I

May comes in dressed with flowers wild.

It is a pole with ribbons streaming down

Around which children romp and play.

May is, also, blond, cute and mine

For whom, my heart grows ever fonder.

She seems almost an angel, at least to me.

How could I have been this lucky?

 

 

II

May is a cream and yellow blossom

That grows an apple you dare not eat.

May is also a word with which to ask

Permission to have almost anything

Including asking Susan for a kiss,

Or Grandma for a piece of fudge.

 

 

III

Come!  Visit me in the month of May.

The sky is so blue, it aches the heart.

Soft breezes will caress your very soul.

No other breath of air smells as sweet.

Whichever wildflower you most desire,

You’ll find the choicest in May.

Yet, beware, for love strikes quickly, in May.

For just a blink of the eye in time

They seem frozen, as if in flight…

Those tired, black-dusted miners’ faces,

Down-beaten and old before their time.

The mine mouth at their back seemed like

An inanimate, all devouring, beast

With an insatiable hunger for flesh;

No bargains, no special discounts here.

A penalty applied for any sloppy work–

A broken arm, a leg, a crushed skull.

At times a surtax was extracted–

Someone’s life and perhaps many more.

The coal mine never forgives a mistake

And the price of coal remains the same:

A pound of flesh for a pound of coal.

Even those small frame houses on the hill

Exact their special toll on miners’ folks.

Too many people in too small a house;

Children playing on toxic piles of slate;

Mothers with hands and knuckles scarred thin.

Sometimes, death seems to be a release;

No more coal, no more sleepless nights,

No haunting heartache of a hungry child.

Only a few ever escape this dreariness.

Rest will end as always before.

(Written for a friend)

Though not one rain cloud is near,

A raindrop slides slowly down my cheek

For I must say good-bye for now,

Even though I just learned how to say

Hello with a bit a love enclosed.

It is, now, too soon we must part.

So little of time and much too short

For silly quarrels and silent looks,

Repressed feelings or angry outbursts.

Too few, those moments of tenderness.

The quiet joys of a love embraced.

That soaring ecstasy of passion

When we chose to shut out the world.

Oh! So soon to have to say good-bye.

If you could only hear my voice,

Or feel the warmth of my light touch.

Dearest love, I shall look forward

To that day when you and I rejoin,

Nevermore to be apart again.

 

A patterns of shape, colors,

Imaginary hopes, dreams—

Life, like a river, moves ever onward

Gathering all the events of time,

Blending the good, the bad

And the indifferent into one stream.

Only in that one place in its embrace

That holds our individual life

Is there a clearness of sight.

We perceive love, hate, friendship—

All the personal relationships

That make our life worthwhile

As through a clear window.

For others, only sepia brown water

Flows by in the river we know.

Who knows, they might be right.

 

Perhaps, sitting here just reading

Has filled my mind with such wayward thoughts

As to be considered, at best, as nonsensical.

But then, sometimes nonsensical is correct.

Time and time alone can give us the answer.

Let’s consider whether, or not, it’s nonsensical.

Where shall we start?  At the beginning?

Of course!  But where does it begin?

Let’s start with one of my crazy dreams.

I am usually the hero striding through a crowd

To rescue someone in distress, deathly frightened.

And that’s nonsense, I’m only five foot seven

Weigh only one hundred, thirty-seven pounds

And that’s when I’m soaking wet, clothes and all.

But, in a dream, anything is possible, I think.

The last time I rescued some poor soul,

I woke up in the tangle of my bed clothes.

I remember leaping from a high cliff

Rescuing a young child from a raging river.

Of course, the bed was a terrible mess

With swimming so hard to escape that flow