for Robin on our 22nd anniversary*

The placid Current River ever growing
      brightly shimmers in the mid-day sun,
its azure waters cool and southward flowing.

Buried caverns through the limestone bring
      fresh fountains pouring cold ablution
into the placid Current ever growing.

Around the bend another rushing spring
      bursts forth to lend aquatic motion
to the crystal water’s southward flowing.

Cheerful floaters revel, tanned and smiling,
      celebrating pleasant summer fun
upon the tranquil waters ever growing.

Gentle breezes set the leaves to rustling
      while time stands still for everyone
along the peaceful river calmly flowing.

Shaded skies foretell the day’s conclusion
      and a stellar fantasy has now begun
to dance above the moonlit river glowing:
      its azure waters cool and southward flowing.

June 26,  2009

Jimmy Collins made a dash for the door
Shouting to the silhouettes at the bar,
“Lock up for me boys, the baby’s coming.”
All the men cheered
And struck their glasses together.

Relief and joy swept over Rose and Jimmy
The memory of that first arduous passage
Fading under the light of resplendent love
Asleep in her mother’s arms.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *
The radio crackled and spoke,
“Houston to ‘Endeavor, ’  
Good morning, Commander Collins.”
And Eileen fell out of one dream into another.
Beyond her window a hazy blue ball spun slowly.  

How was it possible for the Earth to be “there”
And for “here” to be any place else?

200 miles below James and Rose
Looked up in wonder at the sky.

May,  2006

A looking glass seems such a simple thing -
a boomerang of sorts
(here's looking at me, kiddo).

So many me's (or you's) to view -
bucked out in natal garb
or gussied up for the corporate ball.
Better fix my Medusa hair,
Should I opt for the purple shirt?
Just who will I seem to be to you today?

Take a breath - a really deep one
meet those soul panes
gazing back from the other side
emissaries from an inverted universe -
romancing the past -
stalked by tomorrow's "maybes".

Who will I chance to serve or sway or fool
between now and the evening star?
Will one of them be you or me?

A looking glass seems such a simple thing.
So many me's (or you's) to view,
Just who should I seem to be to me today?

Rain clouds hover in the night
veiling the crystal moon -
spraying steady showers
on the hills and plains below.

The Missouri stirs from slumber
spreading claws of water up its banks
as rain sheets, lashed to horizontal
saturate the fields and valleys.

Illumined by the misted moon
The river’s shoreline grows
by inches through the night -
stealing into ever higher ground.

Daybreak finds new ponds conjoined
and spilled across low lying roads
and TV teasers sound their alarms.
'Stay tuned, tape at 10: 00.'

Downpours to the west and north
saturate Mississippi valleys and
Saint Louis flood gates rumble closed.
Farmers abandon all hope for harvest.

Our screens chant nightmare litanies
of sandbag crews and second floor rescues,
crumbling levies and sunken vehicles -
a twisting farmhouse claimed for driftwood.

The clouds’ reservoirs at last are spent,
the inland sea recedes to lakes
and our weary cousins stumble home
as the Mississippi quietly relearns it banks.

March,  2008

*This poem is a recollection of the great flood of 1993 but as it was written the rivers around St. Louis passed over flood stage and the city flood gates were closed.  While protecting the city, the gates and levees ship the problem   downstream where it intensifies the plight of small towns that are now under water.  Continued rain in the Missouri and Mississippi watersheds could cause the current flood to rival that of 1993.

Poor Viktor Hartmann!
All that remained of his towering soul
were visions pressed on to paper
hanging in a St. Petersburg gallery.

Mussorgsky advanced his lumbering frame
along the gallery halls
searching for his lost friend.

Sonic images formed in the composer’s mind
singing replicas of Hartmann’s icons:

        An old castle,
        Children quarreling,
        An ox resisting the weight of its cart,
        The Great Gate of Kiev.

Mussorgsky’s notes sound and vanish
as ephemeral as life itself -
passing into the ether only to live anew
with each successive performance.

      Viktor lives!

*October, 2006

Resting couched and cross-legged
by the hearth at Old Faithful Inn
I read of fire-seared Montana.
My restive mind roams back
a century and a half
to when flames ruled Yellowstone -
cracking open Lodgepole cones -
spending seeds on blackened soil.

Youthful pines soared skyward:
tutored by seven score seasons
of showers, frost and sun
nourished by leaf-meal and char.

Then loggers came to notch their trunks
and sent them arcing to the forest floor.
Carpenters fixed them to the wall
where the moose head stares me down.

