Cold settled in deep
On him and their son,
A poor fool, lost in his own world,
Scarcely aware his mother was gone.

The boy's father couldn't cope...
Tried, but hope with her had died.
Bankrupt faith, spent in futile prayer
To cure the failing heart,
Restore the lungs...
A silent "NO" hung in the air,
And she was gone.

Her ashes flew home beside him.
He went to pick up his son,
Stopped for three fifths of Scotch...
Proceeded to disappear,
Proceeded to disappear,
Proceeded to disappear.

The house suffered under stench:
Old *****,
Excrement,
*****,
Spilled bottles,
Cans scattered on the floor;
Everywhere a sour putrescence.

His son floated in and out of vision,
Autism and inebriation:
Two forms debilitation,
No hope of equilibration.

Neighbors made some calls...
Social workers came,
Took the son away.

Death seemed a reasonable option.
Leave the mess.
Join his wife.
End this ******* life....

Revolvers favor simplicity:
Load the chambers,
Snap the cylinder in place...
Aim closely to remove his face.

Muzzle up,
Open mouth,
Squeeze the hammer down...
Only a clicking sound.

Unusual, this...
Aim at the ground,
Squeeze off a round...
Ears ringing from the sound.

Raise the muzzle once again,
Bite ******* steel,
Squeeze the trigger down...
Again, a clicking sound.

Aim at the ground,
Blam! Potent round...
Set the revolver down.

"Hello. 911. What is your emergency?"

"Come get my gun;
I'm trying to **** myself."

Police arrive.
He's still alive.
Drunk and numb...
They take his gun.

Six weeks later, still in a haze,
He's told his story.
We are amazed,
But still he's found no calm for grief.

We struggle beside him,
Waiting for some sign,
Some reason why a gun
Should fail to fire...twice.

If you should read these words, my friends,
Please speak a prayer for a lonely man.
Ask for freedom from despair,
For peace and letting go,
For comfort and the hope of friends,
For better ends.
For better ends.
For better ends.

Come sit with me
On this stone of sorrow;
Weep, lest I weep alone.
We may have laughing again...
Tomorrow;
But today, I'll rest
On this sorrowing stone,
Together with you
Or alone.

At first,
Love is a Choice
To act,
Not in emotions,
Nor perceived rewards,
Done from duty as duty,
Because we would be
Loving.

Love may mellow
Over time,
See traits worthy of surrender...
Take root,
Become reason of itself
For pleasure,
For staying true.

We performed the ritual courtesies:
Reiterated "Love yous,"
"Thank yous,"
Farewell prayers,
Hugs,
Waving good-bye,
We hoped our window tint
Hid relief shining in our eyes....

And then another farewell,
A mother crippled, old,
Bent low by time and widowed,
Gentle now, and grateful
For our shortest stays.
This mellowed love we would desire
When we have nearly lived our days.
Smiling tears and long embrace,
Juxtaposed these loves that end in sighs
The differences in love's good-byes.

To all of us:

Those for peace and those who war,
The healthy and the ill,
The satisfied and those who beg for more,
The pauper and the millionaire,
The valley folk and hill,
The ****** and the *******,
The husband and the John,
The mother and the father,
The daughter and the son,
The rake and lonely celibate,
The lion and the lamb,
The quiet and the loud...
Some day will reach the quest...
Rest will come to all of us
Somewhere between the cradle
And the shroud.

The cells in my fingernails contain atoms enough
Their own whirling systems
To form ordered constellations in layered universes....

Space between solids goes down and down and down...,
Around us mostly nothingness
Down and in and down and in....
On and on and on.

Do we need to look outward
For outer space?

Didn't Robert Burns tell us that fleas have fleas and fleas have fleas, and fleas have fleas that bite 'em?

Infinity runs hard both ways.

I drove four miles this evening
Down the road to see the miracle
Of pastures greening.

They'd come to life this Spring
To lick the rivulets of melting snow,
Lichens before wild grasses, glistening,
But then a blistering summer blow
Came to patch their roots.

Just last week a quarter inch of wet
Fell from a Treasury on high
To tell the famished carpet,
"Wait a while! Storm clouds are nigh!"

And yesterday a full wet inch
Of heaven's grace and mercy flowed
From the billowed Throne's high bench
To rally grassy supplicants to grow.

