Beloved,
In what other lives or lands
Have I known your lips
Your Hands
Your Laughter brave
Irreverent.
Those sweet excesses that
I do adore.
What surety is there
That we will meet again,
On other worlds some
Future time undated.
I defy my body's haste.
Without the promise
Of one more sweet encounter
I will not deign to die.

I hope that you will smile today
and give yourself a break.
A smile can be great medicine.
It helps when hearts might ache.

Perhaps, if you try hard enough,
the smile becomes a grin.
And when you've worn it long enough,
you'll feel it grow and then...

The grin becomes a chuckle
and it then becomes a laugh.
And everyone will wonder if
you've made a social gaffe.

For laughter is contagious
and it helps to get us through.
Here's hoping that today will bring
some happiness to you.

Dark yet light
Warm yet cold
Rough yet smooth
Old yet young
Many yet one

Remembers love engraved
Forever without sin, waving in the wind
Bent with force, bows its head
And yet, looks straight ahead
Stands still and silent its feet entrenched
Sometimes clothed, sometimes naked to the eye
Strong and straight or gnarled and bent
Shaded or stark it welcomes light

Grows mighty from so small
Features colours red, green and gold
Casts open its arms for all to behold
A perch, a home, an attitude of strength
Somewhere to climb when child like
And some would call it home within its arms

Reaches to the sky that it embraces
Knows the aroma of many places
And sometimes bears wonderful presents
Or foods of foreign resources on platters of clay
It holds silver, stainless steel and gold
And with parchment like sails
It would carry you off to lands and strange places

We take its worth without thought
We laden it with our burden
We drink in its presence without thought
We eat at its heart, for which it never complains
This is the magnificence of woodland Oak.

I tell you hopeless grief is passionless,
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air
Beat upward to God’s throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness
In souls, as countries, lieth silent-bare
Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute heavens. Deep-hearted man, express
Grief for thy dead in silence like to death—
Most like a monumental statue set
In everlasting watch and moveless woe
Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet;
If it could weep, it could arise and go.

They say that God lives very high;
  But if you look above the pines
You cannot see our God; and why?

And if you dig down in the mines,
  You never see Him in the gold,
Though from Him all that’s glory shines.

God is so good, He wears a fold
  Of heaven and earth across His face,
Like secrets kept, for love, untold.

But still I feel that His embrace
  Slides down by thrills, through all things made,
Through sight and sound of every place;

As if my tender mother laid
  On my shut lids her kisses’ pressure,
Half waking me at night, and said,
  “Who kissed you through the dark, dear guesser?”