Montana pine cones crackle as I read.
After soaking rains have quenched the flames,
those seeds will rise to giant towers
before yielding to the whine of chainsaw teeth.

A gray haired man will enter
a rustic Montana lodge,
a coffee mug clutched in one hand,
the morning paper in the other
and sit fire-warmed by a granite hearth
set in a wall of Lodgepole Pines.

*January, 2007

Jerry Singing at his Lathe

Slim and mustached
Jerry sang his heart out
in overalls at his lathe –
the Mario Lanza of Kent-Moore Tools.

Curled metal gathered at his feet
as he cut hard steel into usable parts.
He glanced at the prints,
reset the turret to take a second pass
and belted out another chorus.

Jerry retro-dreamed of New York,
of lessons, certificates, Juilliard
and arias finished with outstretched arms –
visions derailed but unforgotten.

Global madness sent him to France.
With a pack and an M1 in place of scores.
Jerry helped set Paris free
yet never left a song on its stages.

Kent-Moore paid him well
and masked by din of colliding metal
Jerry sang and sang and sang all day
for rivet guns and turret lathes.
His voice would melt your heart.

*July, 2006

Barreling through town
in the depth of night,
earth’s colossal magnets
hurled jagged fire spears -
flashing and ripping the midnight sky.

Whirling torrents whistled
and lashed against the glass.
A blinding fire bolt
Shattered an old rock maple -
quaking our shelter to its footings.

Cosmic strobe-lit concussions
stuttered and roared across the nightscape
like a feral timpanist gone mad.

The frenzied cacophony
subsided at last -
rumbled off  in the distance
as the storm lumbered on
like a barbarian horde
off to sack another village.

*July, 2007

San Damiano hovers over majestic bluffs
high above the great bend of the Ohio
curving toward its Mississippi rendezvous.

A soft haze filters the fading sun.
Budding tree fingers,
eager for the coming Equinox,
silhouetted against the rosy dusk light.

After the sun surrenders to the night,
cosmic diamonds salt the sky with effigies
of proud Orion and the two bears.
Venus and Jupiter hang close enough to touch.

Deep in the shadows atop the tranquil bluffs,
Saint Francis himself might be tarrying -
kindly guiding us to concord - empathy - peace.

On a stage too vast for frame or shutter
    an alabaster sphere trails the fading sun
        reflected on the waves and troughs of Estes Lake,
            and reigns supreme above the snow-capped Rockies.

Two white globes - one of gas the other rock
         softly dance around a bluish one.

*March, 2012

The griffin outside my balcony
squinted and shook
flipping Kansas City
upside down and back.

Giant flakes descended
like softest down -
coating the plaza below
with a mantel of frosted white.

The griffin is squinting once more.
Watch out; hold on tight!
Here we go again
whirling about in a cyclonic flurry
of magic fairy crystals.

*August, 2010

Early spring has come to Thelma’s farm.
The geese are on the pond,
a green velvet carpet circles the barn
while songbirds greet the morning sun.

We walk down Thelma's rutted road
where milk trucks used to rumble in
to fetch the morning’s yield.
Old Tikki leads the way - a pale fluff of a mutt
like a dust mop searching for its handle.

Thelma’s cows are long since gone –
sold off after Dutch was called to eternity
but she'd no more forsake this land - her land
than the sun would forget to rise.

Early spring has come to the Missouri hills
where clean warm breezes whisper hope.
Soon the ready soil will taste
the furrowing blades of the plow
near fields where livestock graze and flourish.

We’ve reached the bend in the road.
Old Tikki's wearing down
so we turn to retrace our steps.
A committee of neighbor calves
studies us with soulful eyes
and we appear to pass inspection.

Tikki guides us on our homeward path
where a ribbon of golden jonquility
neatly trims the foreyard fence.

Spring has come again to Thelma’s farm
as it always has and always will -
where clean warm breezes whisper hope.

March 13, 2011

Stephen Hawking in a fantasy rush
once thought the universe would max its tether,
turn a mighty one eighty back toward
the starting gun and run the show in reverse.

What if it were really so?

Would a butterfly return to pre-chrysalis days,
crawl backwards on stalks and un-munch leaves?

Would Frost back-step up that diverged path
to ponder his options anew?

Would we have to jettison those data cards
that school has stuffed inside us
and retreat to our amniotic broth?

What if it were really so?

Uh oh, here come the terrible lizards
back for a curtain call.
Don't you think it's getting awfully hot?

