Seeker Magazine

David Sparenberg

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Native Senses | Gypsy Music | Twilights
Man & Angel | Message To A Friend

David Sparenberg is a playwright living in the Seattle, Washington, area, whose wife's death from cancer at the age of 47 has had profound effect upon him and the direction of his life. He says:

"I have written about cancer as an environmental epidemic, about the Nazi Holocaust as the cessation of normal human history. I have written about ecology and planetary responsibility, about men and women, about aging and suffering and about joy. Also: about trauma and ordeal, and the wonder of the human soul, which so often transcends circumstances and situations—not as a foolish flight away, but as a deeper penetration into real existence—thereby transforming reality with a touch or two of beauty, and illuminating desperate darkness with a flash or flicker of hallowing light. This is poetry, some innate, potential quality that plays seriously within life...

...Everything now and into the future is about each of us taking some responsibility to communicate with one another as openly and and humanly as we have the honest capacity to do so--about all that is serious and all that is delightful on the earth, about life. And if there is to be an epidemic that spread through human contact, through the air, over the land and waters, well, let it be this..."

David's EARTH ARTS Performance & Productions is seeking submissions of original work in three categories--poetry, drama, short fiction--for a new anthology to be published between late Spring & mid Summer, 2001. The title of the collection, to be edited by David, will be PRIMITIVE SANITY: A Global Anthology of Green, Ecosophic & Creation Spirituality Writing for the New Millennium. Further information on the anthology can be obtained by going to the following web page: Books, or by sending a self addressed stamped envelope to Renaissance c/o Earth Arts, 4213 S. Lucile St. Seattle, WA 98118 USA. Submission deadline is March 1, 2001, and there is a $15 reading fee (US$), payable to Earth Arts, for each cagegory in which submissions are made. Poets may submit up to 15 pages of original work. Story authors may submit one or more titles, up to 20 pages. Playwrights may submit one or more one act dramas or dramatic skits, up to 25 pages.

David has a second project: The RIBBON PROJECT: HELP END THE CANCER EPIDEMIC THROUGH ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION! You are invited to learn about this People's Campaign for Cancer Prevention & Cure--by going to the following web page: Memorial. If you appreciate what you read there, please tell others. Your help will add to the success of this project of compassion, healing and planetary detoxification.

Native Senses

The expression
of the beautiful genius
opens like a wordless
rose
and clothes us
in the fumes
of paradise.
Somehow
when we are
listening to the wings
of crows and the
tender melodies
of elfin butterflies
we feel embraced
by the breath
of angels.
Beating
so softly, so
delicate-sweet that
velvet on a virgin's
skin
might touch us
with an offering.
Though
we are there, out
in that other place
the familiar cup
of a summer's rose
rises
from this ground
to kiss us
with the miracle
of its pouring passions.
And
we are downed
supine
into the common
haunting symbolum
of earth's
dense mystery.
Though
not a single
word has swollen
to the lips
like a cherry
freshly swollen
but the heavy
buzzing
of a working bee
lost
in the ecstasies
of pollen.
And
we are spellbound
and complete.
Like fruit.
Like garden.

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Gypsy Music

and some lines from Rainer Marie Rilke

green music
like green gypsies
like angels'
budding touches
sweet violins
swirl around me
high pitched
circling laughter

warm
like earthwoman's
brown eyes
the brown earth
of bountiful, nurturing smiles
come
sunlight, daylight
make me happy
let art
be a bell of freedom
let passionate kisses
defeat
our unanswered questions
with smiling
flesh
of ripe desires
cast off
old shadows, sorrows
violins, violins
do not labor

left me rather
onto the strings of joy
into the wet spring
the moondance
summer, pied
flowerbeds of life
let
poetry be a bell
before we fade
into the blue
moods of autumn
and the gray
nuances of twilight

ah, music, cascade-moments
eyeslids
of inviting glances
like green...  Nur
im Raum der Ruhmung darf die Klage
gehn, die Nymphe des geweinten Quells
Only
in the Realm of Praising
does Lament
venture...  nicht
trubt... untroubled

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Twilights

The world is heavy
heavy
like a desert sunset
at the end
of a blistering day
when the sun
has fallen on the earth
with shameless lust
and heat
feasts on the flesh
of all lving.

