When the Summer Was Young

A little bluebird spoke to me
Long ago, in a sycamore tree
When the wind was soft,
And the summers sweet
And the children played in the shining creek.
"Winter is old," he sang to the sky,
While the breeze blew the clouds and the sunlight by
And a meadowlark swayed in the heart of the rye,
"Winter is old, and summer is nigh."
A little bluebird in a crooked limb
Sang a song that made sense to him
But now all the trees are dark and dim
And the silence of creeks seems somehow a sin.

Blossom in the Snow

Through the leaves and roads I wander,
Under stars I take my cover,
Lost in silence, pushed by thunder,
Ever walking, ever cold.
Winter weather sends December,
Bright and sharp with frosted lovers
Matching snowflakes sort and sever;
Ever walking, ever cold.
Memories I had while sleeping
Seem to haunt me in the morning;
Both my feet are torn and bleeding:
Ever walking, ever cold.
In the white, I pluck a flower,
Like a final springtime warning:
God alone perceived this hour
Ever walking, ever cold. 

Leaves of Lights

In the glade, I met my lover:
The willow tree, fierce and strong,
With branches soft and warm for cover,
And roots that spread out wide and long.
Soon the winter will come in shrieking,
Windy and full of its cruel black nights,
But deep in my dreams I'll be secretly seeking,
My willow tree with its leaves of lights.

9th of August

I remember you in the turn of the leaves,
When the branches shed their silent leaves,
And the moon is bright as a golden plate---
Your birthday, I think, came two months too late.
I remember you when the winter is falling,
Shrouded in snow, while the ravens are calling,
No longer larks from some August refrain,
But black like the dimness you felt in the rain.
I remember you in the blossoms, yet burning,
Soft red things dropping petals at morning,
Scarlet, and full, with five roots in the sod,
Like the small, happy roots you offered back to God.
I remember you most when the warmth is coming,
When the sun is high and the wind is humming,
On the 9th of August, I can only remember
What made that summer as cold as December.

When the Leaves Come Calling

Only when the world is young, do the leaves come calling.
Soft, and warm, and white with the light as they drift through morning.
In the depths of a valley of mist and silence,
Where the corn shifts on at the blackbird's warning.
Dark men of the west in their coats of feathers,
With the paths of autumns, gone-by Septembers;
Things left forgotten in the wild, dim evening,
Brooks overgrown no footstep remembers.
Gray windows and doorways are sinking, dismembered
Like so many plows when they came to be rusted;
Human habitable places have crumbled,
Shot with the filtered brown sun, softly dusted.
"Cooper", "Smith" graves, no faces, no birthdates,
Only the worn stones that move through the falling
Of twilight and wind that blows frost in their grasses
When the world is young, and the leaves come calling.

Stars in the Sky Speak

If the stars were to speak, I would know what they'd say,
That since their creation, the world's gone away.
It has drifted and faded in sorrow and fire
And left behind slivers of ancient desire.
If the stars were to speak, I would know what they'd say:
That love has been gone since the dawn of their day,
And wisdom has stayed in the peace of the brooks
With neither a notch nor a stroke in men's books.
If the stars were to speak, I would know what they'd say;
The world once knew light, but they wandered away.

When Autumn Comes Calling

If only I could go away and never return;
When the leaves begin to spin from autumn trees,
I think I shall come away from this, this that never was my own,
And see a freedom that my current self must not see.
I would hold the golden fragrance of the sun within my hand,
I would keep it, and never let it go,
Cemented things that broke my heart I would soon forget,
When I walked down paths soaked silently in climbing growth.
On that wide wall, his look would not be there,
On that white shore, her madness would be gone,
I would walk alone with neither step nor stair
To climb, or any vice or virtue to condone.

Shall I

Away, away, shall I sail away?
To the open sea, and its open shore,
And the waves and the sun beating on, evermore.
Away, away, shall I fly away?
To the stretching sky, and its vast blue dome,
And the silent black midst where the comets roam.
Away, away, shall I roam away?
To the golden hill, and its crest of wheat
And the valley which knows neither face nor feet.
Away, away, shall I go away?
To the diamond cloud, and its glimmering gate
And the Prince who commands every spirit's fate.

Pictures Only Tell So Much

A picture paints a memory,
A tree can paint a word,
When autumn leaves are glimmering
Across the flowing ford.
A shutter takes a memory,
But fields can make a name
Blow on in spirits shimmering
When lost is lens and lane.

A Glance Towards Hope

The darkness drove me to a corner of the world;
No woe was there, no hopelessness, no hate:
It pressed its softest touch against my face
And made it pure with love and grace.
There it held the race of men who had died in vain,
The cruel wars, the suicide which brought us tears;
There it flowed with peaceful tides across a plain
All veiled in beauty past the troubled years.
I tore a page of verses from its heart
And printed in my cursive mind its lights,
Soft-swaying, hung with fruits as ripe as dreams,
Which never knew the winter's waxen blights.
I cherished it with such a passion, in a breath
So full of hope where hope had never been;
And when the soldiers of despair retire,
I see salvation in the place where once was sin.