Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Real Hope and Love---Nature's Allegory

Hope lies like a strangled robin without wings,
Dies like a fire without flame,
Smolders like the smoke that always stings,
Whimpers like a foe's impugning blame.
Love turns her cheek like a maiden's blush
Hides like the winter's ivory hush,
Slides over life like a tattered glove---
Such is the presence of love.
What fragile symptoms of this world!
What difficult walls to breach!
As still as a tendril lately curled
In springtime's loosening reach.
Yet gladly to these mangled shores I'd go
If once I could catch a flake of snow
Pure white, somewhere lost in the tangles of time
Hidden beneath decades damaged with grime.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

One Spring Dream

Feel for winter, feel for life,
Feel the snow and feel the ice
Toss the flakes toward bitter air
Taste the wind, so crisp and rare.
Leave behind your dreams and hopes
No one, living, ever copes
With the winter, if they dream
Dreams that cannot ever be.
Let one thought alone inspire
While you wait for heat and fire:
Let the single hope of spring
In your broken heart take wing.
Somewhere, somehow, it will come
It will melt all else to foam...
Dream, but let that dream remain:
Buds that cling to winter's stain.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Winter's Admirer


What do I see but the pale white veil
Of the hills like white envelopes of winter mail?
What do I hear but the yearning cry
Of a dozen gray geese in the Arctic sky?
What do I smell but the crisp, thick fume
Of the smoke in our snug brown cabin room?
What do I taste but the syrup's sweet
Of the maple's vast and enriching treat?
What do I feel but the warm, soft glove
Of the man I adore in the month I love...
The season I cherish, so full of sensations
I love, deeply love, without hesitations.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Beauty and the Beast

I see the snow--such velvet snow--
As if the very sidewalks glow,
And then, conversely, view the trees
Stripped bare of all their molded leaves.
On one side, beauty---snowflake bound---
The other, Winter, driven 'round
To shake the roads with frozen hands
And slake the thirst for warmer lands.
I want to take that velvet throw
And lie beneath the cooling snow
I won't today--today I'll see
This melding Beauty and the Beast.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Hue

A thousand leaves spin from the sky
And fill the lanes with scarlet dye;
The trees at night are ringed with dew
Like hardened bits of pearly glue.
What season turns the brush to flame?
Not summer, with her gentle name
Not winter, with her savage snows
Nor spring, where roses bud and blow.
These months are full of light and heat
Yet nightly ices still defeat,
And though the geese seem self-assured
They wing away, like all the birds.
One explanation must be true:
This must be autumn's fiery hue.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Explore


How many lanes have passed beyond
The simple maiden's gentle song?
How many words have not been said
Of meadows light, and lilac's beds?
God only knows what peaks and crests
Have never caught the breath from chests
What isles still have yet to see
The foreign fruit and stranger's tree---
What ocean depths, what wild beast
Has never licked the modern feast
What explorations still unreached
Wait for us, stretched across the sea.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Autumn Hello

Goodbye to summer, sweet and full
To corncobs' plump and shiny hulls,
To bright blue skies and shifting brooks
To warm, brown lanes and shady nooks.
Delightful sun casts light away
And settles for the crimson day
Black Labradors splash throughout the mud
Duck season where the cloudheads scud.
While summer bids the months adieu,
Autumn paints out its "Hello" hue.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Purity of Season

Autumn passes by the window,
Cold as lemonade in heat
Gold bright footsteps slowly passing
Covered by a frosty sheet,
Leaves sweet-passing on the thresh hold
Of the cabin in the wood,
Little peak'd roof encumbered
By the crimson sunset's hood.
Mourning doves sing deep and warmly
On the bough above the door,
Chipmunks scurry in the shadows
Of the forest's drifting floor
And the light slips in the morning
Swipes the shingles and the walk
Acorns glitter in the twilight
Like brown diadems of chalk.
Autumn seems so pure and perfect
When it's race has just begun...
Gleaming, shimmering in evening
Sparkling in midday sun.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

When Winter Comes

Can't feel the frost on my frozen toes,
Nothing, no light, no ephemeral glow
Lasting so briefly, but sweet and slow.
Oh, yet my heart feels so light and free!
So golden, so glorious, full of glee
That I gave no part of the whole of me.
I gave it to summer---no romance, no man
I gave it to spring with her ribbons of land
I gave it to autumn, be-speckled and tan.
When winter came nipping, I knew not its song
For I was engaged in the pure river throng,
The heavens and winds with their calm, cool tongues.
Free--I am free---bound by nothing, save God
Tied to no memory, freed by the sod...
Oh! Now my heart knows no rope and no rod.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Somewhere Home

How many dozen raindrops have fallen?
How many twilights have come?
How many dawns have stepped to us calling
Calling us back to our home?

