I see and feel in pure delight
My end result - in vision now
My vision draws me on and on
No need for force - I just allow

I love the strength and constancy
That vision gives me day and night
A hundred times more powerful
Than will-power (its power is slight)

No compulsion - no discipline
Can fill me with this real desire
But vision can - it fills with strength
My will is shaped - with vision’s fire

One and the other of us had a mission
That only God can gave
Perceptibly that you can execute it
For He is our Life and saviour

God acquiesce to navigate our procedures
Coherent in haphazardly to be set
To effectuate His words on this world
For His kingdom comes on earth

Individually of us has an end
A term of life back to grime
In heaven we will exult
For His eternal love for us

It may not be in the deepest soil
Where light and water abound
Yet each tiny seed will strive and toil
To grow in their given ground

Some seeds are sown by loving hands
All buried quite snug and sound
While others fall in rock strewn lands
To claim as their given ground

We hear no cries of pain or delight
As each seed’s place is found
For each one feels their spot is right
To thrive in their given ground

Express your life with joy and might
And may your efforts be crowned
Whether your soil be deep or slight
Grow well in your given ground

you'll be here one day
I'll learn to live again
Ever had that discomfort?
A thirst no water could quench
oh how it's gone in a second,
even the sky will sing
the wait for this moment
amounted to forever
it was like an hourglass
only the sand never stopped falling
a part in me was done for
it will recover,
i never thought it could
i wasn't a fish out of water
not anymore, not anymore

Picturebook Princess

for Keira

We had a special visitor.
Our world became suddenly brighter.
She was such a charmer!
Such a delighter!

With her sparkly diamond slippers
and the way her whole being glows,
Keira’s a picturebook princess
from the points of her crown to the tips of her toes!

Keywords/Tags: Princess, visitor, charm, delight, sparkly, diamond, slippers, Cinderella, crown, glow, glowing, angel, fairy

This Dog
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Each morning this dog,
who has become quite attached to me,
sits silently at my feet
until, gently caressing his head,
I acknowledge his company.

This simple recognition gives my companion such joy
he shudders with sheer delight.

Among all languageless creatures
he alone has seen through man entire—
has seen beyond what is good or bad in him
to such a depth he can lay down his life
for the sake of love alone.

Now it is he who shows me the way
through this unfathomable world throbbing with life.

When I see his deep devotion,
his offer of his whole being,
I fail to comprehend ...

How, through sheer instinct,
has he discovered whatever it is that he knows?

With his anxious piteous looks
he cannot communicate his understanding
and yet somehow has succeeded in conveying to me
out of the entire creation
the true loveworthiness of man.

“This Dog” appeared in the poetry collection Arogya by Rabindranath Tagore. Keywords: Tagore, translation, dog, feet, head, caress, caressing, joy, delight, devotion, friendship, companion, companionship, whole, being, entire, instinct, loveworthiness, mrburdu

Ordinary Love
by Michael R. Burch

Indescribable—our love—and still we say
with eyes averted, turning out the light,
“I love you,” in the ordinary way

and tug the coverlet where once we lay,
all suntanned limbs entangled, shivering, white ...
indescribably in love. Or so we say.

Your hair’s blonde thicket’s thinned and tangle-gray;
you turn your back; you murmur to the night,
“I love you,” in the ordinary way.

Beneath the sheets our hands and feet would stray ...
to warm ourselves. We do not touch, despite
a love so indescribable. We say

we’re older now, that “love” has had its day.
But that which love once countenanced, delight,
still makes you indescribable. I say,
“I love you,” in the ordinary way.

Published by The Lyric, Romantics Quarterly, Mandrake Poetry Review, Carnelian, Poem Kingdom, Net Poetry and Art Competition, Famous Poets and Poems, FreeXpression, PW Review, Poetic Voices, Poetry Renewal, Poetry Life & Times; also winner of the 2001 Algernon Charles Swinburne Poetry Award

Keywords/Tags: Villanelle, ordinary, commonplace, everyday, love, bed, sheets, warmth, comfort, delight, limbs, night, light, white, hair, back, hands, feet, romance, passion, desire, longing, ***, intimacy