What if it were really so?

Imagine if you can, the silence following the
great "thwupping" sound of the "gnaB giB".

*February, 2015

Could you have ever been?
                         and will I ever be
              and is there such a thing as us?

            What could my moist and sinew
                    matter to your retinas
       as they track these curves and corners?

With luck, my scratches will cast a few drift twigs
              off on the streams and estuaries
                     of your verbal essence.

                        So tell me your tales
               of mystic dreams and journeys
                         as if you ever were
                 or I might ever chance to be.

The sign said.
"Heisenberg may have slept here"
so we'll never know.

Was he never here
or was he here and failed to sleep?
Perhaps he slipped in the back
to saw some zzz's on the couch.

We'll never know for sure.
As soon as we think we spotted him,
the screen fades to black!

At the third world's first sun,
the Anasazi climbed
through a narrow Sipapu
and pressed footprints in the dust
of a new unspoiled universe.

In secluded canyon hollows
watered by softly chanting springs,
they piled rocks upon stones
shaping vast adobe cities
mortared with pastes of moistened clay.

At Mesa Verde - Chaco - de Chelly
fields of maize sway,
brushed by the canyon winds
while Pueblos danced in the plazas below
to the throbbing beats
of skin-stretched hollow log drums.

Today their children’s children
circle fire pits in sacred Kivas
raising chants and prayers
to their hallowed ancestors.

Wearied by famine and conquest,
Pueblo eyes scan the heavens
searching for a new Sipapu
to lead them to a better world still.

September 11, 2006

For Nat Lipstadt

In response to Nat's deeply moving poem that included me, I now dedicate this 2007 poem to Nat, who I am sure, knows exactly what it means.

               
She smiled as she
set her lips into
most agreeable motion -
her larynx flexing to
modulate the passing air.

The sequenced air waves
shook my auric drums
and journeyed to my soul.

Out of my reservoir
of ritual response
my lower face
turned a congenial curve.

Two puffs of air
pulsed my vocal folds,
were filtered
by my tongue and lips
and formed a sonic pattern
she was sure to know,

“Thank you.”

December, 2007

Yellow horizon
Sunflower fields gently sway
just beyond the crest.

The whole earth resounds
     With the exuberant songs
of nature’s majestic harmony.

And sways to the steady pulse
     of all that breathes and roams the land,
That inhabits the rushing brooks
     Or soars through borderless skies,
Of every seedling, flower and chrysalis.
     And every newborn calf and golden field.
All that rise to greet the sun
     Intone their festal hymns
To nature’s exultant harmony.

The boundless wonders of nature’s realm
     Sustain our spirits and illumine our paths
With wisdom taught by the lakes and mountains
     And solace sung by the forests and plains.
So with steady and transfigured hearts,
     we forge our trails through hallowed land.

When the sun has run its daily course
     and twilight claims the fading light,
we offer thanks for the nascent moon
     and the radiant star-jeweled night -
tuning our faith and aspirations
     to the music of the spheres.

The whole earth resounds
     with the exuberant songs
of nature’s majestic harmony

I sliced a fresh banana today
          alone at my kitchen counter.

I drew a common table knife
         and carved a slender yellow disc
that lingered on the blade.

The next disc drove it off the knife
          and down to the cereal below.  

Soon the banana was all partitioned
          and the Cheerios mostly masked.
I popped the heel in my mouth.

  Childhood memories crackle
          like a radio slightly off its station
                and I can almost hear mom
         talking softly as she slices -

   I am barely listening.
         My left hand holds an imaginary banana
               while my right hand maneuvers
         a non-existent knife.

How strange the knife I held so real
         yet the shade of mom merely conjured -
far too strange to truly believe.

Dusk descends across the west

     as our yellow dwarf star 

surrenders its daily reign -

     washing the horizon 

in a diadem of refracted light.



Prismatic clouds blaze

     like a wondrous skycape

brushed by an impressionist deity
-
     conjoining the passing day 

with the emerging veil of night.



The first stars have arrived

     to escort the silvery moon

along its nocturnal journey.



The season of sleep is upon us.
     A few tilts of the hour glass

will transport our circling furnace

     just below the eastern peaks - 

a harbinger of the coming day. 


     Dawn and twilight

framed in luminous Alpenglow.

*July, 2014

Full solstice moon
veiled by diaphanous clouds
drifting past midnight.

Walking at sundown
A linden's gentle essence
unexpected breeze.

