Spring is my lady’s domain
Autumn the field of her brother
Winter waits on yarning old women
Summer sweeps in young children’s laughter.
Time is the tale of seasons
Space present in jumbles of ways
My friends dance in the streets of lifetime
God catches men home full by joy-worn days.
To God be all glory.
The boy he had a cross-shaped stamp
Filled with ink inside.
He used his cross-stamp everyday,
And cared for it with pride.
He would stamp everything he did,
With the symbol his stamp produced.
Until one day his precious stamp,
His precious stamp, it…
Broke.
The ink, ran over the paper,
The stamp was useless now.
He had to send his message still,
But with all this mess, well, how?
The boy sat still, and staring.
At the problem before him.
And slowly his hand moved forward,
With a deep-joy, kind of grin.
His fingers touched the spilt blue ink
And began to swirl around.
Before he knew it, what lay there?
On the page he found…
A cross, a cross, so beautiful,
With swirls springing from the mess.
It was the same, but meant so much more,
Than what he’d called before, “success.”
And what- near the end of each swirl of blue,
What was that he now saw?
His very own fine fingerprints,
He then sat back in awe
With hands held up he saw his fingerTIPS,
Blue from the art he had made.
This gift he was about to give,
Was on himself displayed.
He’d never done something like this before,
The note he wrote that day,
Was the first note he ever wrote to God,
It said, “God, I just wanted to say…”
“To say, ‘Thank You.’” Yes.
That’s all it really said,
And where he’d usually stamp his stamp,
Was a fingerprint cross instead.
He sent the note to Jesus,
He sent it that same day,
And when he washed his hands that night,
The blue began to fade.
He decided then that, to remember,
He would paint frequently.
Not with brushes, or with stamps,
But with his fingers, personally.
Sweaters pulled close against the wind
Beneath a thin grey sky
Soft, drenching rain soaks to the skin
Bleared sunlight seems to lie.
For warmth and green are passing quick
Pale brown the grass is now
Scent of smoke outside drifts thick
Leaves are on the ground.
Just after harvest first snow falls
Evenings are spent inside
Bright leaves carpet tree-pillared halls
Where autumn fairies hide.
To God be all glory.
Strive not to think of the process, friend.
It will but ruin it in the end.
When you read a poem artfully wrought
Treasure the piece; despise poet not.
And here is the rest of it.
To God be all glory.
I walked by the shore,
Holding a shell
Strung on a string
Round my neck
My eyes could not see
The sand at my feet;
They saw things not
On my trek.
An old man walked by
Humming a tune
Shuffling his feet
As he went.
“Where did it come from?”
He asked ‘bout my shell.
I answered the man,
Old and bent.
“Twas given to me
By the man I loved
Once when we walked
On this shore.
“We wandered all night
In still starlight
Listening to the sea’s
Mighty roar.
“At first glow of dawn
He gave me this shell
To remember sounds
Of our walk.
“Then he went to war
And never came back
To the shelled shore where
We used to talk.”
The old man smiled
And nodded his head,
Seeing the tears
In my eyes.
He knew well the sounds
Of war and of death:
The reasons an old
Woman cries.
To God be all glory.
His old eyes were open
Not looking around.
Beside his squeaky rocking chair
Nothing made a sound,
As he sat there rocking,
He remembered days gone by.
Suddenly the rocking stopped
And a tear formed in his eye.
The old man’s face grew tired
As he remembered his past pain.
The feelings from that awful day,
Like an old knife wound they came.
As the tear ran slowly down
The tired man’s dear face
He remembered her love and tenderness
And the warmth of her embrace.
Once he had started rocking again
He asked, “God why did she leave?
Am I to live in agony
Only living to grieve?”
After asking his heart felt question
His tears swelled up once more,
And as he dosed off his glasses
Dropped silently on the floor.
While he slept he dreamt of things
He never thought in this life he’d see.
He saw her face and held her close.
He was a bundle of jubilee.
Laughing a laugh the likes of which
His body had never known,
In his dreams and in her arms
He felt like he was home.
The man’s cat came up purring
Awaking him from sleep.
When the man realized where he was,
It made him begin to weep,
Now a cry of anguish
From losing her again
Filled his little, drafty house
With the sound of immense pain.
How could he bear it,
With dreams such as that,
Who had awakened him?
Oh, that stupid cat.
Had he been close to dying
Was he really almost home
Only to return, to his lonely life
With all the pain which it had known?
With a bitter heart he sat there
Wishing it were not so.
Why was she the one taken
Could he not also go?
With these thoughts he fell yet again
Into an uneasy sleep,
But the dream he dreamt this time ‘round
Was truly an occasion to weep.
For all around him were thousands
Wailing and shouting in pain.
The sound was the same as that
Which from himself once came.
But there was no end to their weeping.
No silence was ever found.
In his dream he found himself weeping
As he fell to the cold hard ground.
When suddenly he looked up
And there before his eyes
The darkness broke, the wailing ceased,
As he beheld the blazing skies.
From within the fiery sight
A figure familiar and strong
Held out its hand and helped him up
While singing a strange new song.
What a song, a wild, beautiful song,
The sweetest ever heard,
And as it faded, and the brightness waned,
He softly heard these words,
“Son, why do you grieve?
When so long ago
I chose the time
For her to go.
She is with me.
I’ll never leave you.
I’ve told you as much,
And I know you knew.
My child, do not greive.
Your time has been set,
But it cannot be now.
Trust me, not yet.”
And as he awoke
Before dreaming more
Two Jehovah’s Witness’
Approached his old wooden door.
Looking toward heaven
He whispered now silently,
“Ah, yes, dear Lord,
I think… yes, now I think I see.”
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