Water Music
Just as white as a blanket of new-fallen snow
Is the noise of a waterfall cresting a brim
And ebulliently thrashing the basin below.
But the sound of a freshet resembles a hymn,
Its discrete iterations like chants that were spoke
By the guardian spirits of hillside and dale,
Yet complex, contrapuntal and clearly baroque.
The continuo rain, the percussion of hail
And the basso profundo of groaning black ice
May accompany geysers erupting with steam
To engender a numinous pearl of great price
In the heart of a mind at the edge of a dream.
The symphonic fantasia that water creates
Is a blend of its various physical states.
Let Heaven and Nature Sing
If Heaven’s meant to be our final home,
Then why does beauty flood this earthly realm?
The sea, the meadow, and the starry dome
Together co-conspire to overwhelm
Our senses such that we are loath to leave
A world so pleasant to our ears and eyes.
Creations manufactured to deceive
Us don’t befit a god who’s good and wise.
In fact, our very souls have been endowed
With native powers to appreciate
Aesthetic attributes of wave and cloud,
To view this land as Heaven’s outer gate.
No faithlessness occurs unless our duty
Goes unattended: We are firmly bound
To turn our sights on goodness, truth and beauty,
Wherever these supernal gifts are found.
Taqiyya*
The emblematic color of Islam is green,
Perhaps to signify explosive global growth
Or visions of a verdant paradise not seen
Too often in a desert clime, and maybe both.
But be that as it may, there isn’t any doubt
That for a Muslim normative veracity,
When facing infidels, is better done without,
In furtherance of absolute theocracy.
The European sense of honor is a quaint
And atavistic affectation by their lights,
Which unequivocally displays the filthy taint
Of Western Culture. Ordinary human rights
Are worth no more than camel dung, and spoken truth
Has no utility unless in service to
The one and only Allah, like a broken tooth
Inhibiting a man’s ability to chew.
Makara, which in Arabic denotes deceit,
Is de rigueur in orthodox Islamic praxis
Toward infidels, whom they will nonchalantly greet
With smiles before decapitating them with axes.
The honor tied to promises does not apply,
And mercy has no value in their calculation,
For they are masters of the codified big lie
That brings about an enemy’s annihilation.
Though I am just a sinful man who has some doubt
About a god who is benevolent and wise,
I’ll put what faith I have in Him and do without
A god whose patent method is to foster lies.
*Taqiyya is the Islamic doctrine permitting lying and deception in dealings with non-believers.
C.B. Anderson was the longtime gardener for the PBS television series, The Victory Garden. Hundreds of his poems have appeared in scores of print and electronic journals out of North America, Great Britain, Ireland, Austria, Australia and India. His collection, Mortal Soup and the Blue Yonder was published in 2013 by White Violet Press.
This is wonderful poetry! I enjoyed all three pieces – though the melodiously infused images of ‘Water Music’ are so beautifully drawn, the sonnet – as a whole – is a “symphonic fantasia”.
Wendy,
It’ amazing what anapestic metrical feet can do for a poem.
— C.B. Anderson
Cynthia, I am happy that you discerned what was my utmost original intent. Ordinarily, comments here are at cross-purposes with my aesthetic aspirations.
A splendid work like Handel’s art,
__Kip’s verse can dance, like waves that start
then pull apart.
And it appeared in my INBOX three times.
Kip, that is because I deleted my comment. I made it when I was recently experimenting to see how to do the indentation in the comments section. I decided to use your old post as an experimenting ground.
I will restore it.
-Evan