All the cries and despairs,
All the wounds and daily cares,
All the anxieties and their scares…
Now, just fallen leaves, dead leaves,
Once again.
All the dreams and their joys,
All the schemes and sly ploys,
All the hopes and attaboys…
Now, just fallen leaves, dead leaves,
Once again.
But then another spring comes around
So lush, new-born leaves abound,
Once again.
My muse is mostly mute,
Her eyes closed and mouth shut.
She’s particular about when to speak;
Will brook no truck with any cheek.
The passing fancy doesn’t amuse;
Not interested in the current news.
Will never even waste a glance
When her mind’s caught in a trance.
But then her moment comes around,
Her voice clear and strong as a belltower gong.
So never ignore an elusive sage,
Diviner of truth and beauty in every age.
Silver moonlight dapples the furtive wood elves —
All indistinct, glimpsed, perhaps only imagined,
Just as vague recollections flash by in the mind,
While it searches in vain for anything tangible.
In the moonlight that is recollecting,
The mind touches a weathered door that creeks open,
Revealing dimly the dusty furnishings of a bygone age.
Mere sight or sound or smell stirs vague memories,
Hinting at experiences hiding in the past.
But one wanders in the moon’s faint light,
As in the past, without clear sight,
So leave the moonlight to the owls and the ravens, you say,
And the past to itself, alone and forgotten,
For this bright new day.
Hark, fair wind,
Take my soul
To a peaceful harbor
Beyond yon horizon.
A lost glove on the ground,
Its pair equally at a loss somewhere,
Just as a long-lived partner,
Separated by death, soldiers on.
When your soul’s companion departs,
How do you answer when no one replies;
How do you spend time without the other;
How do you accept?
Alone on a solitary journey
Not by choice, but here I am…
Just a lost glove on the ground,
A lost glove, nothing more.
Time sweeps on…
A raging river.
Young and old,
All caught in the torrent.
Dickens said it best:
“Time…wait(s) for no man.”
We are all pulled along,
Hurtling toward our Niagara.
Holding hands,
An elderly couple
Walks slowly through the park.
Like a bee hovering momentarily over flowers,
The couple stops now and then
To share comments about this and that,
Savoring the nectar,
Then moves on to the next attraction,
To the next blossom,
Unhurried, self-contained, free.
All around the couple,
Singles clutch their cell phones,
Ever impatient to be elsewhere.
M.F. Williams, William Gilmore Simms, Charles Lee, William Jasper —
You walk past these obscure names unknowingly.
Just names carved in stone long, long ago
Before your time…before our time.
You walk by the names unknowingly,
Their memory tarnished by time’s forgetfulness.
No doubt, brave souls and valorous every one,
But not even stone resurrects their remembrance.
In New England, this very day, snowflakes come down.
One by one they land on the ground,
Yet when the warm spring comes around,
All the flakes are gone with no trace or sound.
A worn out iron bolt with corroded threads,
A single glove,
A brown leaf,
A clear plastic box cover,
A yellow comb, The eraser end of a snapped pencil,
A paper receipt, A bottle cap,
A red toy soldier with movable arms and legs,
A golf tee.
Discards from life. The litany is endless. Fugitives spit out by fate.
How did they all end up where they lie?
Alone now in life.
All family and friends long departed.
No grand purpose anymore; no pressing desire.
How in the world did I end up here?
Just one of the odds and ends, ’tis me,
Washed up from the sea onto a distant shore…
A bit of debris on the sidewalk, nothing more.
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