Two Poems By Bruce Owens: "Unspeakable Joy", "He Is"

Bruce Owens has been writing poetry for 50 years. One of his poems appeared in the Robinson Jeffers Newsletter (No. 93 & 94, Winter & Spring) in tribute to friend, and fellow poet William Everson. He has been a guest lecturer at various colleges in California, lecturing on the nature of the creative process, and he has conducted poetry workshops, mainly with young adults, especially those struggling with various addictions or having come from an abusive household, using poetry as an instrument of discovery for both self, and as an entry into the world around us. His collection of poems: Eddies in the Rush (ISBN 0-971256-0-0 [149 pg.]) was endorsed by C.C. Bailey and poet William Stafford (1914-1993) a "National Book Award recipient." 

You can read/purchase more of Bruce's poetry at the following links: 
http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009502667 
Catalog Record: A passage through stone : poems | Hathi Trust Digital Library
http://www.solopublications.com/jurn0204.htm  
http://itsaboutimewriters.homestead.com/OwensBruceGiveMeAPoem.html 
http://www.alibris.com/Eddies-in-The-Rush/book/-97125650 
http://www.biblio.com/booksearch/author/bruce-owens/title/a-passage-through-stone/order/priceasc

 

Unspeakable Joy

The moon in the woods. A quiet that goes all the way

into the light...a lingering.

Listening into this without a thought. Clear tonight

all the way down to the sea. The water

glows. It is

so still I can hear

the bark of sea lions on black rocks.

I cannot see them huddled together.

I know they are there.

They do not know that on a distant ridge

I hear the language of dark kelp in their bark.

They are not concerned about me.

A meteor strikes a match on the deep above.

I glance up and see the hem of the vast Milky Way,

a glaze of light.

There is a joy in me

so deep

that the root of it

touches the garment of Christ,

and the eternal realm

forever.

I have watched as storms from off the Pacific

ripped old oaks from the earth by the roots

and scatter trees, in one night, that have stood for a hundred years.

Nothing can uproot this joy

I have in Him.

The fury of the wild is calmed with two words,

"Be still."

Tonight

I walk in this stillness, in this unspeakable joy.

He is

like wind or water

moving   flowing

a candle between the mountain

no wind can quench

He is

a word pronounced

where the day ends

and the night begins

find Him

and all the flowers of the world will be yours

and the air after the Spring rain

will be a thought that will never leave you

~Bruce Owens