Beauty

. Adams Mountain I gather in from this high place, my shadow sprawled on shivered stone: Dusk drifts down: autumnal shroud upon the rusk-brown earth below, fall colors fading; chimneys trailing smoke, primordial prayers rising. I see myself as from a far-off orchard, gauged in fading light, a serpent’s view,...

. First Steps in a New World for Toribio Moras, age 14, Vera Cruz, Mexico, 1908 The young Castilian boy set sail, alone, and sought to build a life across the sea. Adrift, so far away, you had no throne, and homeless, you spent nights beneath a tree. Your loyal...

. . This Silence. Foremost among my woes: _This silence as it grows, __My mind fatigued from listening for your voice; Amid the constant buzz, The thought of what once was--- __Your gaping absence overwhelms the noise. . . . . Just Fine_ We’re made of breath and dust And...

. La Campana Ring, grandfather! And ring for liberty. The bell spoke once and, speaking, croaked and cracked. Our gazes bathed its iron in gold hazes As Hebrews treasured tablets their sin split. Its silent iron: I will ring again. We have a problem---witnessed by the crack. The groan of...

. Miracle of the Book Distance was short, but porters would be needed, And sacks were packed with small necessities. I wrapped the Gospel book and then proceeded Along the rowan-bordered road with ease. Only when day and its activities Were done did I seek out the book and find...

. Psalm 23: King David’s Version When I was just a hungry sheep __and I was lonely, lost and scared, You somehow found me, fed me, led me, __showed me just how much You cared. When in the valley with its shadows __that each prophesy my death, Tho’ I hear...

. Darkface at Dusk "Death is swallowed up in victory" ---1 Cor. 15:4 At twilight, as I walked in solitude Along a country lane, unpaved and worn, Past gloomy fields, of springtime’s verdure shorn, My thoughts enshrouded in a solemn mood, I saw across the road, behind some trees, Through...

. Job’s Rant Job 3: 3-10 . May darkness and death’s shadow claim the day When I was sent to bear the curse of earth. May clouds blot out the night that gave me birth And drown it in the densest blackness.  May Malediction blot each brazen ray Of sun...

. This Is the Choice  The gates of hell Closed from within. No one sends us--- We lock ourselves in. . The gates of Heaven Are open and true, Welcoming souls who Choose to walk through. . This is the choice--- One all of us make. God will walk with...

. Green I’m talking green: the greening ground Of spring and springing hope eternal; The spectrum’s hidden light unbound And animation of all that’s vernal; The pulsing new-found energy Of green, intoxicating green, Candescent with viridity. There is no other drug but green. . . The Luxuriance of Leaves What...

. The Gallows The trial was quick, the verdict read: “Guilty as charged,” the foreman said. The judge declared the man would hang, the leader of a robber gang who stabbed the sheriff with a knife, and made a widow of his wife. Appeals denied, his luck now spent, to...

. The Straight-Fishing, Straight-Talking Jiang Ziya Far off in time and place but still on this small globe, By a river with his beard and stick and robe, A sage thought on a kingdom’s end that war might loot And by the river swung an unbent hook to probe. For...

. Distant Thoughts from Nearby I need to turn my dog-ears up __and harken to the quietude ____ignored for many years, __and contemplate my solitude, ____expressing through my tears Incautious songs that made me up. My oldest friends will never know __the thrall of certain moods I wear, ____the many...

. The House on 58th Street for my father Salvatore J. Salemi (1913-2008) The house on 58th Street stood right by A cemetery—Calvary by name. Looking out our windows we could see A high stone wall, hand-fashioned of huge rocks (And to a child’s mind only giants could Have raised...

. The Test The second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' —Jesus (Matthew 22:39, NASB1995) Is every trial just a self-created test? Perhaps we do not grow until we have been stressed. How do we pass the test, so that we may be blessed? Perhaps we...

. The Number 207: The Road to Nowhere Oh once along the Road to Nowhere That used to be the Uxbridge Road You’d board and pay the tuppenny bus fare And go where milk and honey flowed. For this was then a demi-Eden Where gentlefolk would take their ease. With...

. Anesthesia Where was I for that half an hour or so While somewhere deep inside me they explored? The body’s secrets mine so far outsoared, I’d been sent off someplace I didn’t know. And “sleep” they called it yet somehow a sleep Without the possibility of dream; A waking...

. The Moselle Tranquil meandering alluvion, From Vosges pink sandstone hills it percolates In rillets past rich vines in echelon To cradle villages of varied traits. Saint Castor limns a linear regime, Both slender arms extended fatherlike; The fields behind rise steeply from the stream. New homes? At either end...

. Sonnet When sitting on a swing my cheeks were chilled, I gazed and saw the dawn, a new spring day. I knew those colors soon would fade away, But for a moment, time had slowed and stilled. The sky was cloudless, clear, and it was filled With purples, reds,...

. Commodore Perry Opens Japan On July 8, 1853, on the orders of President Millard Fillmore, Commodore Matthew Perry led four American ships into the harbor at Tokyo Bay, seeking to pierce Japan’s isolation from the western world and establish regular trade and discourse for the first time in over...

. The “Muse” A sailboat, small, unvarnished wood, her sail a swath, a patch, of red fastened by type-9 yo-yo string to a pencil mast and a stick of boom; a sailboat, small, unvarnished wood atop a bookcase, moored abreast an amphora vase wanting Greek wine, sprouting a wilting bouquet...

