Surviving Time

We find our Charles
contemplating the texture
of uncultured pearls and
bristlecone pine root gnarls.

Something about whorled beauty,
the ephemeral effect
of elemental forces
strewn lib'rally throughout
the wide, weird world was,
for him, a preferred theme
for his minor meditations;

the everyday epic of
a natural world's
fine fragments
yet unperverted;

every woman
and every man;

the sometimes miraculous
result of life's sparked spirit;

(he who thought himself
always a defender thereof)

a river it's own bed making,
slicing toward the sea;

all these eventually
nestling nicely,
their true course finding,
in a feared but finally
unforced surrender.