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Step into Frost

Dash through the pale gray autumn leaves
Twilight falls on the tree's brown knees
Bright black ravens in the spinning sky
Feathers drift in October's eye.
Lone, still roads full of pumpkin's vines
Glimmering gold with their rough, round rinds
Feel each slow footstep ring through the mist
Cheeks soft and cool with a frostbite's kiss.

Saturday, October 2, 2010


Where is the light when all seems lost?
One, but one, bore the single cost
One, but one, on a bloody tree
Died so that light would shine on me.
Where is the sun when all seems dim?
One, but one, took the weight of sin
One, but one, tore the veil in two
Died so that sun would shine on you.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Droplet Significance

One droplet touches down upon the ground...
The droplet forms a puddle with no sound...
The puddle makes a trickle, forms a pond
The pond increases to a lake upon the lawn.
The lake spills out, becomes a river through the trees
The river swells in to a channel towards the sea
The sea becomes an ocean, full and free.
So every little droplet in the breeze
Forms out a single moment, which, increased
Becomes a puddle, pond, a sea...
As insignificant a motion seems to be
Remember: A raindrop soon becomes a sea.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Wood

Can't you see that half a dozen ways
Of droplets catch upon the silent face
Of waters like a million pieces of
The song of sparrows and the flight of doves?
Spiders crawl up broken trunks
Rivers, half and half drunk
With rainbows from the springtime storms
And autumns, winters, summers yet to come.
Meadows, glens, and valleys lose you yet
Does still remain in pools wet
With froth appearing on their rising throats
And foam a thousand crystals on their coats.
This is the one true way to imagine trees
The single, only place of butterflies and bees
Yet, so often don't you forget this road
And wander off, to those you never should?

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Mustang Time


Silent night
Quite the combination of a dozen stars
And a dozen yards of
Unraveled gold lights
Mustangs graze under spangled skies
Letting the moon dance off cobalt eyes
Hooves, manes, tails swishing like melodies
Of the grass coming through symphonies
Of tonight...

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Let Go

Let go for a million memories
Of the crashing tide in the stretching sea
Of the way the eye of a hawk can glare
Or the soft, warm neigh of a mother mare.
Let go of your hopes, and your million dreams
For these forever, un-severed, sweet memories
For the cry of the kite on the desert sands
Or the endless swipe of an empty land.
Let go, or forget all that held you dear
From this glassy reflection of the calm and queer
Of the place you know of, yet don't yet know...
Listen,
Remember,
Then let go.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Star

The stars are like a thousand suns
That shine in shattered night
Hands clasped beside the shimmering moon
Within the silver light
Half part of God, half angel's wings
That stretch from sky to sky
And dash a dozen amber gleams
Like copper-coated dye.
What man could still forget the Lord
If he had seen the stars?
Deep evidence of heaven's dance
Across the fair afar.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Ecclesiastes 12


Before the day drips closed or all
The bowls crack red with rust,
Before the dying sparrow eats
His final crumbled crust;
Before the grass grows brown with time
Or wheels put to rest
The sun will rise a final time
Within the striking west.
Before the body breaks and bleeds
Or wrinkles add with time,
Before the silver cord is snapped
And ships are hard with grime
Before the willow sighs its last
Or eagles fold their wings
The sun will start the breaking day
And sprinkle out its beams.
The world is fading now, the stars
Have passed beyond their gleam:
The vase has shattered all its clay
The glade's no longer green
But though each man returns to dust
And windows seem so dim
The Son is coming in the West
For us to worship Him.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Though They Fade

Every day the stars disappear,
The sun wanes in the dying west,
Each day the moon sinks with the year
And fades upon its silver chest---
I think of you, the God who holds
The falling day, the burning night
The God who in his grace still folds
The gentle dove within its flight
Against his heart, against his soul
And shields it from the lancing rain
The blistering heat, the crumbling cold...
Lord, by this, by your crimson stain.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Rain Drop, Drip