Bull headed stubborn, never conquered, he...
My Father.

A hearty laugh, with anger never far away;
A choking voice; emotions had their way
With him, and when he sang alone,
Heading for the barn, he sang Handel
So we heard him clear in every valley.

When only grass and leaves were "Green,"
He saved everything he thought might be of use:
Red tape from old banana sales,
("Never know when tape will come in handy!")
Bagging string wrapped on a stick,
("You can't have enough string!")
Rusty wire in spools from some old fence,
("Carry some with you for emergencies.")
Dirtied engine oil in metal barrels,
(To soak wood posts and make them last),
Scrap iron by the ton,
("Boys, weld these into fences!")
Semi loads of **** seed screenings,
("Cheap and adds protein to the feed!" )
Even burned out light bulbs...
(He never gave me a good reason;
One bulb's enough to **** a sock.)

"Never know when this may come in handy!"
His constant motto.

A complicated man I never could unravel,
Honest to an inch, sometimes, yet shrewd to miser-dom,
Then crafty in some deal that left me blushing,
Only to turn around and sacrifice to see a neighbor thrive.

Drove sad old cars no one would want,
And made us work for most things that we sought,
Then gave such gifts to others
As would stun my mind to thought.

I have him by a hundred pounds,
Am taller by a head,
But deep inside, I am convinced
I'll never measure up in height or depth.

I'm not sure that I want to.

I sit eyes closed at the top of the wood
Desiring action, but in a dream,
Hooked head and feet immobile:
Near sleep of age, incapable to eat.

Necessity finds the highest trees....
Branches shake in sun-beaten ire;
No advantage find I in the moving air
While earth's face beckons me to fall.

Clenching now, claws deep in bark,
Creation's masterpieces find decay
Of foot and feather, come from dust,
This Creature must return to clay.

Vision strong still seeks resolve
As Earth below me still revolves,
Inward focus, resolute, admits
Tearing heads is now a chore.

Death's wind, inevitable, a chilling fact:
Who kills to live through victims' lives,
Though early arguments remain intact,
At twilight's call, they still must die.

From the West the same Sun sees me;
Only I have changed, and have grown thin,
And though my heart's set upon its path,
I've lost the strength to fly again.

If you laugh, my love,
What will I do?
I'll see the world in brighter hue,
And I will laugh with you.

If you smile, my love,
What will I do?
I'll rest easy, seeing such a view,
And I'll repay your smile to you.

If you frown, my love,
What will I do?
I'll never rest to see your frown,
And I'll run fast to hunt it down,
And when I do,
I'll bring a smile right back to you.

If you agree to hold my hand, my only love,
What will I do?
I'll take your hand and share the hold;
I'll hold your hand while we grow old.

And if you die?
What will I do?
I'll wait in silent memory of your laugh;
I'll wait my life to seek your smile again;
I'll hold you gently in my memory's hand;
I'll wait, of course, and see you once again.

The stalling plane fell,
A toy, yawing back on its tail,
Tilting left and down
And down.

The boy’s dad at the stick,
Frozen,
Face immobile,
Almost careless as they fell;
He, his mother, and his father,
And a stranger, next to him,
Tumbling above Montana
Prairie hills surging
Nearer
And nearer.

The stranger clenched the boy;
The tail dragger impacted a rising knoll.
The engine clanged and broke,
Dirt enveloped the shattered cabin.

Silence smothered cacophony.

Conscious of being dragged
Through a **** in the fuselage
Out into open air,
The boy saw little,
Couldn't make out the stranger's face.

His mother came through the side of the plane
A Cesarean section, reversed,
The boy's hope reborn
At the emergence of his mother.

She appeared dazed,
He thought, unruffled,
Dusty with a smearing of bright red lipstick
Stretching up from the corner of her mouth
To the edges of her right ear.

The boy knew it must be blood.

His father lay,
Crumpled oddly,
Head twisted between
Stick and dashboard;
Right arm somehow
Lolling through the fuselage.

Blood smeared the arm, the head.
Everything still,
Motion slow...
Echoes.

The stranger moved on hands and knees,
Inspected the boy
His mother,
Pulled them away
From wreckage,
Surveyed the scene.

Turning then to the man
Twisted and still,
Grotesque within the shell,
The stranger gazed.

