Fake Spring

Winter had left us...the stars turned to gray,
The grass was the color of sun in the day,
The mist smelled like fragrance of soft-turning skies,
And Spring brought her raindrops of light-colored dyes.
Winter had left us...we thought, long before
But the cold in one night turned the docks to its hoar,
And hours have passed when we're yet prone to sing
With a shell in our hands that still sounds like the Spring.

Trees of May

Light which found itself in darkness,
Summer found its place in snow;
So my heart was once in lovely
Lovely places long ago.
Innocent You'll always make me,
Kinder, sweeter, softer, gay
Like the skies which shake the blossoms
Blossoms from the trees of May.

Thunder

God strikes the earth with lightning,
And lifts the shade of dawn
With bolts so full and frightening
The wolf weeps on the lawn.

How errant in the morning,
How thoughtless in the eve,
With whipporwillow's warning
Across the blowing sea.

I say,

Speak now: my heart is hearing,
Speak now: my eyes will see
The pale and pallid clearing
The soft yet savage tree;

Its outline burns forever,
Its part, its thread, of me
Speak now, or we shall never
Know thunder's careless dream.

Wedding of the Leaves

I am wed to the trees with their waving arms,
And the bright bridal dance of the lilies at dawn;
I am the bride, the sun is my groom,
And the stars are my maids and ushers.
I thought, long ago, I loved man on earth,
I lived for his life and I thanked for his birth,
And I gloried in youth's untiring bloom,
When we both rushed through love with her mercies.
But now, I have found that the trees are more kind,
And the birds sweeter now than my love which was blind,
And the pastoral fold of my vows in the leaves,
Has given me comfort for the past that I grieve.

Old and New Heart

The old earth lies with longing,
The new earth bursts with bloom,
And banks where waves were thronging
Are still and safe from gloom.
The ship rests in the harbor,
So far from pain and cold,
The sails, and wheels, and timber,
In oceans' gentle folds.
So is the heart when sleeping,
A soft thing, warm with peace,
Awakened by the weeping
Of old things out of place;
And fresh with new tomorrows,
Yet sweet and sharp with love,
Unused to yester's sorrows
But bright with hope Above.

Second Chances

Winter, summer, springtime flowers
Ring the skies and bind the hours
Stars on fire, always burning
Like her heart is always yearning.
August, August, brief tomorrow
Transient things are joy and sorrow,
But their love will last forever
In the memories of the weather.
Moontime songs, and suntime wonders
Rains thick-set with colored thunders,
Mills in meadows, wheels broken
Like the soul's soft, melted token.
He's the forest, she's the willow
Long ago in autumn's pillow
Left to fade when he discovers
Other lands with other lovers.
God, eternal, God, unchanging,
All the blossoms still arranging,
And the dove upon the branches,
Dreaming dreams of second chances.

Nothing Compares to God's Earth

I thought you were comparable,
A thing of shining worth;
But you are small compared to skies
Which turn around the earth,
And you are mean, and savage, too,
Compared to spring and blooms,
And crueller than the dreams I knew
Or meadow-bearing rooms.
God grants me peace, you grant me hurt,
And so I shall remain
In love through light and summer storms
And leaves laden with rain.
I'll leave you now to winter's past
While I'm alive and well,
And wander through the amber grass
And oceans' swirling swells.

Hope Past Darkness

I forget that I lie in a world without hope,
In a world laced with darkness, a night's fire stoked,
Where the stars seem to tremble when thunder comes near,
And my innocence rests in the eyes of a deer.
Yet the meadow still calls to me, speaks: I'm afraid
Of the moon which seems threaded in scimitar's blades,
But the silence is soothing, and blackness will pass
As the music of Good soothes the slumbering grass.
Though the hallways are smeared with the handprints of men,
And the anger of ages yet triumphs again,
There is purity, still, in the tongue of the wind,
And the colors of years that the seasons will blend.

The Sheen

I know when the dark moon sets on the world
Is bright with a thin white sheen of pearl,
As if the remainder of life could be felt
In the silence of stars on the earth's soft quilt.
When the sun says farewell to the storm and the rain
And shines through the thin, heady reeds on the plain
I know that my spirit has fled from the earth
And dwelt in the Place where it first had worth.

A Midsummer's Night

Oh the moon is in love with the sun and his rays,
Reflecting the beauty and passage of days,
Returning the light to the dark, torrid land,
And plying the wheat with a silver-toned hand.
The partridge lies, soft-chested, warm, in the brush
And the world is asleep with the bed of the thrush;
The only brief movement, a dot on the meadow:
A doe and her fawn part of silence and shadow.
The scent of the hay from a broken-down barn
Sweeps, hushed in the wind, through the forests forlorn,
And the stars cast a sheen on the brook's sandy bay
While the golden-etched herons play water ballet.
The fiddles of insects are lost in the breeze,
The imprint of wolves press the ground to a frieze,
And the moon, like a novel, seems bound with the word
Of the almighty sun and its shimmering cord.