WILLIAM RULEMAN - POEMS & ART

William Ruleman retired last year from college teaching to devote himself to writing, painting, translation, and (when possible) travel. His newest book is Black Forest Poems, and individual poems of his have appeared most recently in The Amethyst Review, Mused: The BellaOnline Literary Review, NatureWriting, The Pangolin Review, and Words for the Wild. More can be found out about him at www.williamruleman.com.

APPLE TREES IN AUTUMN, BREITENBERG

AUTUMN NEAR BREITENBERG

THE INVITATION
​

​Once more, I find I long to wander, free
From all the strife that plagues my native land:
The bitter bickering on every hand,
The snares that will not let a body be. 
 
There are forests I still long to see 
And where I would not have to take a stand
On some "hot" issue I find trite and bland.
I wish the world would stay away from me.
 
But Earth replies: "I'm waiting for you, child.
All you ever sought in life is here,
But you must leave the wicked World behind
 
And live with me in nature, weird and wild,
Free from cities and their hate and fear,
Once more to find serenity of mind.”

IN WHAT OTHERWISE WOULD BE EDEN,
HE LONGS FOR HIS LOVE,
WITH AUTUMN NEAR
​

​(Breitenberg, Germany, 17 September 2010)
 
Outside my bedroom window—there
In chill and certain autumn air--
The apple tree is all aglow,
And here I could be frothy, froh
If not for sobering things I know.
 
For solemn thoughts at moments shroud
My joy in puffs of gloomy cloud
Against the blue (I'm wistfully blue,
For blue, my love, your favorite hue,
Sends my thoughts again toward you.)

THE RIDE FROM BAD WILDBAD TO BIETIGHEIM
​

​(September 2010)
 
to my love
 
The sky was blue that day; the air was chill.
Walter parked the car at Wildbad so that we
Could take our bikes to see what we could see,
Negotiating every turn and hill
 
Through woods and villages, past farm and field
Along the river Enz to Bietigheim,
Although we stopped and spent a little time
At a roadside inn whose looking-glass revealed
 
That I had cut my head and left a gash
When I had gathered speed going down a slope,
Too heady in my aging fellow’s hope
Of recapturing youth to see that I would crash.
 
The whole world glided past our bikes that day.
How many times I longed to stop and rest!
And most of all, I think of that glad fest
We passed in a dream, it seemed, along the way
 
And where—in the midst of children, dogs, and men--
Beside the river on the village green
Appeared the loveliest girl I’d ever seen,
And all the more enchanting to me then
 
While I was lost in longing thoughts of you,
That day two lonely men became old friends
Riding bikes along the River Enz:
A day of timbered towns unreal but true
 
That took me back into an ideal time
Far from my own . . . Or might it just be so
That my own spirit lived so long ago
And for that reason pens this simple rhyme?
 
Other memories of that day return,
But this goddess with her copper hair
And flowing arms shines brightest there
Amid that festive scene for which I yearn.
 
With time the memory has only grown.
The tents and banners of that merry scene
Beside the river on the village green
Comfort me when I feel sad, alone.
 
For it was a vision, I will dare to say,
Of centuries past but also those to come:
Eternal bliss in that eternal home,
That paradise for which I sometimes pray.