The refuge

With every day the Sun will soar
And plummet with the night,
And I, without respite
Or stop, will seek to find the more

How sure your heart can be approached
And gathered to my breast,
Its place of rightful rest
Beyond the risk of  being encroached.

Love's quandary

How may I know how I may love you best -
With tenderness or passion or with both?

How calm the trapped alarms that flare and flit
Across the hinting windows of your eyes?

How touch you aptly with an aching hand?
How take you in the shelter of my arms?


How lock you tightly in a shared embrace
When indications,whether word or sign,
Reveal not certainty, but yielding doubt,
While yet in this I could not be more sure
That we as one are greater far than two?


Since, in confusion, you have failed to show
How I may use the little that I know
To consummate the union that we crave,
Then I shall love you as I know I may -
With tenderness and passion and with both!

Birthday wishes

As birthdays go, they come unwelcome guests
If they are reckoned as a simple count,
But, when they are considered more as rests
Along the way, the weight of their amount
Is lessened, cast in shade, and they are bright,
Outnumber far the stars that grace the night.

Bruised in inadvertence

A gentle heart and tender will be prone to hurt and harm
And ever must be ready to accept a soothing balm,

And if I knew what I should say to heal a heart so sore,
I'd say it once a thousand tiimes, and then a thousand more,

And if I knew what I should do to win that cherished goal,
I'd do it once, and then again until your heart was whole.

Two faces of the moon

Night moon, resplendent mistress of the realm
Between the whirlng Earth and pacing Sun,
How, with your bearing stern, you overwhelm
The darting planets who there furtive run!

Day moon, so pale against prevailing blue,
Though sailing high now humbled to the role
Of faint companion to a master, who,
Though ceding place, alone can make you whole!

Key lime pie

No better can be said of key lime pie

Than has been put to tuneful verses by

The pantheon of Country's Hall of Fame

Who know how best to fan the potent flame

Lying dormant in the innards of a dish

Designed for the confession of a kiss.

On the cusp between the years

In twenty eleven it's New Year's Eve

Quotidian concerns have taken leave

And jollity displaces gloom and care

While revelers assemble everywhere.

Soon celebrations will begin their course

And voices, in contention turning hoarse,

Continue in their chatter without stop

As hours to minutes, then to seconds, drop.

The clock that tolled our times, both good and drear,

Now takes the stage to mark the change of year,

And as the midnight stroke concludes the day

First dawn is born in infant twenty twelve.

A Day in the Life

In Houston town, on Rancho Bauer,

There lives a dog with magic power,

Whose winning canine charm and grace

Seduce all those who see her face,

For whom these verses lay a claim

To spread the fame of Darla's name.

As guard, she must invigilate

To keep her home inviolate.

Now doughty Darla's on patrol,

Tip-toeing smartly through the hall,

Not scavenging across the floor,

Head up and checking door by door.

If nothing's found, her duty's done,

And life reverts to having fun.

A nifty shifty through the glass

Before deciding she can pass

Untroubled to the couch and choose

To settle snugly for her snooze.

But snoozing's no priority

Upon the loud sonority

Of cutlery against a plate,

Which signals food, so scarce of late,

And calls her down to seek a treat

By lying low around the feet

Of sundry hungry humans, who

Will sometimes drop a crumb or two.

Now walking on her lengthy lead,

She paces where the peacocks feed,

Discoursing in the fragrant air

Of matters none but birds can share;

Then, backward turning on the road,

Retracing steps to her abode

Where calm presides until the hour

When Darla sleeps in Rancho Bauer.

The Dog that can

Deft Darla's either on the scrounge

Or finding just the spot to lounge

From where to cast her eyes round wide

And judge the moment when to ride

Into a scene where she can time

The perpetration of a crime

With such perfection as will show

How far the Queen of Bad can go.

To go or not to go...

The dog-door in the wall is where

You'll often see cute Darla stare

Whenever she is mystified -

As regularly is the case

When questions flicker on her face -

And wonders if it's justified

To take a turn around the yard

And demonstrate that she's on guard,

If going outdoors would be goofy

When Ginger's indoors with the cookie.

Lovebirds

So now we see the lovebirds in their nest,

So tenderly against each other pressed,

So dreamily above the everyday,

So ready to float up and drift away.

But duty calls the wayward to obey

The stern injunctions placed on those who play

The many roles that family requires

Be acted out as history transpires.

