Beauty

  After the Turning Point ---a double refrain ballade At slender hindrances we fall, Uneven ground, path shadowy; To tainted food or alcohol, Blood clots or bullets, frail are we, But choosing a healthier strategy, An enterprising, purposeful view, Our disciplined efforts turn energy To forward the rational good we...

  To the Captive Sun You set now, levitating low, Just deigning lazily to throw Your gently flaming, scarlet glow On empty miles of windswept snow, Tinging the icy, barren white With fiery red as if alight Yet melting not, to tease the sight Before you fade to darkest night---...

  The Birthday of a Bride A woman, when she enters into labor on the day She brings at last into the world the object of her love— A long awaited, precious baby, sent from God above— Knows well that, to receive this gift, she has a price to pay,...

  The Precious Blood The blood of Jesus bought me from the hands Of foes for whom I scorned divine commands. My guilt is gone: His blood grants purest grace, And entry to His heart’s most holy place. His bloodshed seals our ceaseless covenant In goodness vigilant and militant. His...

  What We Learn From Breaking Waves Those who climb the furthest up the shore Are not the waves that break from greatest height, Who must contend with those who broke before And spend their force against their backwash flight. More to be admired are quiet swells Who bide their...

  How Septuagenarian’s Cope Past seventy. Age does prevail. _The day is growing dim. I’ve managed through life’s calms and gales— I still can trapse through woodland trails _And work out at a gym. Past seventy. Age does assail. _Our grandkids prove time zooms! Their one-track minds never derail: Just...

  Upon Meeting a Crane ---at the Wilmington VA Medical Center I met a crane; the crane met me beside A hill ambitiously too mowed, Girdled by a semi-liquid stream--- The kind that swells and empties with the tide. The crane and I perched, motionless, serene, Bore witness as the...

  The Face At night, surreptitiously, it emerges out of the TV screen, or when the light bulb's put to rest, its wave of horror surges from darkened corners, weakening my sight. It foams up in the bathing tub, assails my morning mind that's fairly free of thoughts. It smirks...

  The Teahouse Garden A place where you can leave your cares behind And have a restful, meditative mind; A Zen-like atmosphere is what you’ll find Without distractions. Put away your phones. Beginning with a path of steppingstones, Observe the moss, the ferns, the verdant tones, The koi-filled pond, the...

  Morning Glory The mornings are a challenge for the old man. Get up. Get dressed. Get the dogs out. Get them fed. His several pains are worse. It’s cold and dark outside. The world, it seems, is set against him. But he knows that’s not the case. He hums...

  Prayer (5:00 a.m.) Some stubborn pain (the world… the past…) Is peeking through the cracks, and all I want is somehow to at last Come home to something steady, fast, (I won’t say innocence, but still…) To something pure and whole that will In me a simpler soul recall....

  Damon and Pythias The two spoke number lore with every breath, Disciples of Pythagoras and friends, But one was seized and chained, condemned to death As loud opponent of tyrannic trends. He felt a need that normally attends Life’s end, to go and settle his affairs. The tyrant said,...

  The Throne at Knossos Kings, nations, empires, tongues have passed, Through fourscore centuries, but you last, _Carved from immortal stone Long before Caesar was to reign Or king of England, France, or Spain: _Europe’s most ancient throne. Within this crimson-frescoed hall, Enthroned on your majestic, tall, _White alabaster seat,...

  My California A tangled maze of gushing streams My sunny California cries. Her sky is veiled in morbid memes That source her sad and raining eyes. What doleful demon of despair Has dared to infiltrate your skies? What craven catalyst of care Has dared to blur your sparkling eyes?...

Beneath an Iron Hand Though they spent years beneath an iron hand, the quiet people still knew how to sing and hope moved soft but steady through the land. Their murmurs grew, hushed voices echoing like hidden water stirring under stones, true hearts began to share what they could bring....

  The Ladies on the Floor Above ---for the pianist NW and her daughters, and AGM, aged just one "And therefore is Love said to be a child" ---A Midsummer Night's Dream The ladies on the floor above _Are not what they pretend; They all possess a secret love _And...

  Cycle of Song O Schubert! Praise with Song your blessed Birth; With youthful Skill, no mortal Feats surpass, You crafted Lieder of the highest Worth And matched with Harmonies of the finest Class. Poets' Words took flight, lifted by your Art, And ancient Sorrow sprang through vaulted Air; You...

  It Must Be Spring Again The air is clear and crisp today _While walking through my garden. A morning shower comes to play, _But then it begs my pardon. The blended scent of flowers blooms, _And scrubs the morning air. A bee seems drunk on their perfumes _And wanders...

  At the Wine Bar Embrace the riverlike and endless flow, the rush of energy, the burgundy of Cabernet, Petite Sirah, Merlot, the golden Chardonnay and Pinot Gris, the fevered throbbing, pulsing, beating, blind viniferous sensations, sweet bouquet of pepper, plum, or potpourri, a mind aroused and reeling in a...

  Blood Miracle Red marrow makes most of the cells of our blood, _A half-trillion plus every day. Though we're fully fashioned from regular mud, _The blood renders mud living clay. A stem cell matures to a single blood cell _That travels around a few days, Resembling vermillion or light,...

