Beauty

  Rain and Snow on Christmas Day In songs of old and times of yore, _'Tis Snow that rules the day, Her lacy crystals dress the land, _With bridal white array. The towers housing silver bells, _That ring on Christmas morn, All sing the praise of Snow the Fair, _Their...

  Liturgical Loopholes   I. Scheduling Redemption: The Pious Musings of a Serial Sinner I must confess when I transgress I keep my conscience squeaky-clean. A swift disclosure lessens stress. A sinner’s innards burn and roil. I keep my conscience squeaky-clean. A word of mercy quells the boil. I’m quick...

  America! ---for the one-year anniversary of the second Inauguration of President Donald J. Trump, leader of the Free World Oh, giant of the Western hemisphere! Colossus of the gently setting sun! Where liberty is held supremely dear And fight for truth and justice never done. A nation born in...

  Burdens "eternal weight of glory" ---2 Corinthians 4.17 The conifers out back, weighed down with snow, seem like a band of weary pilgrims who have stopped to rest along their way. They know their burden will be lifted soon, yet through this season, they must bear it frequently. They...

  A Tribute to Scott Adams ---1957-2026 We lost Scott Adams, and his fertile mind. We mourn his passing, but he left behind a truth and wisdom-filled satiric view of what life’s like inside the corporate zoo. He knew exactly what it meant to be a worker stifled by bureaucracy....

  To Once Have Been Immortal A mountain swollen with the impudence of jaunty youth, unfazed by plodding Time, aspires to lofty realms of Providence as blight and battle interrupt the rhyme of living Earth. And that was I, a life ago, oblivious to wisdom, drowned by notions of a...

  When from the Damning Writs When from the damning writs of men’s assize I flee the dock of ignorance and woe And seek my room, where walls may stifle sighs A refuge from the slings all wounded know And find, within that keep, a soft-bound treasure To hold, it...

  The Measure of a Woman (or a Man) We’re measured in our mother’s womb by ultrasound to check all’s well, a heads up for an infant’s room, to know will pink or blue be swell. We’re measured on the day we’re born, when by the pound and ounce we’re...

  Encounter with My Dead Father I am holding my father’s hand so white, and in silence we walk up the whispering track. Dark figures with helmets lie out of sight, blue shapes of hands wave to me through the night--- _and I dare not look back. No purple blood...

  Wall of Ice I have met an icy barrier On this pleasant journey Life That has tried to freeze my spirit In its paralyzing vise. Like an animated iceberg Sporting crystal hands and feet--- Like a SEAL that’s on a mission It intends to bring defeat. In its fist,...

  King of Poets Salaciously Saul slouches on the throne (Backbiting envy never sits upright) Since David’s victories surpass his own. The king’s hard heart and weakened faith excite Malevolence for which he won’t atone. Young David could have cured the spirit’s flaw With moving melodies from seven strings To...

  Watercolors Before her was a canvas, white as snow. Beside her, watercolors, bright and clean. For hours, she sat quiet, stared at both. And hours later, still there was no scene. No still life piece contrasting dark and light. No lovely garden Renoir, no Monet. No Autumn Blossoms, nor...

  Art and Nature The well is deep Where poets keep Their unused words, And sylvan groves Are treasure troves Of singing birds That imitate The lyric prate Of mantic bards, Which might be why The morning sky Above our yards Inspires the mind To seek and find A soaring...

  Star of Wonder We read of three Wise Men at Christmas each year Who left home on a journey in search of a King. A light in the heavens God made to appear And then told them to follow and leave everything. Like them—if you’re wise—God will give you...

  Refrigerator Bird “Say the word for penguin.” Jen Jen waited. Silence. Then I guessed: “Refrigerator bird?” Laughter shook the teacup in her hand. “Best penguin that I’ve ever heard!” In the margin of my workbook page she drew a penguin, waddling, fat. This is how she teaches. Not by...

  The Oak Trees Stunned by the sunlight on a winter day, A shock too strong to meet, I turned to look At oaks that stood in statuesque array, And somehow on their wintry limbs they took The sun’s bold light and sent it back to me. I heard no...

  A Cardinal on a Snowy Day A single cardinal, on a snowy day, Cloistered in a nearby hemlock branch Paints brilliant red onto a winter's gray His plumage, like a scarlet avalanche, O’ersweeps the eye, diverts me from a scene Of whiteness drifting down on dark green boughs. He...

  Legacy of Light One by one, extinguished stars return to take their places in the fallen night; So long defunct, yet they faintly burn _in constellated webs of light. Imploded vanishings of dust and gas, from cold abysses of the infinite broadcasting their ghostly lives across _appropriated years of...

  Homage to Brigitte Bardot ---God bless Brigitte Bardot for her courage and frankness. “And God Created Woman…” yes, indeed— Was there another female who came close To how He crafted you? No man could spy A single flaw in that Parisian breed Of firm-fleshed structure right down to the...

    Fireflies Driving down a country road one sultry summer evening, with headlights sweeping through the little clouds of dust ahead, Caused by cars that led the way or met me in the night, I scanned the ditches, left and right, for signs to find a bed. I’d always...

  Her Grace The day arrived when Edna was too blind To live alone. She gave her things away— The china owl with one glass eye—her mind Was on the bumps in sidewalk cracks that day. A flowered pitcher, empty, save for tears— She knew what faced her in that...

  A Perfect Match is Found _Some people love the valleys. _Some people love the mountains. _Some people love the oceans. _I love the flowing fountains. _Some people love the forests, _While some people love the glens. _Some love the mountain meadows, _While I love writing pens. _Some people love...

  The Seven Crossings When I was a child, my mother sung Of verdant plains where bright light hung, Of halcyon hills in distant lands, Beyond seven rivers and silver sands. "One day we’ll cross them all," she crooned, "By boat or bridge, by sun or moon, Until we reach...

  Darkness and Dawn   I. Christmas Whispers A brood of vipers slithers in the sun With darkest hearts and airs of starkest white. These snakes of robe and ring and tricky tongue Bedazzle with a bright, misguiding light. They swirl a smoky trail---a spicy spell That leads the lured...

  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...