Gasping,  the boy jolted.
Saw,
Thought he saw,
His father’s hand ****,
Move up and backward to his face.

The boy heard,
Thought he heard,
His father sigh.

Fear surging
The son,
Caught in a wave,
Realized his first response,
Horror,
A sense of ******* returning,
Having glimpsed,
If only for a few seconds,
Freedom.

"Who is," I think,
"To say which of Time's seeds will stay
And what their harvests be?"

The spiteful word,
The slamming door,
The choice
To sit or flee,
To stop or have one more,
To speak cautious words or bold,
Harvests all must reap,
And each in their own time
Reveal the ends of germinations,
The husbandries of choice,
Fertilizations or starvations
Through growing seasons
Moments, Hours, Years, Centuries long;
But always harvests bountiful or spare.

Frost's Way leads on to way;
A word becomes a deed,
Born restless from a thoughtful seed.
A gesture bright with hope
Might lead to revolutions
Or end its journey on a rope.

A word of kindness, Aesop said,
Could save a lion in a net;
A mouse he'd spared
Could not forget.
Neither now
Should we.

I think I may be coming
To a surprising change of mind...
After all the drumming
Against censoring of any kind....

I've read some poems on this site
That gave me food to think...
Not talking about explicit *****
That I can skip with just a blink.

The one that someone wrote a week or so ago
Asking what the world is coming to...
That little children grow up to see and know
The things not even adults used to.
(That's the one that made me stop to think.)

We have uncanny access now to things
No one twenty years ago could have predicted
And every sense and deep desire can have its fling
Which leaves our children open, unprotected.

I won't go rated R or X in this, my turning point,
Just want to lay a few thoughts out...
And grow some dialogue around this joint,
So here goes nothing...please don't pout.

Censorship, it's odd, somehow has ***** connotations,
And every person has the right to make a choice...
But children, innocent, don't know the dangers they are facing,
And we adults might raise protective voice.
---------------------

Young trees stand in clumps,
Bursting forth in tender leaf,
Chattering in the early fall,
Silent in the early spring,
Tender shoots alive,
A school yard thriving.
Thin bark, food for winter starvers,
Antler rubs for summer bucks...
A stand of youngsters
Waiting to be thinned..

The old trees root down,
Twisted, misshapen,
Root masses exposed,
Bolls huge at intervals
Intermittent.
Solitary veterans of Time's war,
Arms twisted and split,
Cracks in the roughened old skin
Letting strangers at the heartwood,
Grown sponge-soft,
Home for squirrels,
Sleep-seeking 'possums,
Note-leaving lovers.

Trees forcing sap to bursting buds
Giving leafy glories up to God.

Birds whose winged flight returning high
Fill northern skies with glory cries.

Soft calves and lambs in meadows skipping
Give glory in their lowing and their bleating.

Young stalks' persistent way through old decay
Announce green and growing glory be's along the way.

So you and I with sweet spring sighs
Hear and see and feel Nature's glory cries
And echo in our human tongues,
"All glory be to God!"

All Glory BE!

Thinks she sets aright
Some problem universal
In her leveraged might....

If the ******
Thinks that in ****** rage
Satiation lies...

If the Thief
Thinks in stealing pieces,
She takes home peace...

If the Bully
Considers righteous
His abuse of power...

Or if they do not care,
But run to evil deeds
Because they're there...

They do not think beyond
Commission,
Forget the list of victims
Includes themselves.

Aftermaths & Consequences
Force lives of guilt
Penned in fences,
Pending dooms,
Self destructions...

Perpetrators penetrating
Their own souls,
Destroying their own lives,
Believing devils' lies,
That no one has to pay;
No hell awaits to have its day.

I like it not.
Some actors' stumbling lines
Or patient yawns
Leave Shakespeare's thoughts delivered
Barely breathing or still-born
While others' jousting runs the play
Unchecked, unfettered, and yet un-free.

Mercutio's fitful rantings smoulder some,
Then, tired, lose their place,
Extinguished fire that nearly casts
A plague on any houses
Before a lingering death brings
Sweet relief to all the house.

Old Capulet, more bored than angry,
Tirades only tiredly at his daughter,
The last in a line of several disappointments.
We wait his piece to end,
Endure the hanging and begging and starving
In the streets, while Juliet entreats...
Gosh, I could use a bit to eat.....

