignettes and two novels (one complete, the other in progress). Some of his works may now be seen in Down in the Dirt, Ariel Chart, 50WS, Academy of the Heart and Mind and the marvellous Lothlorien Poetry Journal.