If sting rays drank air
You could fly them on a string
On a brisk March day.

Maya slept here, there and everywhere -
and sadly now, the sleep is perpetual.

But more to the point,
Maya awoke us all - starting with herself
and what she awakened in us
can never sleep again!

When she spoke, her kind healing voice
kneaded our souls like a spiritual masseuse.

When she spoke,
          presidents listened.
When she spoke,
          the oppressed took heart.
When she spoke,
          oppressors changed heart a little.
When she spoke,
          America said Amen
          and so we will forever.

Thank you Maya for being so good at being.

The Rockies sing to us at sunrise

      when crystal snow-capped peaks
chant iridescent matins to the dawn,
      the dawn of a fresh new mountain day.

Luminous pastel clouds
     hover across the horizon
painting the hills and valleys below
     in mysterial shades of
lavendar, amber and rose.

The Rockies sing to us at daybreak
      when every crest and vale
unites in raising anthems to the dawn,
      The dawn of a bright new mountain morn.

Forests and fields awaken.
      A bull elk grazes by an alpine lake.
An eagle soars through the morning mist
      over rainbows of Indian paintbrush.
A hilltop lake spills over its rim
      and cascades down the *****
etching serpentine streams in the valley below.

We can hear the mountains singing.
      In every creature, ridge and flower
They bring to us their jublilant songs
      of wilderness, wildlife and wonder
.

We can hear the Rockies singing.

      The mountains sing forever!

*June, 2009

homage to Wallace Stevens

I - My Focus pistoned up the rise
      and all at once, the Rockies -
            silhouettes against the western skies.

II - On the road to Boulder
      a pleated ridge crawls north
            like a blue whale bound for the open sea.

III -  Appalachia's intoxicating verdure
      never fails to induce in us
            a certain mellowing of the spirit.

IV - You 'conquered' my North Face, did you?
      Why, I should skewer your arrogant ***
            like a holiday lamb culled for the sacrifice.

V - Lewis and Clark looked west
      surveying the Bitterroots' frigid expanse.
            Farewell Northwest Passage!  

VI - Pueblos stranded on Enchanted Mesa -
      their rock stairs crumbled to the valley floor.
            Should they dive to their death or starve?

VII –Touristas at Big Bend Park
      wonder at its pastel window -
            its romantic haze a toxic gift
      from stacks across the Rio Grande.

VIII – The once mighty Ozarks humbled by age,          
      dwarfed by the youthful Rockies.
            Listen up, youngsters, your time will come!

IX – We de-bussed to seize the dolomites
      with our hyper-kinetic shutters.
            Pausing for a draught of Italian air,
      I felt the whack of an Alpine snowball.

X - Before Oregon's crater had its lake,
      the mountain scorched the village below.
            Today its azure waters preach only serenity.

XI – Looking down from Shissler peak
      to the golden meadow below
            where the elk herd calmly grazes.

XII – Do mists veil the Blue Ridge Mountains
      or are there really no mountains at all -
            only clouds decked out in mountain attire?

XIII – They say that peaks more steep than Everest
      soar up from the ocean floor.
            Who will scale their sunken heights?

May 28,  2010 – Boulder Colorado

Jack Frost's icy breath
works its crystal handiwork -
puddles into glass.

*November, 2013

Light bulbs are redundant
When Kayla walks in -
bathing every person and surface
with the flood lamps of her smile.

She smiles when she dances
and smiles when she sings
while two grateful women
who precede her in lineage
draw their bows across the strings.

None would ever suspect
that this fountain of joy
had once wanly trembled
in the valley of shadows.

Yet no matter how vilely
luekemia fought and clawed
to claim her for its own
it never really stood a chance

for Kayla had steps to dance
and songs to sing
and millions of smiles to smile
and would not be denied.

*February,  2008

Battling back troubled tears
Robert took the mike in church
to confess his sins to all
for the lives that had fallen by his hand.

In a causal web as dense
as a tropical thicket,
men in suits and brass
had ordered him to his post
at an Apache helicopter door.

Robert fired and men became bodies.
Those whose fate he sealed
would have done him the same
had they fired sooner or straighter.

But had the wheel turned otherwise
would they, like Robert,
have darted up from their sleep
in the dead of night -
soaked in the sweat of terror and regret?

For every Robert's sake
in every land,
I prefer to hope they would.

*November, 2013

In the year I discovered baseball
I stumbled on my brother's marbles.
I begged Jim out of a few and he
showed me how to make my thumb a trigger.

