Beauty

  The Final Cricket The August cricket-choir’s crescendo, In percussive stereo, Extends its forte clamor, frantic For its final chance to show The speed and skill of such tympanic, Constantly increasing tempo--- Energetic and incessant, All through summer omnipresent In its rhythmic virtuoso. Mid-September’s incremental Ritard is hardly heard; its...

  Emotional Ocean We sail or putt a tiny skiff, When tidal waves force us adrift _Over white caps of fear, Or love or strife, or grief or hate... When storms of life do saturate _And waves swell dark and drear. Emotions surge and drench our lives— Gasping for air,...

  Fog of Confusion I claim these rolling hills _Of age-old granite, And the shadow of their bulk _Upon my wall. With sunlight on these hills, _I sense a Wonder, But more I feel when fog _Creates the pall. O' swaths of drifting fog _Will lift and lower, Expose the...

  Christmas Stockings   I Nigh ev’ry sock I’ve ever worn Was gift to me on Christmas morn– A fact the mind should quick embrace Since stockings hang from fireplace __On Christmas morn.   II A naked sole in summer’s heat Gives easing breeze to fevered feet. But, in the...

  Summer’s End ---an Alfred Dorn sonnet It must have been a dream: the nodding boughs Of loveliness, midsummer nights of calm, The days festooned in floral spray finespunned; But seasons change, and now the plaintive soughs Of sadness rustle through the trees. What balm Is there for coming days...

  Sunrise The world is blue at its beginning. Birth is what we wait for, at the edge of earth. __The vague waves lap the shore, __swelled by an unseen oar from where the sea and sky are blurred one blue, a periwinkle, hazy stretch of hue, __a bar of...

  Firefly Behold it glimmer through the trees— A lantern drifting soft and low— It weaves along the evening breeze, A thread of light with gentle glow. It floats, a flick of fairy flame On wings too fine for eyes to trace— A moment's spark—yet not the same As stars...

  Magic Show, North Country The puddling snowbank spills a silver trace, its melt a mirror shattered on the earth. A clutch of clouds wings, birdlike, through blue space above a garden in the throes of birth. First come snowdrops, then the bumptious crocus. Pickets of narcissus will fence tulips’...

  Grandbaby Oh little child, you bring the mysteries of rainbows, storybooks, and pixie dust to life with tiny smiles. Your mama fussed with pink and perky bows and gowns, to please her special angel, pausing once to tease with cooing whispers, even as she shushed the puppy (though without...

  Winter Looms Jack Frost has brushed the mountains’ crests And highland nymphs are shivering, The blackened mauve below the snow Has set my heart to quivering To be among the old growth firs, And tasting icy alpine air--- This flatland life’s no life for me, I’d rather pass my...

  Burnham Beeches A weary pilgrim rests ‘neath ageless trees, Enraptured by a blackbird’s ancient rhyme; The tones of his soft voice upon the breeze Invoke the metered poetry of Time. Each phrase is like a faded memory Of many lives our pilgrim led before; Each life, since passed, transformed...

  All the Colors With all the colors of the rainbow glowing in their hue, I find the one I love the most is the shining ray of blue. It’s the color of the open sky on a clear and gentle day— the same that shimmers through the waves where...

  Perfect Synchronicity He thought back to that hour at dusk’s still height, When bird-song sounded both, outside and in him, And body’s form dissolved in fading light--- No line to part the outer from within him. He closed his eyes, lest vision should betray The boundless calm that gathered...

  Four Rooms in Music’s Mansion   1 _The maestro grasps a complex score, conducts his orchestra without reserve. Connoisseurs praise him; audiences adore _his aura of command, his verve. Spacious chords swell; musicians fill the stage, __laboring to outpour luxurious works of our Romantic age.   2 _Five players...

KO ---inspired by the Lyoto Machida-Vitor Belfort Fight, May 12, 2018 Below the jaw---no gentle punch, A flying kick, a dental lunch; Incisor, cuspid, bent to munch A bitter flavor with a crunch. Machida hailing from Brazil, Where masses staring, glaring, still; He passed his foe a snoozing pill, Out-sassed...

  Feeble Best We try to earn God’s love but can’t succeed. When on His narrow path, we trip and fall. How could we not? We’re merely noise and need. Just shrieking infants, unaware we’re small. To us, our shrieks sound like a symphony. To Him, each one must sound...

  The Decorator I live to decorate for Christmastide. My summer birthday barely means a thing As I count Christmases new glorified By fir or pine or spruce, encouraging My spirits as I check bulbs on each string Inherited. At last, tired colors died, And free to choose, I bought...

  The Time to Give Him Thanks In the still and pristine morning, When the flowers bathe in dew, And the meadows stir from slumber With their creatures, not a few; Just before the mountains shiver At the coming of the light, And the elk in stately splendor Ventures forth...

Musical Version by Lex McKee     Cetus and Jonah’s Lament "And Jonah was extremely happy about the plant. But God appointed a worm when dawn came the next day, and it attacked the plant and it withered." ---Jonah 4.5 When I think now of you, great Cetus---Whale--- And me...

  The Ground of Being Consider that our world may be sewn through With sentience, intelligence and thought. The dead philosophy that we've been taught Has bridled us, imprisoned me and you. Behold, Life! In its innumerable forms, The glory of an animated sky. Expanding from our penchant to ask...