The world is light
light
like a jungle sunrise:
countless, awakening vapors
setting free
tropical birds, fragile
lotus perfume--
the delicate, delectable kisses
of lotus blossoms.

I am
as the world is:
two yet one.

When my dark
face turns away
from my light
face
when my light
face
turns away
from my dark
I am dangerous
death's companion.

When my two
faces interface
the higher self
and lower self
meet nakedly, fearlessly, and embrace
I am harmony.

I am peace.

Like two
reciprocal bowls
catching and pouring reality:
beginning... endlessly.

But where
in motion and vast illusion
is truth?  Wait!
I will tell you.

Between this
and that
is all I am.

I am like the world.

We are tattooed
with one another's
twilights.

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Man & Angel

These are your wings,
child of eternity.
But with them,
where would I fly?

If my heart should melt
like candle wax,
or erupt like a storm
on the sun,
it would still remain
a human heart.

And you, child
of eternity, whose heart is in
a universal body, what force
runs through your veins?

Hear! There is the music
of your silent motion, most
subtle: shadow of the light
that is light contained.
But how do I sing
to your fugue, knowing only
the plainchant of clay?

There are your eyes,
child who never ages.
But my eyes are clouded
by leaves and twilights.
And I turn away.

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Message To A Friend

You gave me a smile, thanks for that, a smile from your lovely, young face, and some touching words.  That as I turned away, my heart began to fill and then spill over with these sentiments.  And here then, my friend, is my return: gift for gift.  I reflect:

There must be a way, somehow a way, to give voice to all of the tenderness of the world--the opposite of hatred, the opposite of an exploding bomb--that sound that no one has every heard; that sound that is the compilation and culmination of all the sighs and whispers, the vocal caresses, the sweetness and the softness multiplied; that is the conjunction mysterious of the two dirunal twilights--the setting of the sun and the sun's inimitable return--both at once, together rounded, simultaneous; that no one has ever--wingbeats, bellstruck--clearly, definitively heard.  But that everyone has experienced in intimation, like a slice, a smallness, a reaching, a breath close to an ear, or a heartbeat, pressed near to each and every beating heart.

We know what is sounded and what is spoken, we who are notes--notes in a symphony we cannot know, although we are played through it, sporadically--half notes, whole notes, couplets--here and there.  And still...  Still, which is to say, and yet, I like to stand back from the all of everything, sometimes solitary in the late afternoon of an Autumn, with its colorful, slow motion surrendering; knowing what I do about life and about death; and try to imagine hearing the great hush, the great sigh, the softness of divine footsteps, the sacred caress and exhalation, like a new birth, taking place around us, happening, uninterrupted, every moment of every hour of every day, always--bigger than hatred, than the bombs, than all of the swollen throats of malicious lies, and the words of violence, of ignorance, and of howling pain.

Sometimes, I reflect, there must, there must be a way, like diving into the ocean steam, being swept up and swept away by this holy power, from where one is, even if one cannot dissolve, consciously, into the euphoria of the whole. But, I do not know, do you honestly know, if what I think is possible, crude and limited by self-interest as we are.  Or only a dream, a wonderment, of who and what we might become.  And still...   Still, which is to say, and yet, a gentle smile, shinning over a puddle of human rain, is a treasure to be kept.  Thanks for that.

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(Copyright 2000-2001 - All Rights Reserved by David Sparenberg - No reproduction without express permission from the author)


Check out the Author's Page for his play at: PLAYING WITH PURPOSE: Dramas & Ritual Performances for a Green Theater.


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Letter to the Author:
David Sparenberg at EarthArts2000@aol.com