Dreams have flown like startled doves
In the dusk of summer’s longing.
There is nothing left on the ground below
Except a silver feather and the echo of their cries.

When dreams were kites that sailed the skies
On winds of hope and effort
There were no tall trees to snap the line
And send them whirling through the branches.

When dreams were streams meandering
Through the meadows of our youth
The bubbling song they sang brought peace
And the icy water was refreshing.

But now a dam’s been thrown upstream
To fill a swimming hole for others
And only a little trickle makes it past
The banks that once were lush and green

But now are brown and sere.
The wind has died that lofted
Mythological creations up and
Dancing on the end of twine.

There are no birds in this parched meadow-
Not a dove or Mocking Bird.
There is no breeze or wading pool
But only tombstones carved for dreams
That lived in hope and died in cold reality.
                                                         ljm

Funny how it seemed to work.
I got up every day and did
Everything on my mental list.
I chugged and huffed along at it
’Til it was time to pull the plug
And see what sleep could offer.

I made new friends along the way
And lost a few for things
I did and did not do.
I had success and failures too
With mostly humdrum in between
But I managed to leave a trace of me.

Funny how I wound up here at last
Life happened unbeknownst to me
With things that came and went by me
Devouring hours and days and months
That blurred the seasons and my goals
And left me here unwinding it.

Would I go back and rearrange
The way I made my daily choices
If that was somehow possible?
Too much is unbeknownst to me
to chance losing all the good there was
To possIbly erase the bad.
I’ll let the past remain the past.
ljm

The screech owl hoots
Sad lyrics to a song
Only he knows the words to,
While perched on a bent willow
Tree in a time no one can recall
Or know the way to find again.

He is not lost or injured,
Exiled or reclusive, but
Where he knows that he belongs.
He’s hooting out his message
To a wind that rumbles in
From another era never
Spoken of in history books.

What could he be saying-
This sadly hooting owl?
The caterpiller knows and tells
But the butterflies won’t listen
And the mushrooms are all deaf.

The wind hears pleas
From elsewhere and is gone.
The bent willow tree has heard
And understands the message
But it’s roots are deep and
It cannot pull them up to move.
So the owl hoots his song to silence
And the only one who knows about it
Happens to be me.
ljm