The Eyes of Time

When first we met at heaven’s door,

when all was boundless night...

we fell in love, by touch, before

the Lord invented light.

A lyric of the universe,

our song is sung by choice,

a syncopated line of verse

in every Angel’s voice.

I look into the eyes of time

and see myself with you,

from eons past and out of mind

to futures yet in view.

When death has come to claim his prize

when dark and light resign,

the final Angel we’ll surprise...

as your heart beats does mine.

~Dean Neighbors~

notes:

syncopated

/ˈsiNGkəˌpādəd/

Learn to pronounce

adjective

1. (of music or a rhythm) characterized by displaced beats or accents so that the strong beats are weak and vice versa.

   "the melodic baselines and syncopated rhythms of funk"

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Definitions from Oxford Languages

Listen to the song "the dangling conversation" to hear synchopated rhythm.... listen closely....the term "synchopated" is used in the lyrics. 

Alternate first verses:

When first we met at heaven’s door

when all was endless night...

we fell in love, by touch, before

the Lord invented light.

We fell in love, by touch, before

the Lord invented light. 

When first we met at heaven’s door,

the world was endless night.

alternate third verses:

I look into the eyes of time

and see myself with you

from eons past and out of mind

to futures in my view.

I look into the eyes of time

to futures in my view,

from eons past and out of mind

I see myself with you.

I look into the eyes of time

and see myself with you,

from eons past and out of mind

to futures not in view.

Another Path

Another path to sundown.
the cowboy rubbed his back
and thought, with love, of rum relief
tucked safely in his pack.

Thoughts, wistfully, of father
trod lightly through his mind--
of going home to dash or prove
the truth of what he’d find.

On reaching an arroyo
he reined a weary mount
and, from his vest, took out to read
his mother’s grim account.

Another path to sundown,
though prudence can advise
the oracle who rules the soul
may see with distant eyes.

In nature's own cathedral,
beneath the milky way,
he made a vow to reach his home
before another day.

Another path to sundown,
to peace for which he’s yearned,
he isn’t home and yet he is...
the prodigal returned.

Chocolate Fudge and China Tea

~ For my friend Shirley Tan (STan) my "work daughter". She traveled to China and brought me back a box of tea. I, in turn, made her a batch of fudge. That was all the reason I needed to write a poem.

Silent friend sets to her tasks,
strives and works but never asks
what the end result may be...
lost in work or lost at sea?

Life is many things in all
bittersweet in large and small,
work unfolding, building dreams
joy and sadness bursting seams.

Silent friend sets to her tasks
strives and works but never asks
any thing or thought from me...
chocolate fudge and China tea.

Rekindling Glory

By day it was merely a line,
the bottom in Ocean, the top in the sky,
a giant appearing benign
when seen by a distant and innocent eye.

The keeper, with cloth and with rod
on legs hard as granite, his weary brow damp,
ascended like Jacob to God,
rekindling glory with labor and lamp.

The mariners, weary and wise,
returning from ports in the Orient, found
when stars had been lost to their eyes,
a magical beacon for those homeward bound,

a sentinel searching the night,
a modern descendant who honors the name
of Pharos, the island of light,
antiquity's wonder of welcoming flame.

When you are old - BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

 

Source: The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (1989) 

Autumn

The Autumn apple, crisp and tart
or spicy crusty warm in pies
to please the senses, touch the heart
the nose the tongue the hungry eyes.

Dear Michael-1

Dear Michael,

I want to write a poem to honor your memory but I can't seem to. Do I want to honor your memory or am I just wanting to show off my "poetry skills"? If I could answer that question then I could probably find a way to write for you.

First of all I don't think there are words in any human language that could adequately express how much I love you, how much I miss you.

I think of you daily, maybe hourly, maybe minute by minute. I see dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions of things per day that remind me of you or make me wish I could call you or text you. Baseball things, softball things, career things, funny things, interesting things, boring things...everything I think, say or do, everything people around me think, say or do, I wish I could share with you.

