Mystic Circles (poem) by Charles B. Neff on AuthorsDen

Mystic Circles
by Charles B. Neff → (All Poetry by Charles B. Neff)
Rated "G" by the Author.

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New encounters play tricks with memory, or do they? Deep down, maybe most memories aren't disparate, but parts of a larger same.
Mystic Circles A mountain meadow smiled on late-arriving summer, Flowers and grasses fading already In warmth they would have gladly welcomed Much earlier this shortened season. Near its edge, a tall circle of deep green firs Stood guard, as if they had been planted For deliberate completion of the scene Or as a monument, set there to be discovered. Was it just the slanting light nudging me, Or something else that prodded old memory? Unexpectedly I saw myself trudging years ago Down a drizzly incline below Salisbury A cloud-shrouded Stonehenge emerging From what should have been a summer sky. The plain was empty of all but a few persons. Then I was alone with the silent presence of the stones, With Druids, long gone, yet still alive, Etching memory, daring me ever to forget. A week ago a mountain fire raged down the valley, Destroying homes and burning countless trees, Some of them, no doubt, forming imaginary monuments. But a solid circle guards its level spot in my mind. On the Solstice this year, fourteen thousand people Cavorted in unseasonable mud at Stonehenge Dancing, drinking and drugging a new ritual. Yet I know that the same Druids watched them, too. Through the bright and the dark, the warmth and the dank An unknowable sameness holds it all together. Charles B. Neff August 20, 2012

Reviewed by Christine Tsen

Reviewed on August 21, 2012

Beautiful! I like the way this poem starts with an everday feel to it and then widens to the infinite.

Reviewed by Keith Rowley

Reviewed on August 20, 2012

Cool!

Reviewed by Ronald Hull

Enchanting to read. All mother nature creates the images using trees that we imitate with our monuments thousands of years old to plot the sun and the moon and keep track of the seasons of plenty and loss. The Druids are often on my mind, too.

Ron