I took your hand on the ledge below
For the climb was rough and high
And I was eager for you to know
Success the same as I.
I saw your grin, bemused and wise,
As we mounted steadily,
And at last I came to realize
That you were leading me.
MISTAKES
Mistakes are knots, carelessly tied,
That have to be undone
With much more time undoing than
It takes for tying one.
(Quatrain Award, Poetry Society of Texas, Jan., 1958)
Casting
We choose the cast and allot them parts to play
In each new act upon the stage of life.
The blame is ours when fault has found a way
To drown the silver notes from pleasure's fife,
Or dainty faith is trampled in dismay
And pierced by gossip's keen, two-edged knife.
No matter what the plot is meant to be,
The cast can make the play a tragedy.
Wintering
Vulnerable creatures go
To winter coverts; they retreat
Silently beneath the snow.
When the rowdy blizzards blow,
Wrestling clouds and spewing sleet,
Vulnerable creatures go
To a special place they know,
Warming space with body-heat
Silently beneath the snow.
When hunger, as a fearsome foe,
Prompts a search for food to eat,
Vulnerable creatures go
Where drifts camouflage each row
Holding grains of immortal wheat
Silently beneath the snow.
Brooks freeze silent; steps grow slow,
And O when winter and winter meet,
Vulnerable creatures go
Silently beneath the snow.
Not With Half A Voice
"...in which woman may speak, vote, argue causes, legislate...To this streaming or flowing belongs the beauty that all circular movement has."
Ralph Waldo Emerson: Beauty
No longer shall we sing with half a voice
What we, like Cyclops, vision with one eye;
But we shall sing a nation up with choice
Whole-notes, the notes that truth is fashioned by;
As song of dust in which all thing revolve,
Or song of blood that winds the web of veins,
So we shall sing in powerful refrains
Keen notes that split the atom-world of wonder,
Strong notes that blast new planets into space
To prove a star and echo back its thunder,
To herald a profound, progressive race.
O we shall sing magnificent increase,
And over all, the long, clear note of peace.
[ Poetry | Into the Now | East of Eden | The West | Reveries | Heaven ]
[ Shifting Sands | Religious | Children | Love | Humorous ]
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