Are you in Heaven? Is there a Heaven? I've always clung to the belief that my Mother was "out there somewhere" that she was aware of me and watching over me in some way. I don't often admit it, and my closest friends and family would be surprised to hear it, but I DO believe in a creator. My extreme stubbornness, my epic obstinance, my fierce desire to not conform is so obvious that, even when I admit to my belief, I think people don't believe me. I'm sure your Mom doesn't believe me.

I believe there are things in the universe that we CAN'T know, that we weren't meant to know. The people who are supposed to know God, the devout, the theologians, the preachers, pastors and so forth.... they all seem to hold a slightly different view of God and the universe and how to worship and how to dress and how to pray. This inconsistency has puzzled me since I was a little boy. I really wish I could discuss this with you. I really wish I HAD discussed this with you. Maybe this is one of our failings as human beings, maybe this is one of MY failings as a human being. Why do we show so little of ourselves with the people we love?

I've been watching Korean Professional baseball on ESPN almost every day, since the Major League season is on hold for now. It has it's moments, someone makes a spectacular play and then someone else makes a horrible little-league play. The outfielders tend to play back a lot more than they do in the MLB. So there are a lot of cheap singles dropping in and finding grass instead of leather. But, i enjoy watching it. The announcers are doing a remote feed, they are on ZOOM at 3 or 4 a.m., mostly working from their homes. That makes it kind of interesting since they are limited to what the producer of the Korean feed gives them. 

July 13, 2020

Tomorrow would have been your 49th birthday. It is not going to be a good day. I miss you SO much. There are things I want to talk to you about every day. Maybe I should just start putting those things here.   

It's Monday so there are no KBO games, there were supposed to be makeup games because all the games were rained out yesterday but, alas, it rained again. I think you would laugh at my use of the word "alas". I'd love to hear your laugh or see the "laugh" emoji in your text message.

I'll miss you til the end of time

as if it hasn't ended

in stretching here for just one rhyme

is God who I've offended?

Summer Rain

The patent ambiguity of time

from summer rain to January snow,

the meanings hidden deep within a rhyme

for hearts alone, that minds will never know,

intangibles alive beyond the ken

of common man and woman. Out of touch

realities where flesh has never been,

a paradise for dreamers. Out of such

I know a place where wrong is never right,

where all the many miseries of man

are vanishing or vanished out of sight

like fairies in the never land of Pan,

Below the far horizon, yet above—

the world of our extraordinary love. 

© 2006 W.D.Neighbors

Bookstore

 He hangs out in bookstores, all dusty and dim,

or is it the bookstore that hangs out in him?
He knows about life in a clinical way
from books he has read and the things people say.

The pants are too short and the face is too long.
The shirt and the bright purple vest are all wrong.
He hides behind glasses with black metal frames
and lives with a cousin whose gold fish have names.

But, he can think thoughts that no other can touch,
like Hawking, string theory, genomics and such.
He quotes from Will Shakespeare and Cicero too.
He knows Aristotle "much better than you".

He eats when he’s hungry and lives without time.
He writes without rhythm and trolls without rhyme,
covertly, in cyberspace rooms where he knows
that he can be anyone, anything goes.

He’s read about life but he hasn’t yet been,
he promised his Mom but he backed out again--
and he’d shed a tear if he knew how to cry.
He’s dying to live while he’s waiting to die.

If I could tell you.. W.H Auden

Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose all the lions get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.

On Winds of Sleep

On winds of sleep, in pillow ships,
I sail outside the mind,
in waters lost to those awake,
impossible to find.

I ply the boundless sea of dreams
with canvas tightly sewn.
Beyond the realm of consciousness
I navigate alone--

to harbor on the leeward side
of enigmatic thought,
where magic lives to show me things
reality forgot.


~Dean Neighbors~

The Udder Truth

 "A cow is of the bovine ilk;

one end moo the other milk." ~ Ogden Nash ~

Born to give us cheese and butter,
usefulness that’s keen and utter,
milking cows is such a treat…
takes a sit and grabs a teat,

aim the stream and hit the bucket,
skim the cream. With any luck it
pleased you when I made that rhyme.
I’d rather do this anytime
than milk a cow as in my youth.
They smell, and that’s the udder truth

Retirement

Pondering my upcoming retirement   I see black, I see white but no gray… this detachment has stolen my day.   I hunt and I peck… Oh, I try (what the heck) But I SOOOO want to go out and play.

