Rockstrewn Hills Join In: A Brief Requiem for Charles Ives

Almost yesterday the mountain lake
the character of his friend
What is behind it all?
Streams that flow through the garden
of consciousness

An evening train
Through pine-swept atmosphere
even the fishes in the pond
no longer hear rumbles

We paint it all with any color
left at hand--the heart left alone chain
No wagon hitched to it
Certain vision truths translate
into afterglow

Monotone days
more introspective than others
Swan songs heard faintly
in the offing

Words echo up
over tongue-and-groove flooring
A thorax or two at high
tide

Seasons like corn
You don't know them
unless you love them

Yet the mind universal
if the arc of Nature be completed

Let chips fall wherever
When sun blows through I'll say
any damn thing I feel like

[after texts by Charles Ives]

--Halvard Johnson