Fall/Winter 2015 ~ Poetry
Rick Hartwell is a retired middle school (remember the hormonally-challenged?) English teacher living in Moreno Valley, California. He believes in the succinct, that the small becomes large; and, like the Transcendentalists and William Blake, that the instant contains eternity. Given his “druthers,” if he’s not writing, Rick would rather be still tailing plywood in a mill in Oregon. He can be reached at rdhartwell@gmail.com.
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Stretching To Answer
With worlds of words said aloud,
universal echoes are set free, so
at some distant point in space
voices coalesce in different order
providing explanations to those
questions posed by philosophy
With images broadcast silently,
reverberating imaginings spin
outward as collective memories
creating a celestial bedlam of
intertwining mobius strips,
answers for scientific queries.
With every oath or plea or tear,
whether given voice or voiceless,
are cries sent to the firmament
beseeching comprehension of the
need for harm or want or hurt,
importations beyond faith.
Ever expanding, the cosmos does
reply to words, visions, damning,
prayers, and grief, but in doing so
cryptic answers are provided, but
never pass back to questioners;
so thinly stretched by speed, dark
nights remain un-dawned …
… and souls undaunted