Path Through the Sky
Path Through the Sky
2024, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
i hear a voice speaking from the mountain
weak yet strong, gentle, flimsy, firm, and true
it parts the clouds that cover the seventh heaven,
“o voice! great mountain, tell me what you know.”
the voice bids me journey to the seashore,
the place where the ocean grasps the land,
i kneel before the waves and then it tells me:
“Your footprints are made in shifting sand.”
the voice speaks again from the valley
“what are you now? this voice from south and north?”
“You’ll find me when you seek me,” so it says
“I echo from the oceans and the earth.”
the voice reaches now through a forest,
and i see the land beneath give way to steel and glass,
th’ heavens above twinkle with a million eyes gleaming
and i wonder how much longer they will last.
“Hear me now.” says the voice from the clouds:
“Iron fills the sea and sky. The stars are first to go.
See now the fury of my kin not unprovoked—”
And I cry, “Teacher! Please! Tell me what to do.”
“Watch the fading stars, Man, and delight in the smoke and the ash,
Watch the rising flame, fool, burning oak and elm also
Watch the raging tide, Mortal, clawing the land in its grasp,
And watch me now, friend… and kneel as you did long ago.”
my father told a story of a voice,
a story that his father told him too,
the ashen sky beckons for me now,
and i pray that the ocean answers soon.
i hear a murmur from the starless night,
as the cities’ glow erased th’evening sky,
the sea is filled with iron rods, just like the barren land
my fathers’ Mother’s strength is gone. Hark! the weight of Man.
the skies sob, silent, as white flame bursts from the land
the flare from those that couldn’t be held by steady earth
the Mountain has been muted by the stripping of its flanks
some say that it is time that heals every wound…
… But then I look! At that bright glow that blocks the heavens’ light
Restless voices sound all o’er— hear now the dreaded reply:
Reflection
I wrote a collection of poetry, from which this is a part of, inspired by a late-night hike in the Blue Hills south of where I live. I saw two worlds, essentially. Further south, there lay an ocean of stars above a sea of forest green, while to the north, Boston's bright city lights seemed to hide all of the light from the sky. I thought that duality was truly profound-- that light, normally viewed as pure, true good, can have layers also. Inspired, I was struck with the urge to write about it then and there-- on how both natural and artificial light is still the same light, only differing through the concepts we associate with their origins. I related this 'eating' of the natural starlight by the lights of the city with the destruction of nature by technology and the works of mankind. I saw the hiding of stars as the first step to the wasting of our planet, with the dominance of technology the second, and pollution of the sea and sky the third. I tried to reflect this thought in the poem: "Iron fills the sea and sky. The stars are first to go" followed later by "murmur from the starless night / as the cities' glow erased th'evening sky" and finally "the sea is filled with iron rods, just like the barren land / my fathers' Mother's strength is gone." What I want viewers of the piece to feel is that same feeling of grandeur. To embrace the majesty of nature, but then to turn their head and acknowledge the might of mankind. I want them to feel that, though we as humans have done (and probably will do) terrible and wonderous things, there is still time to take a step back to ponder nature and, in the words of the Mountain, "kneel as [we] did long ago."