Beauty

  If You’ve Ever Drowned Have you ever wished to take a breath As water closes in to fill your...

  Heavenly Father For just a second let me give You all Of my attention; just a moment when I...

  Living Psalm ---February, 1997 A tempest rages on within my soul, And tears flow freely down my troubled face,...

  Nature's Family ---after Francis of Assisi To glance at Brother Sun’s resplendent gaze, To feel he signifies omnipotence, To...

  The River & The Sea She’s silver down a mountain side Moonlight or sunlight, she’s the bride. A River,...

  Power of a Pen Really not much of a treasure, You can find them anywhere. They are cheap and...

  One Night in Bangkok   6:00 p.m. One night in Bangkok---and this searching man From Georgia must explore its...

  The Mahjong Flowers   Orchid Lone in the cold of working solitude, The scholar and the orchid strain to...

  Summer Sails Floating through an azure sky, Rhinos, rabbits and dragons fly. Lofty sails puff out like pillows, Catching...

  No Body Here on Earth Her cancer broke through chemo’s flame at last. Her lungs held on for months,...

  A Pot of Tea __A pot of tea Stirs the mind this winter morning. __A pot of tea Shared...

  Swallowtails Every year we till and sow our kitchen garden, parsnips in a six-foot line, to catch the glow...

  Ode to a Dragonfly High in the torrid, torpid dog-day air A shape, elusive, skeletal, darts by--- Yet elongated,...

  Big Cat Dance In my home state of Michigan _They rip up all the roads To vex the heart...

  The Secret Rose Somewhere unknown there grows A multifoliate rose Whose petals are arranged In symmetries unchanged By vagaries...

  Isle of Romance O Isle of Romance, what a fanciful thought, _Most surely a sensual place--- Capri, Catalina, Tahiti...

  When She Arrives A house is born of bricks and stone, Of measured walls and polished floor; It keeps...

  Serenade __Late summer’s twilight skies Hum with the song of a thousand faint voices--- _A choir of myriad sprites...

  Bone China My dear ones soon to marry, if you’re able Do plan good dishes for your dining-table: Selecting...

  Unrest On the Floodplain The rain commenced in darkness, flung upon These acres as the heavens thumped and crashed....

  Latitude and Loss One spring morning they announced themselves at last: a faintly murmured intercourse emerging surely from the...

  Solitude Bright Venus, crescent moon, faint pearl-gray sky obscurely light the scene. A giant dolmen prostrate, astride huge boulders:...

  The Sparrow It started in the dark and early hours. Kyiv—asleep, enjoying blissful dreams. Then missiles streaked. Explosions. Debris...

The Passing Place me not in a bed at my dying; _I'd rather a bench by the sea Or a...

  Allegrezza In the harbor, the masts tilt left and right like metronomes conducting waltzes made of wind and wave,...

  The Last Voyage of Barnaby Bear When first the winter twilight dimmed the pane And rain beat softly on...

  Impressions How often are impressions deemed profound, Accepted fully, carried all around, And stated with assertive satisfaction, From merely...

  The Reveal of the Rocks The August days of summer weighed in full Upon us, green and heavy with...

  Art Work First thing each morning, Susie makes the bed. I should say, “sculpts the bed”, because she treats...

  The Gold Star Mother “Dear Mom, Dad, Billy and Baby Sis, It’s rough out here but I’m with some...

  An American Dash There are two dates on a headstone: the date we’re born, and then the last. And...

  The Anonymous Soldier Beneath these granite monoliths we stand, Immortalizing warriors’ names in stone. We oft forget the sacrifices...

  For Those We Never Meet Before the dawn could touch the pines, _Or gild the ridges high, The miners...

  Ben Franklin's Copper Fugio Cent Designed by Benjamin Franklin, the copper Fugio coin was the first coin circulated in...

  The American Spirit (One Voice, 250 Years)   I Brave loving hearts have helped our nation stand, though history...

  The Ballad of Zebulon Pike In Colorado’s mountain range _There stands a peak named Pike’s. Named for our hero...

  A Snowy Egret While driving down the road one day, in the pouring rain, a snowy egret flew above...

  The Swearing-in of Calvin Coolidge ---Plymouth Notch, Vermont, 1923 Strange, the postman’s loud, insistent knock (The nearest phone, in...

  Birdsong If I might for a moment go all soft And corny; hold in humble hands aloft A simple...

  American Dreams   I Dreams of new realms, refuge outside The scepter’s and the crozier’s reach: Dour, black-clad zealots...