O God in Heaven!
Give us up a little leaven
From this acting now so leaden.

Sadly, young Mercutio's dead,
And soon, Paris, and young Romeo,
Followed by young Juliet, and then Old Capulet....
The priest's alive, so we can fret
What further mischief he may still beget.

Nature rang.
She wants to know
What are your plans
For volcanoes.

Melody,
I brought you red roses,
Just opening in glory
Because you felt this morning…
That you weren’t
Beautiful...

Because
I saw you
Standing
Tentative,
Three times
Before the
Mirror.

I,
Your greatest
Admirer,
Know that
You are
Beautiful….

Of lesser beauty,
These roses belong
In the presence of
Your Beauty.

Love always…
Your Admirer,
Don

On my way to you,
I found a shoe,
A lonely soul without a mate,
Tongue hanging out,
And half a lace,
And a wrinkled look
On her holy face.

On another note:
Rocks worn small form other stone,
Melted or crushed or aggregated
Into rock, again;

Trees from ash piles rise,
Requiring heat...
Seedlings released from cones,
Redeem the land in time.

Lakes do evaporate,
Their empty cups await
Rain or swelling springs
To come again.

"Hope is the thing with feathers,"
Our lonely Emily said,
And I hold fast her words,
When all seems dead.

Peace and Encouragement to You!

Before the sun
With his bright face
Puts angles on the shade,
Before old darkness slinks into his place,
I leave the house...
This morning off to work,
But slowing in my run,
I lean to see....

East and high above, a shypoke pair
Take leisure in their flight,
Wings creaking prehistoric,
Feet streaming back on boney stalks,
A trailing nuisance in the air,
Yet perfect for deep water walks.

The chilly air is still;
Dew hovers on the edge
Of giving up on hesitating summer.
Winter is not yet so far away
That crystal forms
Have been forgotten.

Dogwood, leafless yet, and bleeding red,
Begins to glow along the path
The joggers take before the morning sun.

The early light is best
To seek perspective on the world
Before the morning paper,
Before the morning cup;
The early light is best,
As long as we are up.

Invades the finite,
When IMMORTAL
Usurps the mortal,
When OMNISCIENCE
Hovers over finite sentience,
The mortal man I am senses
TRANSCENDENCE,
Stirs uneasily,
Shudders uncontrollably, or
Rises, silently in bliss,
Unable even with a literate mind
To ask, "What meaning lies in this?"

Stopping on this spinning orb,
I rest a moment in a limbo room
Waiting to see my eye surgeon.

See him, I must.
I have no options.
The appointment was scheduled
Prior to surgery,
Prior to the removal by suction
Of a lens growing opaque;
Prior to insertion of magical plastic,
Now clipped behind the cornea,
Compensating for myopic astigmatism,
Allowing me to see the whole earth
And this waiting room
Without spectacles,
One eye alive,
One eye yet blind.

I have set upon a two-eyed course
One eye finished,
One eye waiting,
"Stepped in so far,
T'were as tedious to go
Back as to go o'er,"
And though Macbeth
I am not,
I am stepped in
And cannot retrace
The course of two weeks
Past or future.

I am waiting in a room adjacent
A place of temporary fixes...
Arrested momentarily in my flight,
I see a glimpse  
Of life-long fixations,
Not a few delusions....
I am suddenly aware
The sensation
That I am resting here
On a planet that is
Only a waiting room....
That when I leave this room,
I will not have left
The predestined course of life,
That I have not avoided
Coming events
Scheduled just outside,
Set in motion by my choosing.

Chill fingered knife,
Ice laser penetrates epidermis,
Cracks the brittle sternum,
Then only gives a tickling touch
There at the porches of the heart;
Aortal rhythms pause and tense,
Resting, moving on...
Pausing, resting, moving on.

Slow wintering this...
Six months past death,
The heart, still beating
After that last breath,
Is mine.

The beating in this winter cold
Rejects fear's hold,
Melts the blade of ice,
Reserves the final breath
Until another day,
Provides me reasons now
To love and to be loved.

So it is that here in winter
I **** my head to hear
A trickling song of melting snow,
A thawing fear, a warming hope.

Seasons come and go, and nights and days
Revolving take each other's place.
Life and death for us still in the web of time
Hold constant power until
Eternity steps in and takes us home.

"Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow,
I will fear no evil, for Thou, Oh Lord, are with me."
---King David

Praying again today.
These are the long days,
The ones spent in the quiet pain of waiting,
Of thinking through the things we’ve said,
The things we need still to say.

Were I invincible or perfect or omnipotent.

But, I am none of these.

Chill wind, shivering frost, cruel sleet

Drive autumn changes in the breeze.

Tilting Earth announces endings,

Announces beginnings at her antipodes.

Death proves itself beneath the sleeping trees...

Feuille-morte beauty of the fallen leaves.

Bellies up, paws out
Dead nomads lie appealing
Road **** suicides

“Haunted Houses” (1858)
All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the doorway, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.

There are more guests at table, than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.

The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.

We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
And hold in mortmain still their old estates.

The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapors dense
A vital breath of more ethereal air.

Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires.

These perturbations, this perpetual jar
Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
Come from the influence of an unseen star,
An undiscovered planet in our sky.

And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud
Throws o’er the sea a floating bridge of light,
Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd
Into the realm of mystery and night,–

So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.

Autumnal Wanderings

Summer's heat leaves us wilted,
Potted tomatoes drying on the deck.
Water helps, and evening's shade
Reminds us of the coming dread.

Ash trees drop late summer's shed;
Yellow leaves litter grass now lost;
Dog days oppress us as we yawn,
Ennui of heat turns our desire to frost.

We are not content at summers' turning fall;
We miss the verdant greens of spring;
We dread the snow, the wintry cold;
No longer young, we fight our growing old.

Two Christmases ago,
Morning cold hovers in electrons.
Frost covers the Chevrolet
Backed by whiteness
Under zero degree sunlight
The old farm place sees morning
Bright and calm....

The ancient barn,
**** frosted roof agleam,
Stands downhill to the north,
Below a curving tractor trail
Cut in the snow...

At the other end of those tracks,
Eighty-one and counting,
You are crawling down
the tractor steps,
Pulling battered buckets
from the ancient fodder shack,
Hobbling to the cattle troughs...
Doing what you love to do...
Have done for fifty years....

I am taking pictures at the house,
Amazed at the cold and frost;
An onlooker now,
Somehow aware that I can not
Follow you...or won't,
Wistful still for attentions
you always freely gave
To kine instead of kin.

Could I go back,
Would I go down
To trough the feed?
I tell myself I would,
Or I would not.

The image burns coldly,
Electrically before me,
And only vaguely I'm aware
That you have slipped away.

Scoring at the genius level,
Never a thing he did
That was worthy of his high intelligence.
No teacher whose IQ could match,
No vocation and no calling
Worth the time to spend in college.
What could they teach him
Anyway he asked,
In his superior knowledge?

A depressing world to one so keen
And so he focussed inward
At his liver and his spleen
An alcoholic blizzard
To numb the boredom and the pain
Of such imperial wit
As years rolled by the bar door
He wanted none of it.

And now he's old and hasn't been
And likely isn't going to
Because a fool so long ago
Bowed low before his IQ.

Waking and sleeping our way
Past our losings of you,
Thinking you forgotten,
Ourselves we fool.

Proof lies in dreams now common:
Your brother sees you in one house and then another...
Happy times as though you've never left,
Your mother sees returned embraces,
Powerful reunions, tearful faces,
Embraces flee morning alarms....
Who knows the dreams to come?
My convolutions mix beyond my ken;
I have no will to stop them, else I lose all memory
Of your face, your happy laugh, or rebel yell;
Losing sight of children, a father's constant hell.

Weary days and dream-filled nights
Toss us as we pine,
A daughter and a sister lost,
An aunt that we can't find.
The past seems never far away
What can be done, we do...and pray.

Who found he had
Nothing
To Say....

"Papa, we want to fish!"

We gather the digging tools,
The plastic pail,
The poles and the wagon.
My old fishing pack rides in the back.

First stop, garden, to unearth
Peaceful worms
For a hook and a bath.
Our fingers are black with soil.

The walk to the pond is hot.
The bank and the shade help.
Bullheads are our only customers,
Making worms' sacrifice a shame.

The girls soon tire and run to play,
While the boy and I try on.
"Here," I say, "I'll teach you to cast."
He looks at me, shading his eyes with his hand.