Raindrops drip down,
Cacophony of filtered light
Lightning flashing all around
Cracking apart the splintered night
Raindrops, so many rain
Drops like the inside shell
Of a split and earthy seed of grain
Smelling like the rolling fell
A dozen miles around,
Raindrops against the blades
Of grass that finger from the ground
And rainbows splashed across the glades...
Filling, falling, stretching
Every lake in open flooding
Sod and tendrils catching
Raindrops in their shedding.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Evidence

The universe declares your name
The stars cry out your wondrous fame
And every hawk, and hare, and crane
Sing out the works you've made.
The rivers splash your rending tune
The groves speak splendor in the moon
The sun that drips from human runes
Shields mortals from the shade---
For so are we---though nature lives---
Though planets' light forever gives;
We, mortals, proclaiming you before
This evidence of heaven's door.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

God's Sewing

The long, bright string of the sunset lingers
The evidence of God's golden fingers
The push and pull of his amber needle
The sound of his steady, windy treadle.
Dotted with stitches, the evening sky
Spreads out with the breath of his soothing sigh
And he spreads out the blanket across his knees
Checking the angle of each shade-tree.
Then, with a final pull of the thread
Gently he eases the heavens to bed
Knotting the sun so she's snuffed from the hills
And knitting the color of moon on the rills.

Monday, September 20, 2010

After Winter

Dreams drip through the frozen seams
Of a dozen crystallizing streams---
'Tis easier to find a dream
In Spring, before Fall bears her wing.
The seed that from its birthday pushes
Reminder of the heady rushes
That comes when one hopes for a thought
To bring a light where there was not.
In winter, snow blankets what is new:
Letting nothing break the frosted dew---
Spring is where the sparrow builds her home
And every bough climbs through soft heaven's dome
And every dream, with every curling frond
Lets loose its chains, and rusts its stifling bonds.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Somewhere Sea

The gentle arm of a distant shore----
Stretches---a million miles or more
Away from this memory's thought of mine
Splashing with fragrant saltwater brine.
Heaven's door must remain somewhere beyond
Past this wide ocean, over the pond
Lungs breathing carefully cries of the gull
Each little crest like a trickling hill.
Grasped under thumbs of the rustic brown ports
Enclosed by the gates of our human courts...
No...Mortal today, heaven tomorrow
Across the undulating foaming furrow.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Rain Regainer


Clouds remove the sparkling sun
Tear; a loaded cobalt gun
Bleeding with the sight of rain
Tears that make one feel insane.
Silently, uplifted hands
Dare to touch the stormy air
Dare to feel the crushing storm
Dripped in autumn's hazy warmth.
Think not that rain heralds hate
Or the sun has come too late
These dark clouds are neither tears
But life---replenishing the years.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Flower Field

Pass daily through the flowered field,
As if the loss of such a place
Would cause the beating of your heart
To cease, appalled to lose its grace.
The buds will soon fade with the light
The crickets drag their emerald wings
The stream that borders in between
Be passed with snowflakes' ivory rings.
Smell yet the poppy's fragrant throat
The wind that passes through the weeds
And fingers feet of butterflies
As they flit through the riffling leaves.
Walk daily through the flowered field,
Or autumn, with her fallen face
Will paint the wild roses brown
And turn to winter, in its haste.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

His Beauty

Pale white woods in hazy rains
Snow that tears the woodland lanes
Herring iced with frosty foam:
This is what I dream of, when alone.
Thick green trees laced thin with sun
Roes with sides of heaving dun
Skies, eternal, splashed with blue
This is what I dream of, when with You.

Daily Posts

I just wanted to mention quickly that I'm planning on posting daily (except perhaps on Sundays) to, hopefully, increase my followers.

Please feel free to list me on your own blog rolls. I'd really like to have a few more followers, since 3 of my own mysteriously disappeared recently.

Many thanks,

August

Monday, September 13, 2010

Silent Night

The silence of the moonlight
Slips through the empty sill
A quiet that is telling
Of loads of time to kill.
The warm, eternal hour
Beats wind against the pane
And floods the lawn with power
Of heads of rushing grain.
A mockingbird sings softly
A tune that no one knows
And buds burst into blossoms
Beneath the starlit glow.
It seems all drooping silence
As if no creature stirred
But slowness is the novel
Of evening worm and bird.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Approach of Autumn

Free, let loose to smell the sod
To see the lightning's falling rod
To hear the cataract in foam
To feel the passing gray of gloam.
Free, unshackled in the light
To see the beauty of the night
The curving scimitar of moon
The deep intake of breathing noon.
Free, and thus, in freedom found
The warm brown touch of hallowed ground--
The one small scrap of heaven's earth
Present here in autumn's birth.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

