First published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti in City Lights Books, Mike Bond is an award-winning poet, best-selling novelist, ecologist and former war and human rights correspondent. His previous poetry collection, The Drum That Beats Within Us received high praise and has been a best-seller repeatedly since its publication in 2018. This new collection draws from his extensive poetry on love, wilderness, wisdom and fate, on our everyday lives and the infinite and eternal universes in which we live.

GIGONDAS

Poppies bloom

beneath an olive tree,

blood red below

silvery green leaves

along a gray stone wall,

flowers born

this spring,

the tree old

a thousand years,

the stone a hundred million,

though cut a mere

two thousand years ago

by human hand

to build a Roman fort,

reused a thousand years later

to build a castle,

and five hundred years

ago a wall.

So time betrays

and informs us,

we who rarely live

a hundred.

THE DIVINE

We seek God elsewhere,

in churches and stock markets,

shopping malls, car dealers,

wars and wisdom,

while the divine is always

with us

in the face

of a loved one,

the laugh

of a child,

the joy of a dog

running wild

in the woods,

a bird singing

from a treetop,

a far view

over mountains

to the sea,

a glass of wine

or field of flowers.

The ancients were right:

God is always with us,

we just have

to notice.

LET US ALL

Kindness spreads –

do one good thing,

and another

is given you.

Unkindness spreads also –

cause pain,

and more pain

is given you.

Kindness

heals pain,

and pain

kills kindness.

So let us all

be kind.

FORESTS AND FIELDS

Eyes bathed in the beauty

of forests and fields,

of tender blue sky

beyond the fir peaks,

beavers, mink, moose, eagle

and so many more

living their lives

but fearing us too,

so many we kill,

and many more doom

over time,

the way galaxies die.

Each life, so

many lives,

raised with love,

vermin and human.

We must understand

the greatest power

is to care for life,

to nurture and give.

For every forest and field

bathed in sunset and mist,

fir crests and blue sky,

is given to us.

NUCLEAR

We came down

from the trees

across the savanna

to new lands

and lives,

always with a stone

or club

or rifle

in our hands

to kill

each other,

and now

with a steel fire

to destroy the world

or travel

to new worlds

unknown?

Final war

or the universe,

which

shall it be?

FREE SPEECH

There was once

free speech;

we said

what we thought.

We still have

free speech;

we can say anything

we’re told to think.

THE GREAT DIVIDE

Hand in hand

we face

the great divide

of woman

and man,

of life

and death,

joy

and sorrow.

One woman

one man

united

by flesh

and love

and memory

and children

across the years

till death

divides us

forever

or makes us

one. view abbreviated excerpt only...

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