His little thumb barely reaches the release,
But his determination and natural skill
Produce perfect casts within minutes.
The line arcs high and falls, arcs high and falls.

I am no longer necessary for casting,
And soon he'll figure how to run the hook
Inside the worms' wriggling to hide the barbs.
Today is a most important day for both of us.

Some day, when I am gone away,
I hope he'll repeat this ancient ritual,
Digging in dirt, uncovering worms,
Teaching his grandchildren to fish.

Is upon me now:

Of plowed old corn
Turned beneath the soil,
Disheveled roots clawing at sky

Of seagulls, far inland,
Crying "Scavenge!"
Out on lonely fields,

And smoking brush smouldering
Useless now, for human needs,
Hazing a clouded sky,

Of chilling, two-wheeled rides,
The windblown miles rushing
Past towns and scattered farms,

Of fetid morning steam
Rising thick above the lakes
Hunters crouching,

Of calls rising from the mud,
Flaring foolish ducks
Swooping low to their own harvest.

We have not deeply thought
Just yet, of coming snow,
We, in this cloven spot in time;
While all around us
Leaves slip their summer greens,
To dress in colors bright,
While migrant birds begin to keen
For warmer, bluer skies.

I sense that Autumn has begun,
And I am discontent;
My garden's done its annual  run:
Potatoes, scarred and round are dug,
Tomatoes in and canned,
Nearly leafless, blood-red beets
Stand their pockmarked rows;
Onions dry in braided twists.

New Winter's not a long way off,
Though Autumn's looking bright,
And sadness makes impossible to doff
That "certain slant (our Emily once said) of light,"
So I must find a quiet corner soft,
And I must dream somehow...

Awake,
Asleep,
The scent of autumn
Is upon me now.

Near frost early morning,
Packed bags squeezed
Into the old Oldsmobile,
Ready to leave for college.

I kissed my mother,
Said good-bye,
Held her tight.

My father passed us,
Moving over stones,
Carrying two buckets
On his way to cows
And milking.

I couldn't see his face...
Had no idea.

"Art, are you going to say good-bye?"
I heard my mother say.

The words arrested him.
All movement stopped.
Shoulders hunched,
He slowly set the buckets down.

Turning was agony,
I saw,
As though his efforts
Somehow jarred the world,
Disrupted natural order, and
Acknowledged chaos come at last.

Forty years later,
I still see my father's face
Coursing silent tears,
And watch his shoulders shake.

Then we embraced,
We two,
And both were torn
With my leaving.

I knew with certainty
My father's love
That morning,
Leaving home.

When a town goes bad,
It's a bad apple,
Wormy and unsound,
Unwholesome,
Spreading infectious pus
To towns nearby,
Until stench goes up
And out to Heaven.

****** *******,
Immorality,
Weakens and pollutes
The people,
Victimizes the weak,
Tears away civility
To strangers,
Be they men,
Be they angels.

Blight is cleared
From the orchard
By fire....

So ***** and Gomorrah
Went beyond the bounds,
Scoffed at external law,
Imagined no limits...
Were burned by
Falling fire.

No one names a village
***** now;
No cities named
Gomorrah.

A shibboleth,
The uttered names
Of two joined cities
Invoke wisdom
Invoke humility,
Invoke repentance,
Invoke solemnity
Before the tempting
Of  Almighty wrath.

Scorching summer heat
Makes winter cold seem pleasing
Discordant reason

Destroyers,
These blasphemers
Follow the path of Cain,
Jealous murderer;
******* themselves
Just as greedy Balaam,
Prophet for profit;
Will plummet headlong,
Following Korah,
Doomed leader
Of rebellion.

Alicia,
Brynde,
Braden,
Kate,
This one's for you,
My children....

Alicia came upon a wish,
Surprise, surprise!
Our lives could never be the same,
Bright and pretty,
Intelligence to stun....

Brynde followed within two years
To join her sister,
To make life full,
A way with Daddy's heart,
A feisty soul,
And willful charmer of bees.

Braden's entrance brought me joy,
To join me as our only boy,
A melancholy son at times, but sharp
At math and quick debate,
Able bodied little man now tall and strong,
I am so glad you came along.

When Katelyn joined our band of five,
We both were stunned, and yet the joy
You brought us with your winning smiles,
Your brains and voice and dancer beauty
Cannot be measured, can't be bought.

