Beauty

. Thorns Grow with Song It’s time to rend our hearts and look inside The chambered will, into the voices in The vein: thorns grow with song. A hope applied With mercy calls the tuner of the tidal Pull of...

. Mourning Louis XVI We must not say in public that we mourn--- Sit still, Brigitte, and listen to your père! If we disclose our grief we court the hate Of France’s revolutionary swarm. These days are bleak...

. The Departing Year This night shall stand and stare with wintry rage Through half-closed windows stained in loss and gain; To measure all astounding feats and fame Against those bitter tears in blinding...

. The Babylonian Exile At first it cut much quicker to the bone: The loss of all, our world brought to the brink. But by and by you slowly start to think That maybe your concerns were overblown. Their gods are...

. The Sky with Birds Just Lately Born Sometimes there’s a sadness in my heart. A stone, a thought, a fearful start. Yet I rise and see the morn, The sky with birds just lately born. So brave they try their...

. . A Broadside Drawn up before us, proud and sure, Costumed in their haute couture, And sporting all the best coiffures, With colours purple and azure, Loom the powers of disarray, Armed with bromide and...

. A Holy Picnic A small child had a vision in the light Of day, while sitting square upon the rug. It seemed as if she rose to a great height, And there, her senses gave a mighty tug As if to warn her there...

. Dark Sky Back home, the dark is overborne By a billion busy diodes Emitting artificial light, Thence seeping out into the night. But, up here, there are auroras, Constellations, and nebulae--- Or so the...

. Calendar Poems by Margaret Coats January loves what goblets hold, And February complains of cold. March plows the fields with furrows new, And April nurtures each flower’s hue. Dew on the grass, and leaves...

. Same Old New Year   I bid adieu. You shuffle out. A new you shimmies in--- A you without the frown and pout, A happy you of zip and clout, And once again I’ve little doubt You’ll make me rich and...

. Two Empty Chairs “We did the NFP bit for awhile ... and have felt revulsion over it ever since. During that time we might have had at least two more children.”  ---Letter to the Editor, Seattle...

. “Where Ever-present Joy Knows Naught of Time” ---Dante, Paradiso, Canto X, D.L. Sayers translation a rondeau redouble Where ever-present joy knows naught of time, The music of infinity is sung In...

. Villanelle for Timothy When chains of cold resentment in the end Entangle souls and circle ‘round to bind, There’s freedom in forgiveness, my dear friend. When grievance woos the wounded to offend And...

. On Attending a Holiday Ensemble with My Wife We’re gathered in a colleague’s home, Invited to this performance; Watching musicians’ fingers roam, I’m taken to when providence Crossed mine with Dr....

. Wisdom When young I dreamed of someday being wise, And pictured brilliant input holding sway. But via jolts of life now realize, There’s wisdom also in what you don’t say. . . No One Fully Measures...

. St. Joseph's Hymn of Praise Matthew 2: 10-15: “And when the Magi were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee...

. Glory in the Night It was a night like any night, when in the evening chill Cold shepherds sat by bonfire's light on many a naked hill To warm themselves while watching over flocks of wandering sheep That...

. The Animals on Christmas Eve Some boarded dogs stayed for a while Until their owners took them home; I walked them all, in single file, But left the cows and pigs alone. My mother went the extra mile For...

. Nativity Scene The hour draws near to midnight, and a priest Completes his preparations for the feast, Assisting at last practice with the choir, Inspecting layout in a makeshift stable, Checking on the...

. The Present---Tense The partial thaw of yesterday now slips Beneath a crust of light that is white snow. This snow is hiding stumbling blocks that trip Intrepid elders' steps to broken hips As small-warmed...

. Mother’s TV It numbs regretBut, better yet,Helps her forget,Lest devils spawn. It quells each thoughtOf folly’s rotLost, sold, or bought,From dawn till dawn. Time Confounder,Siren Sounder,Demon Drowner...

. The Tartini Tones Combination tones generated by violins of good quality can be easily heard, affecting the perception of the intervals. The harmonic content of the dyad is enriched by the combination tones...

. Winter’s Perfection A Zen aesthetic guides winter’s perfection--- uncluttered, austere, natural, still, subtle, embracing flaws and daring introspection, a quiet season, slow, without the hustle of...

. The Portrait   I dreamed I was an artist, and had made A likeness of the one I loved for all To wonder at, and, that the homage paid Might grow, I hung it on a trendy wall. It was a likeness, but had...

. Toward Yehuling, 1211 Unfolding steppes emerge as flattened plains Of long grasses of gold and April-green, While crystal streams, like bold and careless children, Careen away through boundless fallow...

. Lessons in Love  inspired by William George Falconer (1922 – 2006) I. The First The photo flew from Grandad’s falling wallet. It fluttered to the floor within my reach. I picked it up and saw the...

. Supplication to Erato and Melpomene Erato, decked in crimson roses; green branches of myrtle, Help me forge the words to win her heart: My crippled pen can summon not the words that might make fertile Barren...

. Yet The withered dune grass slumps beneath a sere Gray frozen sky, as winter tag-teams fall And nighttime frost compels the Black-Tailed deer To seek out warmer lairs beneath the tall, Cone-laden Sitka...

. Gathering in the Names for Michael Vincent Laureate Ortiz Hill (1957-2022) I'll add names to my life until I'm subtracted, And my name is as long as this poem. There's a scroll with a list of the lives I've...

. Tuesday Afternoon I sit beside a lake and fish, And read The Captive Mind. An hour gone, I stand and switch My bait for a new kind. But cheddar cheese and crawdad square For catfish work the same: In wind...

. Sister Thérèse Scatters Flowers Soeur Madèleine has brought me this bouquet--- Vermillion, scarlet, each rose bright and pretty. She’s kind to join me in my cell to pray, But I cannot accept her...

. Child's Garden  To never end, we thought, the morning light that kissed our eyes, and breezes whispering with cherub voices, pausing to invite us to a secret world, and conjuring the whims of pussy willow...

. Elegy for Miran Sutherland Miran Sutherland was miscarried at 14 weeks. Read his story here. His earthly life a hundred days, He died inside his mother’s womb. His tiny eyes would never gaze On lights that...

. On Ford Madox Brown's "The Last of England" Their balcony beringed with cabbages, They fix their eyes on the receding shore And blankly call to mind the ravages Now past and wonder at the ones in store. The...

. Grifters With smug, aggressive faux urbanity __They do their worst to seize control. They think it signals perfect sanity __When they adopt a regal role, Expecting us to stroke their vanity, __Lest our good...

. Nessun Dorma after the Italian libretto by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni  The aria "Nessun Dorma" was played for Donald and Melania Trump's first dance at their wedding in 2005. No sleep tonight.  The...

. Aunt Helen Aunt Helen told me it was time to go. It hurt her to sit upright in the bed, a fact I'd rather that I didn't know. It's OK, I can turn this gear below. Please don't; a flattened mattress hurts my...

. Advent Poem When October leaves have fallen and November skies are grey, The stores proclaim that Jesus, hope, and joy are on the way. The virgins hear and heed the call (this world they long to flee), And...

. What Geese May Teach My mother had the power that knowledge wields, So questions such as—Would you like to go? Were never invitations, but commands To fly away, cross yellow fields and low, Like summer...

. Last Letter from Florence A recent incident recalls the fears Your letters have expressed: that seven years In this art-laden place might rob me of Whatever you once thought that you could love: The flat I...