(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

 

 

 

 

What magic spark invests the minds

Of the weaver, who with common thread

Weaves an uncommonly beautiful cloth?

How does that spark enter the mind of men

Like Socrates, Mozart or Edison?

Would the clay from which these came

Be different from John Smith, farmer—

Joe Joseph—laborer, or Jake the tailor?

Why does some very obscure couple

Produce an Elizabeth Barrett Browning

And no one else that can compare?

How did Edgar Allan Poe know which words

Would make The Raven so eternal?

How do Paderewski’s fingers produce

Such glorious sounds on his piano

When mine sound like hail on a roof of tin?

Is there a single spark coursing

Through eternal time that skips

About from place to place to touch

Whomever it may strike by chance, or

Is it somehow programmed to appear

At designated times and places

To remind us of the fragility of “class”?