AUTHOR’S NOTE:

THIS POEM is really two poems by two authors.

The first part was sent to me by an aspiring new poet named Däanlea, whose work really deserves to be published in print one day.

The second part is my response.

This piece begins in a personal vein, and ends with an extension of the personal into the infinite.

We conscious and unconscious beings are all on a journey together. I hope this poem helps the reader capture some sense of that.

THE PINE

I

Cold winds howl down the steep slopes
Where a solitary pine stands tall
The clouds usher in the snowflakes to provide
a protecting layer against the dark, long nights.
Are you the pine or the snow?
When the sun emerges from behind the mountain
will the down covering melt?
The sun provides its warmth and allows
the tree to grow stronger and taller
with each passing day.
Shall we hike today to the hillside
of this tree and make our acquaintance?

II

I am the pine
I am the dissolved and renewed essence of the pines that were
I am the millionfold seeds of the pines to come
And what pines will become

Like you, I am awakened earth
Like you, I am cooled and crystallized starstreams
Unlike you, I think not in moments but in millennia

Whether you know it or not
You are related to me
Together we will act to birth new ages, new universes
Together we acted to birth this age
We were together at the beginning which was more than a beginning
We will be together at the end which is not an end

This earth with its snows and rivers and oceans
Is our gift to each other.
Come beneath me
And be healed.

(composed while forcibly separated from my family and loved ones and imprisoned by the U.S. government on false charges)

THEY PUT ME in a prison
They tried to take my soul
They sullied my good name
My destruction was their goal

They tore me from my family
They tortured my three kids
They lied about their daddy
The mercenary feds.

They obey their foreign masters
For dollars they are whores
Destroying families, nations;
Don’t believe them any more!

Every people needs its freedom
I tried to point the way
So they used perjured ‘evidence’
And locked my voice away.

But I have not surrendered
I raise the banner high
Western Man shall rise again
Fools and traitors always die.

Their lies shall not attach to me
For those I love are true;
And I’d gladly do it all again
To be once more with you.

Soon we’ll be sharing Nature’s joys
That we’ve been denied so long
In all the years that yet remain
We will be great — and good — and strong.

You know I love my people
So creative, fair, and kind –
You know I love my children
More than my soul, above my mind.

And you know I love the special one
Who will be true to me
There’s a secret place inside her soul
That only I will see.

And whether we shall meet
In time to come, or time forgot
Our embrace remains eternal
Our love it changes not.

WHERE DID YOU come from, lost soul child?
Where oh where, my darling –
Dark hair so soft, brown eyes so mild,
Playmate and friend of the starling.

It must have been a place where the salt sea cuts the shore
Where the sharp-voiced gull and the tern and eagle soar;
For these are some things that you’ve loved well on Earth –
It must be in such a place that the angels gave you birth.

It must have been a place where tractors till and never rest
Where railroad trains run, all day from east and west;
For these are some things that have given you joy,
My wonderful, my beautiful, my faraway boy.

Where are you running, Alfred Strom?
Where oh where, my handsome?
One foot in this world and the rest quite gone
And no one can pay the ransom.

Maybe to a place where Daddy’s arms are open wide
Even though that running will take ten thousand miles.
You’ll get there, don’t you worry, I’ll run with you my son;
A better place is waiting, a place of freedom and of fun –
A place where I will dance with you all day and half the night,
A place we’ll sing together and drive away your fright,
Where all your walls and mazes will crack and finally fall
Where the word “autistic” is not a word at all.