As I am growing old, I've cried my share of tears,
I've laughed and raved and mourned the years,
I thought my work was in another place away
From you, my bonnie bairns, but as the years come on,
I must give thanks for you...each one,
And count myself a man so blessed
To have four children safely born,
To have a loving wife,
My only love, and Mother of you all.

weather breaking
                                        on the heartland
begins in other places
                                        minute-changing phases
threads and traces
                                       give the air its faces
gestational solitude
                                        hovers and broods
streams of space,
                                       solidifying in pace
before the thunder
                                      before the hail
storms begin as
                               whispers
                                                   breezes
first a zephyr
                            then a wind
                                                        beco­mes a gale
a force of power
                                         from breath to HURRICANE
indiscernible at first -              
                                          at last unstoppable

A sleepy rodent and an arrowed lover
Predict cold winter's tail is nearly past.

The Frost Lizard's cold and lifeless breath
Slithers January and February through,

But cannot muster up the frozen breath
To freeze the hibernal world to death.

We wait the moistening breath of Spring
Inside our hovels, here beneath the blowing snow.

Listening to the heavy moving thighs and trampling claws
Of a dying lizard, moving slow, but forced to go.

Dreamed a little
Dream of you
Last night

Saw you
Standing silently
Beneath my arm

So I reached
Down and hugged
Your self to me

Kissed your hair
Held you only
For a second

Woke up
Found myself
Face in pillow

You were still
Gone
And only tears
Were in my eyes

All day just
Tears
Were in my eyes

The Master slept; disciples saw the coming storm,
Threw a blanket on their Lord to keep him warm.
Clouds congealed, grays grew dark;
Lightning moved in flashing arcs.

More than a squall, the winds carved trenches
In writhing waters grown black beneath,
Tipped with frothing benches.

Grown weary of the crowds, body spent with care for others,
Still He slept the rest of an exhausted man,
Unaware the growing fear of brothers.

"Wake up! Do you not care if we all drown?"
Was it Peter who shook Him there,
Amazed he slept so sound?

He sat up from sleep, looked at the water,
Felt the wind, turned to the water,
Scolded, "Peace! Be still!"

The winds dropped; so did the waves;
The boat bobbed gently in the calm.
The men, awed, stood on the silent boards,
Marveling at the Lord.

We live upon on a tossing sea,
Torn by hate and fear in a storm of strife,
And no one has an answer we can see.
We're sailors fearing the end of life.
When is the time to turn to God,
Whom we forget still cares,
Waits "sleeping in the boat"
Until we're desperate in our prayers?

Plato, Socrates, Glaucon
sat and talked
about a chair and bed,
Discussing
What was real and
Was not.

"The originals
Are safe
With
God."

"Anything after's
Imitation;
The Carpenter
Creates a representation
Of the Real
But never duplicates,
And in some way
Honors the Original."

"The problem lies
With poets whose ideas stray
In artful Imitation,
Sort of a third-hand
Bit of Gossip
About Truth."

"In a perfect world,
Original thoughts
Exist only the mind of God
And artisans create
One-off visions of
The Prime."

"To stay near Truth,
Let's banish poets
And their poems
And create the
Ideal Republic."

then ee cummings
sauntered in -
said - boys
i see a universe
next door
Lets g o o o o!

Glaucon shook his head,
Took *******'s arm
And followed Dada
Off the stage.

The road winds ahead
I think.
In truth,
I cannot with my human senses tell;
Thick fog and rain and dread...
This path might lead
To the bottom of a well
Or worse...to Hell.
But no, the way behind me led to Hell,
And I have turned my back,
Begun my pilgrim way.

What directions I can find
Point in the way I head,
And mired as I am,
I cannot stay
Nor stand and wait
Nor can I turn retreat...
Been there before...
There's nothing good to eat,
And nothing there
To give me peace,
So I press on.

Push on I must,
For I have heard
Somewhere high above me
An eagle cry,
The promise of a clearing sky,
A vantage point to find
If I have wings.

Through lanes of autumn splendor
We rode, top down, against a blizzard
Gold, and red, and brown,
Leaves diving and cavorting
All our car around.

Western sunlight glimmering,
Causing fire-like glow,
Beauty stunning in our traffic flow,
Forcing glory in our vision
The falling leaves cascading,
Foretelling coming snow.