Mark Tracy
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The Three SingersI was brought downTo the place where all the world’s a poem, an art-garden,and all the people sculptors.Unwillingly admitted, in fact—a three-day sojourn among the cluttered, the broken-in.The fallen leaves, coloring still; not green again or yet(but greenness is self-serving anyhow).I met perchance three singers with one braided song.The song was mine, and…
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Baby birdBaby birdOn the sidewalk;Gone so young, never feathered;Once encased, never fettered—Through your intercession:Let my death be like yours—in a whisper;To a hymn sung by mi familia;For my tomb the whole world.And let them sing unto new millennia:Those who flew that I may try to fly, whoLanded that I may find ground.Let them sing, then…
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The Frog and the WrenI’ll make myself a characterif it enhance our storytimes.(Authenticity is not-being; it’s only not-to-do.The being is your game;It’s ultimately up to you.)This sort of divinationis our duty and our right:to seed ourselves by inclinationand build by day as dreamt by night.So I’ll be a frog and you’ll be a wren;and we’ll…
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To Poetry and MagicMy poems create their maker(I’m taller than I think I am).When I search among fields of choicesto call forth dialogue from noise,I grant peaceful power conduitto create myself by prophecyand reckon myself by words and worldsbeyond my reaching(I’m smaller than I think I am).Let me be for these words as all for…
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A MeatballI fold my napkin gingerly, like it’s afraid of my touch.There are so many sounds in the wall it’s like a quiet river.The cold outside makes our warmth more fragile, and that’s just as well.Scarcity creates value, I suppose.The thing is, my thoughts are broadcast commentary,since there is no other way. Of course,the Grand…
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And What of All This Swirling?And what of all this swirling?To see life always in reflectionOn the eye to which I hold myselfAnd when until its stopping?Can I hold for longer stillWith all I know awash?And essence—what to knowAnd what to let slip through—When will it matter?Time—to hold and time forAll. But what—and more,For whom?…
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A WaveThere is a place, a starting point for thought,Where the wave is not a breath, nor an unseen excitation;A time when the ocean wave is entirely and only itself.Here I see the space is vast that isolates a lover,And turbulent the time that shakes the brittle tie of one to one.If I should cast…
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I was thinkingthat one has a certain amount of time with one’s lover to essentially memorize their responses and reactions to things; to download, as it were, their “software.” During this period one obsesses over their loved one’s least gestures, tells stories to their partner in their own mind—and they imagine the lover’s response.They have…
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In the Buzzing of DragonfliesThere’s a manlike activity in the buzzing of dragonflies:Their darting and zipping,their pausing to evaluate, then flitting away toward gain.There’s economy, intention, drive.But our highest calling is not like this at all, but ratherthat through our eyes the Lord may view again His Garden;And by us stroll through His creationto find…
The Trinitarian Mystery 