. Quattrocento On the Fresco “Madonna del Parto” by Piero della Francesca, Monterchi, Italy, circa 1460 We file into a silent darkened room. Now, a stagelight floods the wall to show bright colors of a rediscovered fresco. Our eyes adapt to preternatural gloom. Twin angels grasp a fur-lined tent, reveal...

. Creation From deep within eternity, the soundOf song burst out! As Perfect Fullness stirred,A melody in wisdom wrought, profound,Complex in form and powerful in wordReverberated… undulated… surged!Celestial sleeves rolled up; the work could start.Then the opaque, void emptiness emerged,As the Almighty Mover set apartA space where being meets with time....

. Emptiness “There’s emptiness and then there’s emptiness,” the wise old voice inside me sighing said (and maybe not so wise as old, I’d guess): the emptiness that sits like something dead and leaden just behind your heart and bred there by a life too silly and too sad and...

. Come September a pantoum Ohio State’s your home come September, Though we'll be lonely, stuck as empty nesters. Our home will be without its central member, When college life will beckon each semester. Though we'll be lonely, stuck as empty nesters, We'll always cherish memories of you as a...

. Note to a Sloppy Homeowner in response to C.B. Anderson's “Know How to Mow” Increasing rates are musts for folks like you. “Annoyance tax.” I mowed your lawn last time. I chose the route and sent away the crew— (They’re Mexican). The scheme was by design. As we all...

. To Music Oh, Music, wherein lies your wondrous power To pierce the barren heart and open wide Joy's floodgate in the soul, that from inside Fresh streams may flow that make the desert flower? By what strange force do your strains overwhelm The soul beneath great cataracts that surge...

. We Must Invest in Self-Investigation __If past mistakes were soft cupcakes ____to scoff at and reject and so avoid the drill of mending toothaches, __If all the try-out greeds of youth ____were but a crumb of sugar to be brushed off from behind a tooth, __If all our fails...

. Elegy "Beauty can pierce one like a pain." —Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks When Mother died, she left me all her books. Bewitched by words, how much she loved to read. And chief among her loves was Buddenbrooks. Its blues and yellows deeply sowed their seed. When she read Mann, his...

. America America, vast land of dreams __From sea to shining sea, Where eagles soar and twilight gleams __On Lady Liberty; America, you lit the way For those who sought a brighter day __In glorious company; America, land of the free, You hold a golden history. America, home of the...

. With Liberty and Justice for All Old Glory may have stripes and stars, But on those stars and stripes are stains— Reminders of a past that’s ours— Where shame, as well as pride, remains. The sweat of slavery is there; The smoke from dim and flaring lamps; The ash...

. The Great War Ever be their memory, Those interred across the sea, Men who, fighting evil, fell, Who endured the martial Hell; Those who to their homes returned, Shot or shell-shocked, broken, burned, Shrapnel fast within the flesh, Wounds and scars forever fresh; Those who coped in stoic silence,...

. For My Grandfather While Sharpton praised low bandits for their grace, And Barack preached self-pity with pure glee, You always taught the simple truth of race. While Black Lives Matter set Pan’s chaos free, Though CRT commands us to erase The common crook’s complete complicity, The polis’s servants will...

. True Grit My favourite movie? If I must decide, I'd pick a classic western above all, those epic films of frontier macho pride. Enter the hero, riding straight and tall. There'll be some gunplay, and a bar room brawl. The men are men, and say just what they mean,...

. The Odd, Flawed and Awed Inspired by “The Cremation of Sam McGee” by Canadian poet Robert W. Service If you hear from God, though the words sound odd, __you must not ignore that voice. That’s what Jonah did, when he went and hid, __but he found he had no...

. Butterfly Habit Ungainly butterfly, Misdirected flight. Fascinating random, Unpredictable delight. To and fro… up and down And backwards if you please, Bumbling aeronautics Independent of the breeze. Unruly butterflies, Liberated dancers. Whimsically wonky Little hit and miss romancers. Playful little femme fatale, Capriciously she teases, Wobbling uncontrollably On butterfly...

. Beatrice and the Ineffable Smile: Canto XXIII of Paradise by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) translated by Stephen Binns Just as a bird that stands watch to ensure __the safety of her brood, beside the nest __throughout the night which hides all things from her, who, eager to behold them after...

. On Second Thought When words fail, __perhaps it’s not the words at all, __but hobbled minds that cannot call __a lucid image to avail ____the powers of description. When love fades, __it might not be true love that’s lost, __but rather that endearments tossed __with shoptalk salad-wise evades ____all...

. Behind the Cathedral Master masons made these bastions their own by blending crafts, attaining structural awe; from Notre Dame, to Salisbury and Cologne they dazzled kings and stupefied the poor. The scale envisaged dwarfed the parish churches; kaleidoscopic windows tamed the light, while gargoyles gurned from on their lofty...

. Poems from 'The Still Beloved' ('La Amada Inmóvil') by Amado Nervo (1870-1919) translated from the Spanish by Alan Steinle The poems below are selections from the book La Amada Inmóvil: Versos a Una Muerta (The Still Beloved: Verses to a Dead Woman). This Spanish book was written by the...