Clear Open Space

Poem and music by Ken Holmes, April 2012

There is clear, open space ....
There is blockage.
There is blockage where once there was...
Clear, open space.

It was so beautiful, pure and fresh
Fascinated strangers, they touched each other
And touched the world together.
That is how it sometimes is ....oh! ...rare!
This is how it sometimes is
Before something goes ...
something goes wrong

Not just with people. It happens
Between eye and object, ear and sound,
Between one's own life and a situation.
First virgin contact, like unpolluted, ozone-rich sea winds
And high mountain air where eagles glide
Then, a false step, and into complication it invisibly slides
And ends like puffs of oxygen for the dying patient:

Can we still be friends?
Does the eye dare to look and the ear hear?

Some dance so quickly, too quickly,...
To be one step ahead ... ankle uncaught
Or they chatter wildly in never-ending detours,
With the mouth or just in their heads
Anything to avoid that risk ... of utter beauty.

Others set all aside to drink it in with every breath:
A dangerous world, for without blockage,
There is no way to measure and its constant sanity
Does not translate in the languages of men. ,