A time to remember
Old friends, old days,
Fond thoughts and caring
Make
Happy Holidays
The siren song throbbed
from the violin’s throat
and the great auditorium
misted away
We soared in lyric wonder
to ethereal gardens
of stars and mirrored pools
and white flowers floating
Do you know Camelot–
Shining dream of yore
The realm of magic remembered
In song and lore
Along the cliffs of Cornwall?
Have you known
Guinevere,
King Arthur
The noble knights of the Table Round?
Mysterious Merlin,
Morgan le Fay from the land of Gore?
Lovely Elaine and Lancelot,
Their spirits, it is said
Still haunt the shores
Along the cliffs of Cornwall.
Sometimes, in dreams I drift away
To that far gold place,
Where bright deeds
And dark enchantment
Vied for glory
In the golden hours
In the storied land of Cornwall.
If you should someday pass that way,
Look sharp!
For you may find my heart there
Dwelling well in the time of old
Along the cliffs of Cornwall.
Sunset colorfloats red cloud mists
Above the awesome deep
Night comes
fierce, on panther feet
The distant dark growls closer…closer
Lightning
Electrifying
Terrifying
Skydances fire
Thundergrowl shakes the canyon steeps
Windsnarled rain pounces
Drums upon stonecrumbling paths
The storm searches for prey
Claws at cold iron spiderfrail fences
That perch along the danger rims
Milehigh edges erode a little more
Inching back in secret abandoning
Of the old guard rails
The storm insatiable
Leaps its power to the canyon floor
Obliterates the ribbonriver trail
Unseen the river rushes on
The storm rages
A catalyst
As age-old spirits rise
And new ones in tribal bond
Join ancient bones
To trace the timecarved stone.
There
Before me in beautiful design
Flowers
Rising in the air
I remember now
In later hours
The color, shape and greening line
Of stem and leaf
And this is strange:
I know
That roseate hue was one time born
For just that moment,
That spot to adorn
Beneath an arched stone span
lilies floated
liquescent glow
mystic
rose…blue…white
Entranced
as color flowed
into the heart of memory
for me
I was, by chance,
caught unaware
at dreaming water’s edge
*A painting by Claude Monet
There is a storehouse of delight,
billion-globed in the night,
a treasure there but for the finding
and knowing how to reach the site.
(after viewing Monet’s painting)
The houses at the edge
of the field
are not inhabited
They stand abreast
in silent challenge
Doors are dark
windows stare
roofs are pointed and bleak
Dark clouds pursue
retreating blue of sky
and shadows fall
griming the old gray walls
A meadow of golden flowers
–marching waves of color—
halts at a vague dead-end
The houses at the end of the field
and the flowered meadow
frozen forever
in silent confrontation
It is not an uneven war
(After reading The Inferno)
I am haunted by the sound of Satan
Laughing in his dark, buried towers
Where demons dance to discordant song
And black flowers in doom-embowered rooms
Rise like grotesque gnomes,
Hideous in raucous riot.
My prayer is:
Please, God, let it not be so.
There is a region
In the forest of the heart
Where walks no stranger,
There, secluded and lone,
Wild, exotic tanglewood grows
Which needs no light to give it life
But thrives in somber solitude.