The Isle of Avalon


Avalon, you remain
In everything I see
Every spreading autumn sky
Every winging bee
Avalon, dear Avalon,
Isle of my dreams
Arthur claimed that you once reigned
Past the flooding seas---
No, I think not, Avalon
Here your truth is seen
Blue in streams that twinkle on
Through the verdant scene
Dancing with the hooves of goats
Wild in the rills
Flying through the jutting rocks
And the weedy hills.
Avalon, dear Avalon,
Pure and heaven-blest
Each and every golden star
Still recalls your rest
Every daffodil that blows
In the summer breeze
Seems to bend its darling head
Like your shining leaves.
Avalon, dear Avalon,
Stay, and keep me close
Every dream I've ever dreamed
Listens for your notes
Every field of swaying grass
Every cobalt night
Whispers out your harmony
Echoes of your light.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Changed

Careless was I of the tempered wind
Of the light that the autumn seas had sent
Of the tender sod, and the flooding brook
And the growing chick in his hidden nook.
Careless was I of the bending reed
Of the creeping lynx and the cracking seed
Of the fallow deer with his hoof of bronze
And the splintered moon on the wild lawn.
Heedless to see in the splitting skies
With their lightning strikes of the cobalt eyes
And the frightened fall of the shimmering trunk
Through the streamlets dark, and the rivers drunk.
Careless was I---and I felt no peace
From the cry of wolves at the flight of geese
At the change of scent in the summer breeze
Or the flow of ferns on their amber knees.
No, I never knew, nor in knowing, cared
That the feast of snow had arrived prepared
And the season laughed at the cost of cold
From the dripping rain to the crumbling mold.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Changing Month



The thread of summer draws away,
A ball of color, fades and grays...
And leaves that once were gold with growth
Have fallen, brass, upon the coast.
The curving mouths of shores are seen
In silver tides instead of green
And somewhere, jackdaws cry, "It's come!"
The winter, with her friend autumn.
A hope, a hope in winds remain
That heat still tempers out the rain
That life, however brief its course
Continues on, though sounding hoarse.
A bluebird turns his little eye
Surveys the lawn, the field, the rye
Its salmon beak seems yet to say,
"Oh, summer, won't you come to stay?"
With memories of open skies
And stroking wings, and breezy sighs
It seems a cruel act of God
To change the color of the sod.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Back to Creation's Joys

Errant heart, remember me:
The lonesome dove, the flitting bee
The curving sun, the moonlight's sphere
The changing month, the turning year.
Errant heart, remember me:
The flying star, the foaming sea
The shapeless cloud, the ardent rose
The summer heat, the winter snows.
Errant heart, remember me:
The jagged hill, the casting green
The velvet fawn on bended knee:
Return, dear heart: remember me.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

River

Wild the river, faster the flow
Dozens of torrents weave stories below:
Quickly, the heart of the swift-rushing flood
Gentle admission of ocean's white blood.
Startled the sunlight from pale summer beams
Rippled and ripped from its heavenly dreams
Careful, yet careless of life in between
Earth and the skies, skies and the seas.
Fearless the cord of the crumbling falls
Freed from the earthenware banksides and walls:
Peerless with thunder, dauntless in time
Federal blue with its saltwater shine.
Endangered by beauty, encompassed by force
Curling and growing and swelling its course;
Daring to alter no tidal or wave
A life-giving wonder, a trembling grave.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Spring's Musings


I have, oft' times, thought of the dusk
The sorrow of the dying thrush
That clings to life, when gripping frost
Is all that then remains.
I have, in turn, thought of the dawn
The birthday of a gentle fawn
When spring returns, to bless the lawn
And finger sprouting grain.
'Tis human nature to conclude
Each changing of the spirit's mood
One nicety, and then one rude
Like temporary days.
But should we, bitter like the knaves
In season, forget wanton praise:
Let us, from God's eternal grace
Look more to the spring, than winter.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Scarlet Dusk

Relentlessly the gold dusk spreads
And conquers sea and stone:
To swallow whole, in birthing night,
The blood of crimson gloam:
The spill of scarlet fire-foam;
The lark ascends, and cries
And someone heads with gladness, home:
"Goodnight!" The daylight dies.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Hope in Summer

