Amitav
A reflection of immense light
Forgive me(Amitav) if I am wrong
As the name suggests
You are giving us light with your intellectual thoughts
Everyday is a fresh thought
Every poem is a fresh piece of art
You are literally carving with your words
Can I say one thing
Please continue the same pace you are in
We need lot of them from you
One of the poets I admire in Hellopoetry
Continue your legacy
Thanks for being part of HP
I congratulate you for your completion of 1000 poems in Hellopoetry.

~

beside a warm fire on a late winter's morn,
with the help of three midwives their baby was born.
wrapping him gently to shield from morn's frost,
hearing his first breaths while holding him close.
singing a lullaby, they rock him to sleep;
cradled in their arms, they watch him dream.

twenty five winters; good years, though some long,
as a man was being forged in their little boy.
in many ways wise, encourager and friend,
the tenderest heart, persevering to the end.
through illness, through setbacks, he always believed;
and opening their arms they watch him dream.

beside a warm fire on a late winter's morn,
alone with the angels their son was re-born.
closing his eyes as he lay down to dream,
his last breath watched lovingly, he drifted to sleep.
then carried so gently to a new home above,
to awake in the arms of the many he'd loved.

today by the fire on this mid-winter's morn,
they find themselves still letting go of their son.
surrounded by memories wherever they gaze,
this earth seems clouded, though they see through its haze.
they find themselves longing for their loved one above,
and dreaming of holding this son that they love.

~

post script.

written in January of 2011, two years after his goodbye.  dusted off just a bit this morning with a few of its wrinkles ironed just for posting.  

this time of winter, these cold, blustery days with blue skies overhead, it seems to bring the out melencholy. might be its time to head out to one of his favorite trails not too far from here... maybe we,'ll try the Columbia Gorge's Eagle Creek trail up to Punchbowl Falls... he loved it out there away from the city.

Steve

when the trees call staring down
       ask me what reason I am
walking alone among the pine cones
         dead brown
oak leaves laid about
          barefoot walk a path
that no one ever takes
          I go on walking listening
to them the trees
          they are older and strong
stronger than the asphalt
            where I have to shoe myself
to walk on
            going and listening
to nothing but cars
          loud shrieking brakes
and crashing
         I answer by walking right up to that tree
and kissing her or him
      hard to tell with a tree
right on its bark,
          sit near her or him and whisper
back,
          my reason should be clear
to one older and stronger.

lines go
through a vine
growing deep
in a well drowning
a theme of loss unspoken
goes unsaid
I get it
your loss goes
on rhyming
with
mine.

what will I create tonight?
a question uttered in my head-
will it flower or fall dead?

echo in delight or encounter dread?
all is open, I question me again,
what is the purpose?

what may this pursuit bring into being?
Imagining worlds of words and inner voices
magical or hauntingly.

I thought i understood this so very well,
empathy.... the thought of putting oneself in another's position, and acting upon it

Helping others for the sake of others, not for attention or reward, but out of empathy

What little did I truly know of empathy!

New Year's Day and I hope for you a great one.
Mine, was not the beginning I envisioned. My adopted Mom, Marge
I rushed to the hospital at twelve.
She looks like me at 6 am after my binges. Red eyed and a little smile
of I don't care anymore on her 72 year old tired face.
I got back home, not drunk enough,
and found tiny, a sweet little black kitten who strived through thinness and
stumbled around for the 10 weeks of her life, cold and still.
She still lays there.
I guess her suffering has ended.
I am still drinking down the courage and liquor to go dig the hole in the backyard. I will cry, and need the strength I find in a bottle to prepare.

My adopted pops, 82 year old cad who took people all his life, took me into his heart. He is not a red man's father except by heart and caring. He is looking so old and tired. He took me to see Marge in the ICU. And consoled me as a priest would with wisened words of time and need.

If this New Year's day is a sign of what 2015 will be like,
after three more drinks, I think,
I will go out back and dig a  hole big enough for me to crawl into and hide, until next year.

is wishing all little boys have shoes
     is that we sing everyday
the way we do today

My wish is if Jesus
       came today
he would be proud of me.

My Christmas wish
           is to end all misery,
is to be like him.

I strive, as we all do,
             to attain heaven on
Earth.

That does not ever
            mean it is
impossible.

I offer a humble offering, a not very well written song,
on this eve of Xmas, my heartfelt wishes
that Santa Claus visits, each and everyone.

Let me gather you all in the square,
and sing sleigh and jingle bells
while gathering rosy cheeks together
and sing to humanity.

Ole' Saint Nick on his sleigh is around
the corner, remember, when we were three,
how we anticipated.

Let us hope and suspend disbelief,
hear reindeer hoofs on the roof,
for just one Xmas,
again!

Standing before me
its green boughs reaching high,
I wonder the Christmas Tree why?

Does it stand for the
history of man-
his goodwill?

Or, for the world
of the future that
awaits, still?

'tis glitter , 'tis tinsel
a peaceful glow,
do they come from a world
you and I know?

Pledge, to me Christmas tree,
that you stand for tomorrow.
Where hope and  brotherly love
replace turmoil
and
sorrow.

Bach's "little fugue"
            played while figure eights
whistled in my head,
               along with mathematics
to an un-equilibrium point
           where self-confidence
meets self-doubt.

So, in
illusions created by the exact same demons
that saw the bottom from the top
and the   pope as part of a conspiracy,
I created a theory, and ended in a padded room.

I painted spots on walls not assimilating
anyone others works,
became my own victim,
committed to rationality
while acting eccentrically.

Visions came to me, I sought refuge in them,
things I saw the real world calls bug-brained.

There I envisioned the cosmos as a limit imposed
on one's relation to self. I saw the dynamics of  human conflict
as interludes of forced sanity.

I went as quick as I came.

forced into what I don't want to do
I enjoyed the chorus arranged in my head.
Like a game between people I don't understand.

I sneak into Princeton and proved the existence of God. in red sneakers unaware my theory was economic realism.

Then I rejected voices.

And won the Nobel Prize.

I let loose of  inhibitions, became bigger 'n all those Dragons
on hit or puff or snort or swallowed **** or crack
is like inhaling gas then haunting through the night peeps
or stealing tabs from the old lady next door to sell for substances
more enjoyable peruse my *******
life  of using with me
ecstasy was costing me way too much.
I give thanks to god almighty,
I was always afraid of needles, I would have died as sure as swallowing
a slug from a 45 colt down my throat.
I get off on internet poems,
but never deny where I came from.
I hope for all,
to be also free,
from that.

the intent completing my purpose.
A bud on a stem capitulated to a
bee on a wing , challenges flew from me.
Experienced in fertilizing analogy, I  intended, but
obviously wilted under the pressure and blamed it
on the sun or lack of rain or pigs eating my roots away.
When I neutered myself, verbally,
darkness understood and drew me in:
oils were painted imaged in unrealistic views expressionist caricatures.
Experimental images all failed to resurrect
the benefits I had splurged.
I only meant to live.