Soon I was checking out at Woolworths
with my pockets a couple of quarters lighter
but otherwise enriched by
several "purey's", a pair of "cat's eyes",
a largish agate as black as anthracite
and a pull string carry sack.

At home I lined them up in rows
admiring their reflections
on the glass top table.
I held my favorite cat's eye" to the light
(The diadem of my molded treasure trove)
However  did that orange swirl get inside?

Whistling through the playground
I joined a group of older kids
haunched around a circle
etched in the summer dust
with marbles clustered in the center.

Not to be left out I said,
"I've got marbles."
Before I had a chance to question why,
My orange diadem was in the center

Then WHACK, another marble sent it
flying out beyond the rim
and the shooter stuffed it in his sack.

I yelled,"Hey, that's my marble"
"Not no more, kid, the game is 'keeps'".
"What's 'keeps' I asked?"
"It means you lose"
and everyone laughed but me.

I scooped up the balance of my treasury
and left the circle quick -
(I dared not show my ***** tears).

So I left the cruelty of that dusty circle
sadder but just a little wiser
and never played for keeps again!

Well, not in marbles anyway.

October, 2013

Ireland's emerald hills
     fade and fall into the sea.
        All my world is blue.

How could I ever understand
what it is you choose
to call existence
and how could I ever
tell you what it means to me?

A solitary dot stained
on the canvas
of the expanding universe,
I sense a primal shiver
whenever, 'stranger'
cries out from a page
or whispers in the aether.

*February, 2008

The sun boils off its heat-light flares
        over 93,000,000 miles away
                yet as close to us as sunburn -
    drafting the circles of our years.

Our ancestors fill our boots
        with us and our descendants
                (one pair - so many feet)
    stepping out to where we've been.

Along the corridors of time,
        our mind screens play what passed
                before we fledged and fled our nests:
    There is here and then is now.

Whether we tilt the earth to shake out
        wisdom, fame or empathy
                or let chaos light our paths,
    our curiosity is a sturdy ladder raised

to scale the walls of space and time.
        Who cares that life presages death and
                decay calls breath from dust?
    Our earthly sojourns - our souls' domain.

*January, 2007

I wonder why - whether I please to or not
and I generally do.

AND IT GIVES ME PAUSE

But shouldn't I act or judge someone
before the moment escapes?
Hey, not so fast my, friend -
I still have some wondering to do!

So my fist freezes
suspended in mid-pound -
leaving the table hungry
for a cosmic collision!

Hold your ears....

SILENCE.

Sorry devil,
the angels made me do it.

*September, 2013

She brushed out landscapes with her words
as deftly as any impressionist master
and speed-trekked us from where we sat
to scenes of transcendent beauty.
Each day I awaited her verbal canvases
with self-indulgent anticipation.

But one day all was all different.
What was this horrific account of
of unspeakable Afghan tragedy -
A wandering woman whose final defeat,
after all she loved had been butchered,
was hope beyond all recovery
dragging her feet through the dust?

I picked up my heart from out of the soil
to ask her, "were you there?"
She was  - with a physician's bag
for Cindy is a doctor
who eschews a suburban clinic
to defy all danger
and be where life would fail
without her healing craft and care.

Dodging bullets, sputum and mortal threats,
Cindy fights life's most essential battles
and so uplifts the standard of our species.

The next day Cindy painted for us
a verdant mountain scene
whose whispering streams and fragrance
exceeded all I'd every witnessed.

I wonder where she is.

*September, 2013

Beethoven once said of the cantor of Leipzig
“Not a stream but an ocean.”

Sebastian Bach wove sonic tapestries
and scoffed at notions of genius
“Anyone who pays the price can do it.”

Whether for Sunday’s choir or *****
or for a palace fete of state,
The fountains of his bounteous spring
embellished every age and station.

Yet he could crack a joke or two
in a cantata to coffee’s pleasures -
sipping from a sturdy cup
of nature's matchless brew.

Flutists, fiddlers, singers, organists,
children and masters alike,
have netted hearty sustenance
from the seas of his boundless vision.

But modesty forbade him boast
the importance of his station -
affixing to his noblest works,
a trio of humblest words,

“Soli Deo Gloria.”

December, 2007

Symphony No.9 in d – minor, opus 125

Allegro ma non troppo

The silence gives way gently
to quiet tremolos rustling
beneath the beckoning
call of distant horns.
A melodic cell, nascent in violins,
spirals down to the somber depths
of cello and contrabass.