  Swimming to the Waterfall at Uvongo In the heat of the early winter By the haunts of the southern strand. Filled with a lust for adventure We forwent the safety of land. But the cliffs watched on with suspicion, In silence they warned us and said: “Beware of the...

  Just Do It. _My spirit’s wings shall soar _Although at times I stray. When I’m downcast… when life’s storms blast… _I gaze upward and pray. _Fed up with sin and war… _Outside, inside my mind. I do not know where I should go. _What task have You assigned?  ...

Diocletian’s Horse “Save it for your horse.” ---Oedipus Tex, P.D.Q. Bach (Peter Schickele) While Diocletian owned the home Octavian built (although he ruled from Asia Minor, don’t be fooled, He was the emperor of Rome), ambition and a lack of sense brought some in Egypt to rebel against his title....

  Morning Rain Veiled sky, dusk at dawn, Night gone---yet not gone; Half-light, hardly day; Weird world, dim and gray. Rain falls---steady, soft. Mists rise, twirl, and waft. Gentle pattering Drowning everything, Drumming---constant, deep--- Coaxes back to sleep. Sleep, though, now eludes As day’s darkness broods. Thwarted, still I lie...

  Timeless The timeless, gentle swish of wave-washed sand; The echoed “chock” of rounded wave-washed stone; The silent, skittered feet of pipers and A distant sea-tossed crab boat’s throbbing drone. The squawk of gull, the sharp-shrill caw of crow; The unseen shaft of air where eagle’s soar; The dance of...

  Longfellow I first met you in the schoolroom, _When I was but a child, And read your words and heard your voice _Sing out so sweet and mild. But as I grew, I saw your work _More cast off and despised, By those critics who now believe _History should...

  Seeing Shen Yun in Milwaukee The curtain rose—divine, resplendent stage, Where heaven’s hues met earth in living grace. The dancers turned as petals in the wind, Each step a vow, each motion born of truth. Then silence fell—a single voice arose, A song of gold descending from the clouds....

  Early Days The scent of roses, and the blazing sun, The gas pump next door busy—day’s begun. No school; some insects flit. I feel the heat Upon my skinny shoulders and my feet. As Mama’s chickens cackle in their pen, I revel in the world I’m in. But then...

November by the Sea The cliffs, they are eroding On old Pacific shores, But chill November calls me To where the ocean roars. I hear the rolling breakers As they approach the land. I hearken to their thunder Resounding on the sand. And then I'm looking skyward Where there's a...

  Upon Seeing a Stump Where a Tree Once Was When in the park, I passed a felled oak tree That once with lofty boughs would softly sway. At least, I’m sure, it must have waved that way Had I but stopped with eyes willing to see. Had I but...

  Solid Oak The oaks are always late to shed their leaves. They cling to vestiges of summer raiment, Now woebegone and sere, as though it grieves Them to remit the final scheduled payment. The russet husks do battle with each gust Of wind. They rasp and rattle, go to...

  The Long Journey Home I’ve traveled many miles on this long road, Across cold, barren hills and sweeping plains, To reach my home and shed my heavy load And warm my hands where hearthfire's glow remains. The wind blew bitterly across my path, And snowflakes caked my lashes, as...

  The Reliquary One early morning long ago, I stopped to watch the Avon flow. Long-steeped and weedy, olive green, Its waters slipped along below, Slid over rocks, and in between--- Gelatinously smooth and slow, High-hung by vine and leafy screen--- A fragrant, forested ravine. The sun of that Midsummer...

  Listening to Incense A spiral from ignited aloe rises, Translucent, swayed with compound camphor salve Through azure air that gently opalizes The things we see and think we know or have. Soft cloudlets drift from dimness overhead, Obscuring colors as they wreathe the room Where scroll-arm chairs are darkly...

  Hoosier Autumn October! Morning nips and noontime burns; Crisped, sere, dun cornstalks fall beneath the scythe; Chrysanthemums blaze as the woodland turns To living flame, a golden land of myth: Bright yellow birch and beech and tulip-tree, Red sugar-maple, rainbow sassafras, And flame-orange pumpkins fattened lusciously Like Hesperides’ fruit,...

  Alas! “Alas!” A word of grief and rueful mourning; A gut-punch from what was but is no more Or “almost was,” miscarried, died aborning. “Alas!” A raven croaking, “Nevermore.” “Alas!” Shall time deface, erase, surrender The still-warm memory of love’s last kiss? A gasping grasp at fading spectral splendor;...

  Rainbow's End I came upon a rainbow’s end that seemed to have sprung full grown from a little field and launched itself up to the sky and on beyond the far horizon. Grass stalks gleamed with all the colors, spread out like a shield upon the short-cropped ground. Then...

  Blowing Bubbles ---for Lisa Mourning a mother, I gratefully smiled, When you sent me a photo of your little child, To see how she conjured a stream of bright bubbles And set them afloat, so perfect, untroubled, Like meandering thoughts of an innocent mind, To squander themselves on the...

  Lead, Kindly Light ---in the voice of John Henry Newman (1801–1890) Firmly I stand by virtue of belief, Belief in God who wills we act and speak, And aids our feebleness to sanctify What is of earth, of humble worth unique. As one to One, in love to Him...

  Overture of Rain The birds in the thicket lament in the breeze, expose unfurled backs of silver leaves. Clashing in brass, the bugler’s horn blows, resounding in echoes booming below. The reeded timbre of the oboe’s song shaking the Earth with thunder strong. Bowstrings vibrate in a taut staccato;...