C&C Welcome (People Of Time's Salutations)

[jon-paul smith]

Comments welcome:

PEOPLE OF TIME'S SALUTATIONS

People of time's salutations, my love is gathering
seashells by that hilled windy gathering place the sea (like
dim worlds vexed with sound in the stuck conch, to undo this
day the scaly wrongs that scuttle in the soul's sea); for
gull-winged griefs that drop their vowels on spat hills of
light, my love is gathering portents like sea-made money for
the truths found there in untruth, and hearing them there,
I see them there.

Summer folk that come from cold to these great gathering
hills and find one breasted ounce of ocean silver to keep
like crying know that taut pants cringing came, the color
of kisses, scattered on the sandgrains like arms and legs.
People of time's salutations, this shell and ear will
bray there for the weeped hills that leaving love labored.

Folk of autumn come from fear, wracked by youth, grow
old there where the hills recede--gather dust of water to
glow the sun over with knowing that came too late. Sad gone
days lean to and fro in the salutating tide that tugs the
land for lack of care. People of time's salutations, this
conch and ear will hear them scratch as the days go out to
sea.

The morning folk that come from shadow gather wand-
watered proverbs in the still light. Great hills for these
mad people who froth like waves for the sayings of ages. People of time's
salutations, though eternities implode like
new suns in their slow gatherings, shell and breath can not
blow them out beyond sound's ill reach where the sea goes
endlessly rocking and mocking their finitudes.

The folk of evening come from labor, their wasted souls
on hill and sullied waves dropped like shells in wrong
places. Muscles matted on sanddollar days yield no virtue's
wages. Work is a shark's tooth for the weary. People of
time's salutations, this shell and ear will hear them breathe
though the sun going down can not.

Shell and ear for these splay sounds that daunt and
dabble (by a sea of hilly days go on). But to pity and
praise this great endeavour, my love is seashell gathering
by that same great sea while the waves go pithily out on
this hill and monied water like thoughts and implications.
People of time's salutations, this conch and ear will
trumpet eternities in the long-winded tides that walk there.

© Jon-Paul Smith
Spring, 1990

[scott c ross]

In article <AF745C5C...@pm02-63.chattanooga.cdc.net>,
jsm...@cdc.net (jon-paul smith) wrote:

>I like the ideas in this poem very much. I do think it could use a few
more line breaks. The first stanza, especially, runs on a bit.
Scott

[jon-paul smith]

In article <5ip6cc$t...@sjx-ixn6.ix.netcom.com>,

scott c ross <scot...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

>>I like the ideas in this poem very much. I do think it could use a few
>>more line breaks. The first stanza, especially, runs on a bit.
>>Scott

The lines breaks are just a result of word wrap. The stanzas are really
paragraphs. Not sure if that was self-evident, but it might change the way
it reads if it wasn't.
Jon-Paul