Blood Brother

listen!

Hear our lonely steps as they glide

down the ghostly moccasin trail

near the grasses of echo place

in the crystal depths of the waters

of beautiful mountain,

seek us

O Pale-faced Brother!

Follow us

through the forest of fire

where songbirds dream

of vanished dustwing flights

O, find us!

when twilight smokes silently spire

above high cold canyon walls

and long ice night haunted with hope,

send shrilling coyote calls

into the wilderness of memory

At dawn when the winds thrum

through carved stone cathedrals

and the copper spirit sun

comes drumming upon the land

Blood Brother

search for us yet

through the desert day

into the savage sunset

#AmericanIndian #NativeAmericaHeritageDay

The star that took to flight

has left the sky all black

How goes the dream tonight?

 

When suns burn out and light

is spent and life gone slack

what remains is blight

and loss and bitter lack

How goes the dream tonight?

 

A useless nightmare rite

pursues by lightless track

the star that took to flight

 

No telescope can sight

no passionate plea call back

our star that took to flight

How goes the dream tonight?

 

#Mourning #ElegyPoem

Grant me,

O, Lord, the grace

to look beyond the dark

to see into Thy world of love

and light

Sly as a naked beggar beguiling,

The moon, spilling silver lies

Down chiffon skies,

Implies

That the slightest blinking

Of the eyes

Could strike the night into transparency

ABRACADABRA!

Lo! Infinity.

#PoetryandMoon #MoonPoem #MoonMagic

You were born for the river, boy,

and the spell of the rushing current’s call.

You were all our splashing days of summer sun

(but Winter rest and contentment, too.)

By our rule your long life’s end

came all too soon.

 

We buried you on the bank

by the river’s constant roll,

and through summer days

and long winter nights

the lonely bark of brother dog

echoed across the deep water,

and the ghost of your memory

nudged into our rooms

So that we each, alone, wept quietly.

 

#Airedale #KidsandDogs #AdoptaShelterDogMonth

 

Weep, willow, kai!

The sun of sorrow is crossing the sky

Weep, willow, kai!

The morning of sorrow lays dew on the eye.

 

O, Cholena!*

Though the grasses of Echo Place

No longer know thy lithesome steps;

And the waters of Beautiful Mountain

No longer know the grace

Thy body lent their crystal depths;

And the songbirds of the Forest of Fire

No longer are mute with their desire

To hear thy dreamy voice;

Though thou be forgotten

By countless other things,

Each white, new dawn

Shall remember

Finding thee living still

Within mine eyes;

And twilight mist

Remember

Hearing my cry

Beat its lonely, wild wings

Against the gray dust

On evening sky:

O, Cholena,

Thou are not forgotten,

My dear!

 

Weep, willow, kai!

Weep, willow, kai!

 

*Cholena means bird and is of Native American origin.

 

#NativeAmericanDay #Mourning #ElegyPoem #LovePoem

Half-dreaming on the cabin porch

We rocked and talked

While our eyes searched

For the vanished lake

 

Pine trees

Barely discernible

Tall feathers

Wind-brushed the black sky

 

An ocean of stars

Flooded the night

With foreverness

 

Postponing sleep

We talked and rocked

Through the midnight hour

Our voices low as muted music

Our occasional laughter

Candle flames

Phantom lanterns in the dark

 

#NaturePoetry

 

 

 

 

The summer lives, where have they fled?

Beneath what distant suns

and star-held moons

reverberate the ghostly calls:  echoes

of childhood songs and laughter bred

 

Of valleys green and cool lagoons?

The young dreams gone—all scattered,

where, who knows?

Yet once they danced the day

flowered the hills

sweet music swept their dawns

their noons

 

The meadows wait, the long grass grows

where summer lives once played

the gold light spills

on memoried fields, the valley stream

runs deep

all are silent; none disclose

where summer lives have fled

O, distant suns

shine gentle glow

upon the vanished ones!

 

#SummerMemories #Youth

 

Firefly summer

Vanishes into autumn smoke

 

Long sun days

And green grasses….

Gone into blue autumn smoke

 

And all our falling-star wishes

Are now pixie-men

Whose sylvan homes

Ring with elfin cries

That escape us forever

Like ghostly butterflies.

 

#SummerPoetry

 

 

Building Blocks

Hot Peppers

Or Double-Dutch

How the rope turns matters much.

We jump, jump.

If we don’t trip or fall before,

Up to one hundred, maybe more.

How the rope turns matters much.

Building Blocks

Hot Peppers

Or Double-Dutch

 

#JumpropeGames  #Games