I am the albatross

In 1992, on a hilltop of Horn Island, a monument to the memory of the mariners lost in the waters off Cape Horn was erected, financed with both public and private funds from Chile and many other countries. The interior outline of its facing steel sheets form the image of a wandering albatross in flight; a nearby marble plaque is inscribed with a Spanish poem by Chilean Sara Vial:

I am the albatross that waits for you

at the end of the world.

I am the forgotten souls of dead mariners

who passed Cape Horn

from all the oceans of the earth.

But they did not die

in the furious waves.

Today they sail on my wings

toward eternity,

in the last crack

of Antarctic winds.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright 1923, © 1969 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc., renewed 1951, by Robert Frost. Reprinted with the permission of Henry Holt and

Beggar Blind

I write, for you, a verse a day
my heart in every line,
the quintessential ode to love,
but only in my mind.

From dark poetic thread I spin

a work of art, profound...
a whisper sweet soliloquy

that doesn't make a sound...

a sonnet to eternity

without a single word,
a lyric never written for
a ballad never heard.

My love is mute and beggar blind.

As foolish as it seems...
I write for you a song of love...
....but only in my dreams.

The blind beggar represents one who has no perception of his own capacity to love... and no confidence in himself. The sin of omission is even greater than the sin of commission.


~ Dean Neighbors ~

Maria Celeste

This was inspired by the story of Galileo's beloved elder daughter, Virginia (Sister Maria Celeste). She was particularly devoted to her father. Sadly, she died at the age of 33. She is buried with her father in his tomb in the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence.


Philosopher's daughter and requisite Nun,
she prayed for her father, in Rome…
Because he was able to center the sun,
he wasn't allowed to come home.

A lady of singular, exquisite mind
of goodness devoted and true,
Virginia, the younger, unfailingly kind,
a woman the world hardly knew

revealed in her letters an infinite love,
to serve was her only desire.
To open the universe hidden above
she did, with her father, conspire.

The whole of the Earth and the center he knew
were lost in the moment she died.
Though intellect failed him his heart remained true,
for Sister Maria, he cried.

The "path to the stars" and the muse of his quest
by Rome’s inquisition, consumed--
found justice in Heaven’s own scriptures. They rest
forever, together entombed.


"I render infinite thanks to God for being so kind as to make me alone
the first observer of marvels kept hidden in obscurity for all previous centuries."

-- Galileo Galilei

The Ballad of John... and Bailey

The following poem is about my father, John Ledford Neighbors, who was born in March, 1907 in Oklahoma (Indian territory at the time, not yet a state by a few months). It's also a bit about my Grandson, Bailey, at least to the extent that John and Bailey crossed paths....so to speak. John had a talent for telling stories that was not always appreciated by his youngest son and a memory like a colorfully illustrated history book. He had memories of people coming home from WWI. He had a favorite story about buying his first car, getting some quick instruction from a Ford mechanic and then, basically, learning how to drive on the way home. For many years I assumed that this story, like many others he told, was untrue or, at least, over embellished. Years after Dad’s death one of my older brothers told me that, sometime in the late 1920’s/ early 1930’s Dad had worked for Ford Motor company in Oklahoma City and that the story was true.


John had stories about playing country baseball as a youth. My last "conversation" with him (him talking, me and my son Michael, listening) was in October, 2001 and consisted of a detailed description of a long ago baseball game in some small Oklahoma town back in the 1920's. He remembered players' names, plays, pitches, hits, lots of detail, but, when he ended the story, he couldn't remember my name or Michael’s. He told stories about having to quit school after the 8th grade to help on the family farm, about carrying a favorite book everywhere he went, reading it over and over even when he was riding a horse or plowing a field. He told  about a trip in a horse drawn wagon that the family took when John was a young boy. I thought I had heard all his stories and had gotten into the habit of pretending to listen. Then, one day, my wife, Jeanie, decided she would start asking him questions about what life was like growing up in rural Oklahoma in the early part of the 20th century. To my great surprise he told new stories, things I hadn’t heard before about family Christmases, about his mother making butter and him talking it into town to sell to the local grocer. I started listening again and I heard stories about my Mother, about her death at a relatively young age and my Dad's attempts to deal with that for the rest of his long life. Stories about the family moves from Oklahoma to Colorado and on to California where I was born, the youngest of 7 and the only "prune picker" (Californian) in the family. There were obvious (in my mind) parallels with the John Steinbeck book "The Grapes of Wrath". Of course, Dad didn't like the book -- "makes the Okies look like they were stupid, we weren't stupid.


