A GEOGRAPHICAL SOLUTION

It does make a difference;
distance can be a blur or a star.
The air kisses us in the ways of a lover,
sharp teeth or wet caresses, and sounds
drift upon the currents like a poem in translation.
Any era or spirit; architecture of fragrance.
Orange blossoms, lemon blossoms,
a river of sun.
Yo amo tu espiritu, says the traveler
to his arrival: wherever I find my heart,
I find my answer.
Yo amo tu espiritu ...
and from the reservoir of his life
unfold new roads of walking,
new vistas of sight.

LOST HILLS

A man's emptiness cannot be filled by television,
friends, drugs, dissipation or politics. It haunts him,
year after year, like the heart of the hills he loves.

Those hills are questions: How deep are your feelings?
Have you found your God? A steady wind piling sand
on sand to reach the destined namelessness.

His life hides in the silence of the hills,
the horizon sealed as a vision of God.
Beauty was made for him; he is a blood relation.

He grows into his death,
and leaves with his questions intact—
the very act of asking a kind of answer.

THE CONCH
              for Cody

I tell him an ocean
dreams inside this tiny spiral,
that beneath these spiny ridges
are the currents of unmeasured grace—
music and light unfolding,
returning through a single breath
to a language of harmony and praise

"No, dad," he says. "That's not it.
It's only the wind and the waves."

DREAM POEM

Once in a dream
a poem formed in perfect harmony
of heart and mind, each word
in its place,
each phrase conforming precisely
to its content, resonant
with mystery
and meaning;

as if it had been composed
by a natural man,
who lived, in comprehension,
a natural life.
On waking, that world
slowly dissolved
into the clarity of another sleep,

my feet planted on earth,
my head in my hands.
It was my best work.

As always, beyond me.

FATHERS AND SONS

A man staggers into the woods alone,
remembering a woman's silent demand
to a world that could not help her.
Her gift will be his distance.

A child is born
and finds two eyes looking back-
one bright spot to center the blur.
A thousand years in search of this silence.

Damp morning, I find him
working on a bridge. His forehead is intent,
his hands firmly gathering.
All around us: the singing of birds,
the scent of honeysuckle and pine,
a dogwood in flower.

He turns and sees me,
jumps out of the footing,
and reaches to shake my hand:
two men in the cold morning light.

Years slide by with hardly a thought.
The hair turns white, curls in the ear.
And the old poet who neglected to write
passes the night thinking
of the son he never had.

THE CONTRARY
                           for Ben

He draws left-handed alien figures
who walk backwards whispering,
"I have eaten the moon."
He asks for the mustard
whelihe wants, first of all,
a pillow for his teeth.
His hand moves always in reverse,
and when silent his solitude is palpable,
bathed in a musical light.
I do not truly know him,
he is God's child.

Kevin Hull's work has appeared in numerous journals.  His Memoir, Nameless Traveler, (Publish America Press 2003) www.NamelessTraveler.com chronicles much of his notorious past as well as his encounters with poetry and grace.  At present he is working on a novel.  Originally from the Blue Ridge Mounatains of Virginia, he lived for many years in California. Kevin Hull is the editor of White Heron Press.

The above selection is taken from the first section of Kevin Hull's Leaving Blue Mountains (Impermanence Press 2003). You can contact Kevin Hull at wheditor@hotmail.com

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