Notes on Design/The Magic of the Moon

I always felt there could be a
wedding of the arts and sciences
as much as there could be
a union of our reason and our passion.
So having been schooled
in the heat and sweat
of a summer-like science,
I longed for the fall
and the magic of the moon.
And herein within
I have found it.
©Peter Bray, 1982
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You and Fyodor and Change

You and Fyodor and change
came down to my place
in the summer’s sun
and brought with you the nighttime
in all its splendid colors.
And it pulsed me through the evening
like some mammoth trucker’s tailgate,
hauling onions from San Josie
to the East Coast through the night.
©Peter Bray, 1973
All rights reserved

His Words

I shall long remember his words
for he said:

If you should learn
anything from this class,
learn how to see,
to observe,
to find symmetry in a leaf,
beauty in a stone,
architecture in a seed,
structure in a bone.

And so it was that I
began to see, to observe,
to find in my own way,
that which had always been.
And though my pen
was often laid aside,
what I found were not only
the artifacts of yesterday
and the technicalities of today,
but the spirit, the emotions,
the essence of life,
the sensations of being.
And with these observations,
I began to write.
©Peter Bray 1973
All rights reserved

To Write

To write is to grasp
at the greatest of fantasies
and to hold them firmly in the hand.
To dream the greatest of dreams
and to capture them in words.
To seize upon the most illusive of thoughts,
to harness them for a moment,
but then in time,
let them too run free.
To reflect, to acknowledge,
to propose, to wonder –
to me, to write is to be.
©Peter Bray 1973
All rights reserved

Pedro’s 2nd chapbook, 1982, 5” x 7,” saddle-stitched, 41 poems offset printed on Strathmore paper – Done as a class project in Book Design Class, UC Extension, Berkeley
for the Certificate in Graphic Design. (Courtesy of Peter Bray)

Something to Write About

There will always be
something to write about,
so long as our reason and our passion
are kept alive within us.
It’s only when we settle for the superficial,
that writing will cease to serve a purpose.
©Peter Bray, 1973
All rights reserved

Peter Bray lives, works, and writes in Benicia
and has written this column since 2008.

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