Category: Art

A drip of blood

from one perspective

unless its yours

or mine

It falls on the ground

in the highest places

in the villages of Nepal

where blood runs cold

it trickles down

the mountainside

through far Kashmir

into Afghanistan

staining the banks of the streams

that carve the hidden valleys

and splash into the rivers

staining them too with the blood

of guilty and the innocent alike

ever downward through

the desert of Iraq

There are other mountains

in Bosnia and Kosovo

where the blood also spilled

running eastward perhaps

through the valleys of Chechnya

and further on to color red

the desert of Uzbekistan

Blood also spilled in the jungles

of the Congo and Rwanda

and the oil plains of Nigeria

flowing into the rivers

ever onward

’til the rivers ran red

Here too the blood

eventually sank into the deserts

of Eritrea and Darfur

and the bazaars

of the Sudan and Somalia

The desert is stained

with blood

The bloody fist of oppression

squeezes the life

out of the jungle of Myanmar

and the farms of Zimbabwe

The mountains

of Peru and Columbia

add more than their share

The Big Muddy is stained

as it passes by what

used to be the Big Easy

but it’s sure not easy anymore

and the rivers run red with blood

carrying it to the ocean

an ocean of blood

bathing our world

Our home is built

on the blood of others

yet still we add more

or stand by watching it run

Our home is sinking

as the blood-tainted

ocean rises

The blood will consume

us all in the end

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–December 26, 2005

Where do I go

to get my life back?

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–November 14, 2005

Wouldn’t we?

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–December 16, 2005

On a cosmic scale

the scale of star stuff

we are all

so insignificant

minor players

on a minor stage

Just dust in the wind

evaporating in a relative

wink of an eye

or so I have been told

One can also

hold the view

that the vastness

of spacetime

gives primacy

to that stage

and to this life

while it occurs

Earth is my universe

until I can leave it

I am immortal

until I die

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–December 14, 2005

A joshua tree, a mayfly

A redwood, a butterfly

A panda cub, slime mold

A humpback whale, Streptococcus pneumoniae

A human being

All passing fancy

Life doesn’t care

as long as there’s more life

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–January 5, 2006

It is not ours

We only

borrow it

thinking that we

control it

we have killed

to possess it

’til it is

our master

The fire consumes

clear, sterile

and then waits

for  life anew

It will have

the last word

The fire was here

long before

life began

We only live

on its skin

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–January 3, 2006

But not today.

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–December 1, 2005

The Spirit of the Valley

never dies.

It is called

the Mystic Female.

Blue Mother

I weep with you

for the damage done

to the spirit

of the valley

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–November 1, 2005

Perhaps this problem

needs more

dimensions,

a change in

the frame

of reference.

–Robyn Elaine Serven
–November 7, 2005

When people see some things as beautiful,

other things become ugly.

When people see some things as good,

other things become bad.

Why is life a game?

–Robyn Elaine Serven
–November 28, 2005

The years fly by

while the months

pass too slowly

Each day drones on

With not enough

minutes

Each second

measuring

the beating

of my heart

pounding

relentlessly

to the end

of my eternity

counting

the grains

of sand

in the hourglass

acting as

the timepiece

of my life

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–December 22, 2005