  The Last of Winter I stand here at the window glass, The scene before me clear and wide, To watch the last of winter pass _Over the countryside. Gone times, gone days lie out of mind, Forgotten in the melting snow. The future I have yet to find; _This...

  Reverie I genuflected, claimed a pew. _The nave was silent-dim. Polychrome glimmers, stained glass threw: _a stagy shark’s-tooth scrim. I shivered in the frigid air _dampened by walls of stone, bowing my head, attempting prayer. _But faith, I could find none. The church's statues seemed to be _quaint artifacts...

    The Villa in Durrës The villa lies in shambles, a woman ravaged, spent, stripped of beauty, usefulness, abandoned to lament. Her pink veneer is peeling, her tiles cracked and scratched. Her floors by waters damaged, her pergolas unthatched. Her curves are caving in now, her arches dipping down....

  Nature's Release Her mind would not surrender; The night kept dragging on. Concerns and obligations--- She struggled towards the dawn. When finally came the sunrise, She took a drive from town To venture into landscape Where Nature wears a crown. The stillness of the morning, A lake, serene and...

  Spring Storm A stirring in the pine, a tomblike pause, and then a rhythmic misty harmony is tapping on the leaves, as if applause were heralding some heavenly esprit for boughs awakened by the breeze. A veil of steamy gloom obscures the forestland, and droplets in neurotic fits impale...

  King Cyrus Issues an Edict “Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia: ‘All the kingdoms of the earth hath the Lord, the God of heaven, given me; and He hath charged me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whosoever there is among you of all...

  When Still Means Free ---upon watching the movie Melania When someone causes one to smile, With radiance mild, and without guile, And makes demonics far to flee, Amid such times when still means free, Without commotion, but with nerve, No fret or gust, yet still with verve, She’s cultivated...

  Sister Goddess and the Chimera “In Greek myth, a chimera is a creepy combination of lion, goat, dragon---in humans, chimeras are one person who contains two sets of DNA.” ---Susannah Cahalan Behold the sister goddess. Her very name is Gloria Deo—glory to God. Her blood has now been offered:...

  Garden Goddess   I. This humble plot of land is bogged in snow And ice, with twigs and brushy sweeps of pine; But soon, the giant marigolds will grow, Emerge from littered leaves and broken vine; For yonder’s where I sprinkled heads of seed In no specific order or...

  Old Bengal A Mystic Play ---for Shivani Muvva Shivani longs for old Bengal, _For palaces and kings, For servants at her beck and call _And all expensive things. Her father is the powerful raj; _Her mother is his queen, Surrounded by an entourage _No finer ever seen. And sometimes...

  Atomized The Great Stillness fell throughout the loud town. A quiet dust began to settle down. Where laughter once had echoed in the square, Now only silence lingered in the air. The cathedral doors stood closed and shut fast, No kneeling form to seek a rite long past. The...

  Baucis and Philemon A Poem for the Day After Valentine’s Day   Dank February’s leavened turf broods green stirrings, true, but now the glaze, steel-bright, sun sheeted on our frosted yard lured me outdoors past yesterday’s bouquet and card, your Valentine gift, poor compared with breathing roses our tight-trimmed...

  Snow Day Behold! A winning winter’s day! The soul of spring is on display: A vivifying snow is come And January plays at May. The blanco-verdant maples sway And white relights the heavens’ gray While hills call children out to play. ’Tis only strange the birds are dumb.  ...

  Come Spring Come spring, and all the creeping things come back. The gnats and flies (of various kinds). The ants and spiders. And the ladybugs in black and red. The bees in pollen-gathering pants. The dragonflies and butterflies, one long of tongue, the other with its bulbous eyes. Cicadas...

  Winterberry Robins, cardinals, grouse, and bluebirds, Thrushes, waxwings, and grey catbirds. __Where do they go __In the ice and snow? _Who helps them to survive? Deer and black bears, bees, and flies The Northern Flicker lest it dies __How do they know __Where Winterberries grow _And it’s the one...

  Snowshoeing on a Winter Morning A silver flicker in the tangy pine has stirred us: she, engulfed in puffery of white, and I behind. The nightlong whine of wolfish winds has carved a pageantry of stony icescapes just beyond our womb of crackling hearth. The pinkish blush of dawn...

  Upon Hiking Eagle Rock Loop, Umpire, AR “Silence breeds creativity.” ---Jason Wood The raucous rush at once absorbed in full By holy hush. A stillness permeates. An invitation hovers in the air. A breathless expectation starts to pull Your wearied soul to slow… and contemplate, As autumn woods reveal...

  The Sky Small wonder we placed God up in the sky, Within its infinite and blue construed Eternity and beauty on the fly And in its midnight dark could scarce absorb The mystery divine so archly strewed Amid the seething sheath of star and orb. It prompts a motion...

  Though My Eyes Grow Dim The world that was my senses, Of smell, of taste and sight, With feeling and with sound, Have vanished overnight. Although I hear less sharply The sounds—both low and higher--- I hear the singing now Of the angel choir. Though my steps are slower...

  The Color True It bruises dusk with velvet shade, Descends where ocean dreams are laid. It clings to wings in mid-air flight A jay, a thought, a piece of night. It hums within the glacier’s hold, In sapphire flame and silence cold. It dresses flowers, firm yet shy The...