The Night Jupiter Spoke to Me

Journalists, like parrots on TV news
Spew out chaos in broadcast views:
Bad things happen to folk scorned by fate
Promised dreams forced to wait
As human life spun in blurs, lost in bigotries,
Cannot save cherished idolatries
Of right and left bereft of light

Nameless and traceless souls have new birth
To lead the nations foretold in the Holy Book
When the “meek shall inherit the earth.”
Greed prevents the mighty from seeking a deeper look.
As they sink in the mire of unbelief and vices
Entombed by their own devices.

Last night I heard Jupiter speak in my ear.
Jupiter said something of cosmic light.
Whispered it without a word of fear,
As I stared into the solemn night:
A word crossed the black sky outside my door
A mumble and nothing more.
And then all went still; Jupiter a dull dot in time,
And I listened to all that blackness between
Me and time, between time and love;
Between love and what should I do next?

So much space on my hands and no way 
to grasp it:
A jumble and nothing more.

I glanced again before walking ahead.
I was sure that Jupiter said:
Night bodes a glorious Day.
Inhale the promised metaphor
And let the humble lead the way.

C. S. Cholas
12/18/08 Night Sky over Hilo:

What is Jupiter associated with?

In astrology, Jupiter is associated with the principles of growth, expansion, healing, prosperity, good fortune, and miracles. Jupiter governs long distance and foreign travel, big business and wealth, higher education, religion, and the law.

Was a time

We swapped tales
Fishing for words that lay hid
In streams with indigenous roots
Behind rocks with geological names;

We shared snapshots
Of nameless faces we met in ordinary life,
Reflections of God from places
As diverse as Kayenta, Burrell Boom
Or a hospital waiting room in San Juan.

Was there meaning behind the scars?
The stuttered speech, the missing teeth?
The smell of Ponderosa Pine needles
Rising in the smoke of a Colorado campfire?

Was a time
We pondered the metaphorical nature
Of our physical realms, helmsmen
On a mystical boat in heavy fog
At night when the lapping of waves
Has almost gone still.

-- C. S. Cholas
27 September 2007

We all come from somewhere.

We all come from somewhere.
Before the first crack of dawn
Somewhere we have never been
Like the light at the end of the tunnel
That it too bright to see what the light beholds.

We all come from somewhere
Up and at them before we know
Anything about them or ourselves.
In the beginning that has no beginning
Somewhere in the end that has no end.

There are records of my time of birth
In a place I do not remember
At a time before the beginning of man
Before the time that man forgot
Lost in the folds of the earth.

 C. S. Cholas
6 March 2023
Thoughts go wandering during the Fast

 

Echoes Behind the Music

Bach runs in trills about the backyard in major tonalities.
Joy must come with twenty kids
Running up and down the organ keys
Must give them thrills.

While Mozart mourns in minor melodies
He, too, has highs and lows, going forward.
Struggles with “Black Thoughts”, hysteria and unpaid bills,
Fights battles through the Requiem suite,
Emerges playing the magic flute
In the backyard behind the watermills.

C. S. Cholas, Colorado October 22, 2021