You can know nothing

[[ This started from two episodes in Ryszard Kapuściński, The Shadow of the Sun, and his description of how there is little in the way of twilight in Africa -- it is light and then BANG it is dark, and then, twelve hours later, BANG, it is light again. But I have let something of the ambiguous and possible hints of the metaphysical or epistemological creep into it. ]]

You can know nothing

before and after.

On the way to Kumase,

our bus stops somewhere.

A woman gathers to herself her children.

She rests her bowl upon her head

and walks into the trees.

You can know nothing

before and after.

When the sun comes up,

there is no prelude to rising.

This is the old adventure.

On the Serengeti,

our truck has a flat.

Lions rest round shreds of antelope.

They watch us half an hour, then rise

and walk into the grass.

You can know nothing

before and after.

When the sun goes down,

it is gone.

This is the old adventure.

I had an oracle

[[ It starts with a reductive yammer on life and then switches to a favorite theme of mine, Bede's sparrow. The first half is written in short chunks to be sung line by line, each almost independent of the lines before and after it. Then a shift to longer lines, slower rhythm, and all of it is the reported speech of the oracle. "She said..." ]]

I had an oracle 

tell it to me:

past, present, future --

all she could see.

There wasn't much,

all much the same.

We're all alike.

It's all a game.

I'll live and die,

and, in between,

be a regular guy.

Be a regular guy.

She said 

there was a sparrow

flew in one window

of a great hall,

a feast before a fire.

She said 

there was a sparrow

warm for a moment

in the fire light

and flew across the room.

She said 

there was a sparrow 

there for the moment,

that space of time,

then out another window and gone.

I had an oracle 

tell it to me:

past, present, future --

all she could see.

branches in my pathway

[[ I like a straight blues form. This one is literal and allegorical. A real storm, but also the difficulties and decisions in life, and we have an appearance by Bede's sparrow. ]]

verse 1:
I've got branches in my pathway
I've got the wind in my face
I've got branches in my pathway
I've got the wind in my face
Pull one star from the night sky
Leave a darkness in its place

verse 2:
Wind is whistling down the chimney
Wind is whistling down the stair
Wind is whistling down the chimney
Wind is whistling down the stair
Leave a door waiting open
For a thought too hard to bear

middle:
Fly in at one door, sparrow,
Fly out the other

verse 3:
I've got branches in my pathway
I've got my face in the blast
I've got branches in my pathway
I've got my face in the blast
Leaving no trail behind me
And the horizon's coming fast