F
Ode to a sewer
I was stopped on a rainy day
by a rivulet dashing
down a hillside across the path of my muddy feet.
I turned and followed,
down, down beside the drowned grass
the sodden earth, to the concrete of the street.
There the streams swirled and rolled,
widened into lakes or fell over curbs
in tinkling waterfall, always down, always away.
And at the bottom lay a drain,
bars cast across the underworld,
dividing the living and the dead,
and letting fall only the mud, the broken wood,
the tattered leaves, the worms that climbed too near the light.
Down they fall, to shore up the fabric of the earth,
to fill, to revitalize, to nourish,
carried on that ceaseless tide of water
to be Formed anew
to begin the. struggle again
to climb, as a bush, a tree, a man
as far and as high
as our hearts will carry us.
A dim world
A dim world
through slit eyes
closed against the light
of contact,
expanding, pressing,
solemn, earnest
writhingon the stage
to the music of applause.
I cannot dance,
though I sing to bedroom walls—
and even in silence my shadow tells ml
I am there.
But should I see more—
should I see clearly—
should I dance on that dim stage
in the blinding light, in the conflict
of egos—
dance
and writhe
for the love of the unsympathetic,
the applause of the uncaring—
where am I in that movement?
I stopped to watch the rain restore the sacrament,
and wondered why only I should be still and silent
in the dance, the mirth, the shout pf life.
And then I thought how odd it was to ask such a question
when the answer was falling all around.
I spat into the water, watching as it disappeared between the cracks,
and walked on,
glad .of my contribution to the world.
Voices explain,
but I will not listen,
for I cannot see their eyes.
Tod Bassham
Tod Bassham
C
Measure the world
Measure the world
by your footsteps, bld
and those yet to be, and
you will be blinded by the sun ,
though it shall grow no nearer.
Measure the world
by the breadth of your mind,
and you will see the stars shjne
on countless lands,
in countless dreams,
and yet the will of the Universe,
speeding as light never can,
shall not move an inch
into your understanding.
How much have I seen, and
how much have I not?
How much will I feel, and touch,
taste, burn, love, hate
and comprehend
before I am overwhelmed?
How much?
Incredible spaces surround me, I
fighting to occupy all I count real ]
with its vacuum,
striving to merge, to reduce,
to fertilize the rock with my blood.
And indeed, I am weary.
As the day pales I cease to ask
all else but to measure
the life my own heart carries.
I no longer weep to hear
the waves trembling on the shores
I never now shall see.
Tod Bassham
X.
page 4
feature magazine.
D50 Illuminant, 2 degree observer
Density