Take the light and let it in
Sunshine on my browning skin
Summer light is different then
Winter light in way back when.
Take the sun and catch the rays
Falling moon and passing days
Stars like white cinnamon glaze
On my laughing, lifted face.
Can't believe I used to think
I was at the chasm's brink
Summer brings, and summer breathes
Showing me the emerald leaves.
Don't forget the skipping brook
Don't deny the gentle look
Of the deer upon her run
In the gleaming summer sun.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Silence Before Springtime

There's silence in the springtime,
Before the birds have flown:
A waiting sunshine silence
That casts off winter's gown.
Before the bees have followed
The course upon the bloom
Before the deer have given
A breath in flowered rooms,
Before the tree has sprouted
Or streams have slapped and run
A silence coats the valleys
Like calm before the storm.
Then comes the burst of raindrops
The flying wings of life
The hymns of little songsters
That stir the melting ice:
The sudden whip of madness
Which comes from mate to mate
The sweetness, goodness, gladness
Of creatures small and great.
The silence, like a whirlwind
Has passed from hand to hand
And lies now in the pasture
Of springtime's promise land.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Sign of Spring

There's snow that coats the wooden post---
It's melting..then, the melt is lost;
The sun with chipper steps proceeds
To gobble up the post with greed.
A robin sits upon the top
He sings a song and hops a hop
Then flies away, while left behind
A blossom lies beneath the sky.
The blossom's petals blow and show
The mirrored, waving growth below
What once was cold upon the post
Is purer, melted from the snow.

Friday, February 19, 2010

The Sunshine Award


The sun shines on the golden sea:
'Tis only I, myself, and me---
The clouds, the shore, the rolling surf
The waves like aqua-swelling turf.
This, Nature, is my fair reward
And swells my soul with gentle chords
That play upon my peaceful eyes
And echo back the spreading skies.
This is the life we all must seek:
From hour, day, and rolling week...
Let us, together, feel the sod
And feeling, touch our graceful God.
*Thank you for the sunshine award, Creative A! You made my day!

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Christ in Nature

From the hill and from the rill
From the beak and from the bill
Life bursts out, and life is sung:
"Reigns the King and shines the Son!"
From the summit and the deep
From those waking and asleep
Love sings out, and love declares:
"Justice great, and Savior fair!"
Oh, that all would always see
Life and love from Him who frees
He who breaks the sinful dart
Saves the soul and cures the heart.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Waves of Snow


Was it sand? Or was it snow?
Spindly lines that daily grow
Out in waves of blue and white
Vanishing upon our sight.
Was it sand? Or was it snow?
Hills and vales that flip and flow
Like the undulating hand of seas
Lost in hissing, crystal breeze.
Was it sand? Or was it snow?
Man will never guess, or know
Staring out across the space
Of the blank, uncharted place.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Allegorical Winter and Spring

Life is spring to those who love it,
To those who coddle life, and show it:
Life, to them, is petaled roses
And bits of fresh, ephemeral proses.
Although each day may pass---though brief---
They cherish soft, unfurling leaves
And winds that pass with gentle sighs
And love that never wilts or dies.
Life to those who hate, is winter
'Tis death to that engaging sinner
And darkness, filled with lakes of frost
The tidal foam, the withered moss.
In every hour, minute, day
The thought is only wrapped on pain
Despair is deep, like snowy vales
That perish in the streaking hails.
To those who love, and loving, live
'Tis spring, a time to serve and give:
To those who hate, and hating, kill
'Tis winter, breaking heart and will.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Ice Universe



Frail branches pierce the silent sky
The sun is dipped in silver dye
The moon looks like a frozen plate
And shivers down on country gates.
The stars are hid in hoary capes
Like glass, their splintered, gleaming shapes
Are paused upon the glitt'ring eye
Of lakes in dead, unflowing rye.
A puff of ice, a twirl of cloud
Are equably caught in the shroud
Of sky and stars and frozen moon
That spread across the winter gloom.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Winter Wood


A hush falls on the frozen woods,
A silence, like the trees have paused
And left a million souls of flakes
Behind them, in a gleaming wake.
A velvet cast of white is laid;
Upon the snow, a foot betrays
Where creatures roam through glen and gloom
Amongst the twilight's silver loom.
Sweet notes rise through the trilling throat
Of Blackbird, haunted by the Stoat
That hunts among the stooping leaves
And creeps past swirling, icy streams.
When dawn has come again, the thorn
Is splintered with the rising morn
And brush, and bracket, bend again
To hushed white woods, and huddled wrens.