A sudden cataclysm
shakes the hall like thunder
heralding our universal birth.
Gales of sonic force
splashed like turbulent waves
against the rocky shores.

Drifting sans glass or sextant
on a sea of expanding mystery,
we gaze to the heavens
in hopes for a glimpse
of our father’s aetherial dwelling.

Molto vivace

With hands intertwined,
we dance in a ring
to the capricious airs
of the laughing gods
with Zeus himself on timpani.
So pass the wine and kiss your neighbor
and fill your glass to the brim!
For today is yesterday’s morrow
and tomorrow’s history.

Adagio molto e cantabile

There is no greater and more healing light
than the candles that shine
in the eyes of a friend
or loving spouse -  
tenderly lighting our paths
through the storms and fogs
that cloud our lives.
Peace abides in a friend's embrace.

An die Freude

Against raging storms of
strife and sorrow.
we hear a healing voice
A calm cello hymn -
that migrates up to higher cords
of violas and violins -
breaking into joyous song
sung by trumpets, winds and drums.

Casting all shrillness of discord aside,
a baritone lines out Schiller’s ode -
and sings of Elysium’s daughter.  
Quartet and chorus enter in
proclaiming hope for the human family,

A tenor raises a stein to valor
in the company of his friends.
The quiet pulsing of horns and winds
ushers in torrents of ecstasy.
Arms clasped in communal embrace,
we gaze to heaven on bended knees
then rise with a majestic fugue
that illuminates our souls
like a blazing Alpine dawn.

In a cyclone of passion,
Schiller's words and Beethoven's notes
entreat us to restore
what custom has rent apart
that each of us may live our lives
as brothers in heavenly sanctuary.

May 25, 2007

Stillness preceded the sonic storm.
Then the baton plummeted,
To summon low “D’s” from orchestral depths
And a hundred voices roared, “O Fortuna!”

The throbbing ritual had begun!
Rhythms drove and lurched
Through songs of Springtime, alcohol and lust.

Brasses flared.
Muted strings cast veils over the hall.
The chorus hummed and shouted
And tender solos wafted
Over graceful flute arabesques.

The thin white stick carved the air into segments
And by some mystical synchronicity
Instruments and voices reveled together -
Medieval Latin decked out in modern attire.

A baritone sang from a tavern
With electrifying irresponsibility.
The counter-tenor mournfully chanted
The complaint of an entrée roasting on a spit.

The love of my life skied her voice
To a high “D” then descended -
And we turned Fortune’s wheel back full circle
Rounding out this earth song beyond all comparing.

“O Fortuna!”
O Fortuna, indeed!

*July, 2006

Factory Frog

A frog of the Greatest Generation,
Rosie fastened skins to the planes -
all the while ceaslessly chattering.
All of the other factory frogs
covered their ears or plugged them
since none could abide the endless pattering
of Rosie the Ribbiter.

Basketball Frog

Few frogs try their hands(?) at basketball
but Kermit (Z. Phrogg not D.Frog)                  
gave it the old college try.
He wanted to play like his hero Alcindor
before or after his name change.
But never managed to loft the ball
o'er the edge of the basket's rim
so he finally gave it up and sang,
'It's not easy being Kareem.'

For all the Cane Toads in Australia*
*To the tune of Froggy Went a'Courtin.

Toady went a'courtin' he did ride, Hmmm.
Toady went a'courtin' he did ride, Hmmm.
A toady went a'courtin' he did ride
A road **** honey for his bride Hmmm, Hmmm.

She said, 'Please Mr. Toady won't you bury me, Hmmm?
Oh please Mr. Toady won't you bury me, Hmmm.
Please Mr. Toady won't you bury me?
Said he,  'Not now, Honey I'm in ecstasy, Hmmm, Hmmm.

*January, 2007

Robin hums as she tends her garden
while birds perch all around
waiting for rustling seeds
to fill the slender columns.
Humming birds hover  
to sip sweet nectar mixed for them alone.

On concert nights her voice takes flight.
and fills the hall with her radiant soul.
On quiet mornings
graphite joins with paper
and a flower's form and meaning
are captured by her vision.

A friend fallen ill or reeling from loss
receives her gift of comfort words
and a card or meal soon follows.

Grandchildren rush to greet her
and happily fill her arms.
at night they cloak themselves
In love quilts sewn by Grandma’s hands.

If you want to learn how love abides
or long to know its fullness
follow my Robin for a day
Her gift is in the gifting.

*July, 2006