It’s Best to Be a Giver
It’s best to be a giver, not a taker,
Or else how could you ever face your Maker?
When time is due and Judgment Day is here,
You look in your Lord’s eyes, and have no fear,
You know your heart is pure and soul is clean,
You’ve no desire for fame or gain, or greed.
They say what goes around will come around—
This principle throughout all time resounds.
Across all space, in lifetime after life,
There is no good in meeting strife with strife.
An open heart that’s boundless, kind, and free
Will surely bring you riches you can’t see.
Dandelion Suns
Like glowing yellow suns in sky of green,
The dandelions light the new-mown lawn.
And each small golden star is one that’s seen
As pure perfection from the hand of God.
Yet there are those who do despise this flow’r,
Although it is God’s harbinger of spring.
They mount attacks with spray guns by the hour—
An arsenal of chemicals for killing.
The shining suns extinguished ’midst the greens,
The sterile lawns—like blank and starless skies.
But some survive, as starbursts full of seeds,
Beneath the trees, to cycle through their lives.
____A gentle breeze arises to disperse
____The seeds, and populate the universe.
Connie Phillips is a former English teacher and editor living in Massachusetts.
Beautiful poems. Thank you for these, Connie. I think the dandelion has taken on some kind of super significance in this generation. See the two poems below (others have been submitted too, but only these accepted). Perhaps because we live in an age when true beauty is so often overlooked, neglected, torn down by shortsighted reductionist attacks (weed killer), dandelions have become a new emblem…
http://classicalpoets.org/dandelions-by-zachary-dilks/
http://classicalpoets.org/dandelions-and-other-poetry-by-kathryn-jacobs/
Thanks, Evan! I think you make an interesting point.
Ms. Phillips’ sonnet “Dandelion Suns” delivers its theme of spring in a bright, light, Cummingsesque manner. Even the jarring elements, ellipsis, the metrical violation at the end of the octave, elision, and the lack of a verb at the start of the sestet, coincide with the meaning. My favourite lines are the concluding couplet, where the voiced and unvoiced sibilants nicely intertwine.
Thank you so much for your comments, Bud — I really appreciate them!