Manifest

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What is it

that makes us dream

an alternate reality

as if such possibility

had fleshed in,

begot life?

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(c) 1981, 2018  Betty Hayes Albright

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Re-posted from 2012, originally written in 1981. 

Photo taken in 2008.

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End of Doubt

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(Remembering the summer of ’67)

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It was a blue-sky summer

of beach love freedom

and baby-oil tans

but most of all

a hunger

for the daring wild truth.

We danced far away

from dead philosophers

returning to their coffins

and the icy leanings

of cynical professors.

And so it was

that long, fiery season

when heat ignited bodies

and the sun

kindled our souls

that Nietzsche’s god

rolled over

in his grave.

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(c) 2013, 2018 Betty Hayes Albright

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(a re-post from 2013, revised)

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For the Best

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Do you remember

silver man,

when we were two wings

flying one dream

beneath warm quilts?

One night

I couldn’t breathe

and tore the covers off

when you couldn’t fathom

the unseen and threw

your pillow down.

We rolled

from the edges

of the bed

and let the feathers

settle

into the spread of time.

Still now and then

one catches my eye

floating to the floor.

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(c) 1993, 2017  Betty Hayes Albright

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Trees and Wires

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She sips hot tea

and watches snow

fall through the trees

and those ugly electric wires

that slice across her view.

She sighs…

“The world is too much with us,”

William Wordsworth said so long ago.

What would he say now?

Children play outside

with phones stuck to their faces

and never look up.

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It doesn’t stick.

She turns from the window

to her beloved books:

poetry, philosophy,

nature, metaphysics –

millions and billions of words

strung in constellations of idea.

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She imagines stirring them up

into one large pot

over a hot fire

and wonders what the bottom line

would be – the final alchemy.

Perhaps this one plea:

to speak our love now

before the die is cast,

before we sign our exodus;

to lift ourselves

by bootstraps woven

with the dreams of Gaia.

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Her tea has gone cold.

She turns back to the window

where the snow is finally sticking

and the trees are turning white.

And seventy times seven birds

are perched upon the wires.

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© 2016  Betty Hayes Albright

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Significance

(Written in 1963 – age 16)

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Who am I, walking this earth

with my average looks and birth?

What am I doing here?

Do I deserve to be so near

to the beauty of grass and flowers

with my lowly, finite powers?

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Where do I stand in God’s home?

Was I put here to write poem after poem?

Why am I standing so small

in universes containing all?

When am I – near the end of time?

Or are we humans far behind?

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Will time and space ever rot,

or won’t the two ever stop?

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© 1963, 2014 Betty Hayes Albright

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(Re-posted from my 1960’s blog:  Summers of Love

Bad poetry, but same old questions….)

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Contrails

(just a scribble….)

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Like a contrail from a jet

the past changes shape

shifting in the winds

of time and distance.

It expands and softens,

sometimes twisting

into grotesque serpents.

So, which is more real to us,

the sharp spear of the present

or the undulating spread

of memory?

Or can we ride them both?

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© 2014  Betty Hayes Albright

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Relatively Speaking

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We can wag

the comet’s tail

till our orbits

spin like bracelets

bangling ‘round the sun;

or we can skip

through all the stars

in a game

of ancient hopscotch

where constellations

dance a jig

and time shrinks

to a dot

and we see

there is no distance,

just a difference

of thought.

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(c) 1995, 2016 Betty Hayes Albright

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Emergence – 2011 posting

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He cuts away gold-threaded robes,

rips the collar from his voice,

kicks away the leaded boots

and finds that he can dance

beyond the trappings

of the mortar

and the folly of prestige.

And as he breaks the bindings

that had camouflaged his heart

he sees a new light

in the mirror

and finally meets himself.

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(c) 1996, 2016  Betty Hayes Albright

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Time Zones – 2011 posting

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On another planet

orbiting a different star

in a distant galaxy

on the edges of the universe

I wonder

what time it is.

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(c) 2011, 2016  Betty Hayes Albright

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Full Noon

She climbed above

Wikipedia

the addled day

beyond the spackled sky

until the sun

was all she knew.

It never rose,

nor did it set,

the world spun fast

below her now

but she no longer recognized

the frenzied bulbs

of toggled light,

the creaks

of channels switching,

no more tripping

over shadows,

no more blood

from steel spires.

Instead she heard

the muses singing,

heard the laughter

of the gods

and so she danced

a freedom tango

with a humble star

then rested

in the halo of full noon.

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(c) 2011 Betty Hayes Albright

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