My Mother died in 1956 at the age of 50 in Selma, California. John married again in 1965. When my step-mother died, he married again  but, ultimately, outlived them all and gave up on marriage for good.  John lived the last  years of his life in the home of my Sister, Carol, in Vinton, Louisiana. As long as he was able, he had a garden. He planted a Grapefruit tree that, 20 plus years after his death, is still producing fruit and never fails to make me think of him and smile. . He died in Louisiana in December 2001.


My Grandson, Bailey, was six months old when I wrote this poem. At that time he would sit on my son, Michael's lap and seem to watch "Baseball Tonight" on ESPN. like father, like son, like grandfather, great-grandfather etc. John was a life-long baseball fan, a life-long Giants fan.   A favorite player was fellow Oklahoman and New York Giant legend, Carl Hubbell. Dad still followed the Giants after they moved to San Francisco.
One of the last people Dad met was my son Michael's wife, Nikki. She was carrying John's great grandson at the time. John died just days before Bailey was born. I like to think John and Bailey crossed paths at the threshold and that thought was the inspiration for this poem.




The Ballad of John … and Bailey




John was born a farmer's son
and learned to work the lands
in rural Oklahoma where
they made life with their hands.


He learned to tell a story well
and those who listened know
of model A's, depression days
and silent picture shows ...


of wagon trips and cotton crops
and playing country ball ...
of thunderstorms and blackjack trees
and harvests in the fall ...


of one room schools and butter churns
and following a plow
behind a team of stubborn mules,
he still remembered how.


As the oldest of eleven
what could the schoolboy do
but read his book behind a plow
and trust the rows were true.


John married young as some men do
and raised a family
of seven children, seven strong,
with quiet dignity.


They moved to Colorado for,
he hoped, a better day,
to make a life without a crop,
to live another way...


then out to California
a blue Pacific dawn,
the war was recent history,
the grapes of wrath were gone.


They cut some grapes and pulled a mile
of cotton down a row,
they chased some water, pulled a plow
and danced with mister hoe.


They moved a thousand sprinkler lines
then moved them all again,
they moved the mighty cotton plant from
row, to sack, to gin.


John lost his love one dreary day
but kept his stubborn pride
and lived another forty years
though half his heart had died.


And other loves and other crops
and other rows to hoe,
and other losses other moves
and other pain to know.


Alone at last, yet not alone,
Louisiana bound.
In southern hospitality
a final home he found.


A restful town, a peaceful life,
a garden there to tend,
with books to read and tales to tell,
a better way to end.


With honor and integrity,
with unrelenting pride,
with dignity John lived his life...
with dignity he died.


... and Bailey


Two Neighbors boys at Heaven's door
paused there to share a grin ...
then one stepped out to start a life
and one came home again.




~ Dean Neighbors ~

AMIVALENT VS ABIGUOUS

The Latin prefix "ambi-" means both and can refer to plurality. In ambivalent it refers to having mixed, contradictory, or more than one feeling about something. In ambiguous on the other hand, it means unclear or able to be understood in multiple ways.


If you are ambivalent about something, you feel two ways about it. 'Ambiguous', on the other hand, means "unclear or capable of being understood in two or more different ways."

Ambiguous: More than One Meaning

Ambiguous, on the other hand, isn't a word used to describe people—though it is used to describe things people do or say. It's used in cases where the meaning of something is not clear, often because it can be understood in more than one way:

The ambiguous results of the study make it plain that more research is needed.

Their offer was ambiguous; were they suggesting that I borrow the car, or rent it from them?

The word may is ambiguous: it can be about permission—"you may go"—or about possibility—"it may rain."