And in the ceaseless interplay of role

And self, each mediates and renders whole

What otherwise would dissipate and fade,

And thereby finds how happiness is made.

A Study in Concentration

Above the hob he bends at work,

His face expressing concentration;

The raw food must be firm and fresh,

The quantities all rightly weighed,

The timing to the second right,

The finished dish a wondrous whole

Enticing taste buds to the feast,

While fragrance wafts against the nose;

And as to texture and to taste

He must be sure that he has judged

The garlic for a testy guest.

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve the place to be

for Southern hospitality

is Rancho Bauer six oh five

Where sentiment and laughter thrive

Amidst the glad festivity

Before the Lord's nativity.

The guests are come, the feast is spread,

The body will be amply fed

While, nourished by a different food,

The spirit marvels at the good.

Ardour deferred

Let us lose our lengthy days of ardour

Luxuriating in our languid love -

Or, rather, should we reign in tight the rage

Of rapture bursting to express its force?

The fauns who haunt the forest dark are fierce,

The darts from Cupid's bow are sent to pierce

The coldest heart, and order it to blaze,

As does mine now, to see your ardent gaze.

Darwin's grandeur

The phenomenon of life abounds in wonders,

But yet more wondrous is the origin of life

In all its diverse forms, extant or gone extinct,

Which call for explanation of their provenance.

One titan thinker gathered evidence enough

To justify a plausible account of how

From simple forms proliferations vast can grow.

Like Mendeleyev leaving gaps to be confirmed

Where elements as yet unknown would find their place,

So Darwin necessarily could not supply

The clinching evidence, the proof of fossil finds -

So large an undertaking needed breadth of mind

To fashion bridges strong enough to carry freight

Whose value in the world of science topped all else

In winning over skeptics to the pregnant theme

Of natural selection in an endless flow -

A concept so profound that Darwin could reveal

The well of life, the fount of its unending birth.

How grand of Darwin, and how grand what he had found -

A way for Earth to populate her seas, her lands, her air,

While yet the rock of ages suffers its decay

To form new soil from which descendants, in their turn,

Will come to life, and flourish and again mutate

In endless repetition as each change takes place.

Such is the grandeur of a vision angled wide,

Whose coming lot is fated as the stars portend,

For after eons in which life holds fast

The very cosmos must endure its end,

Or life itself take charge and mold what will endure.

Falling Short

Was it an accident, or did you mean

To cause confusion with one carefree glance?

You opened up a place till then unseen

And underscored the vagaries of chance.

But how dare I tend to your tender heart

When to myself I am my own worse nurse?

Your welfare cannot prosper from my part

Unless you undertake to crush the curse

That, rudderless among the reefs and shoals,

I fail my proper bearing to preserve

And come to grief, as do all hasty souls

Who trust unduly and neglect reserve.

I wait reply from where my hope is fed,

For now, in essence, there is no instead.

Out of Reach

As sole purloiner of my sense of self,

You show scant interest in your precious spoils,

Instead behaving like a woodland elf

Who in a twinkling slips the serpent's coils.

Suspicion centers not on you, as thief,

But on my own naivety of thought;

In matters touching feeling and belief

Recourse to wishful thinking counts as naught.

And so I have arrived where I must be,

With clarity I see you in the end

And recognize how true you are to me -

Not criminal, but merely too kind friend.

There is no shield that can withstand the darts

Which rain from Cupid's bow to capture hearts.

Christmas in Houston

Christmas in the state of Texas,

Christmas in the family nexus,

Gathered, partly overseas

Reached by flying through the breeze.

After work has been suspended,

After miles have been transcended,

Come the families to the feast,

From the North and from the East.

Closer are the friendships braided,

Rich the compliments now traded,

Dear the memories that have passed

Through the sentiments that last

.

Talk and toasting passes round,

New acquaintances are found

In midwinter hunkered here

Full of joy and Christmas cheer.

Peacocks at Christmas

Peacocks in the yards, peacocks on the walls

Resplendent in their plumage on the roofs

Of houses under lofty trees amongst

A spread of rambling gardens underneath

The blue-less sky of wintry Houston town.

Now strutting proudly on a lawn of green,

Now flitting briefly to a perch to preen,

And then descending with a flap and glide

Alighting, safely distant, to one side,

The peacocks flaunt their avian finery

And lend their color to a neighborhood

Which after dark will blaze with Christmas lights.

Holding Hands

I feel the volume of your hand,
Its weight, both witness to the band
That binds emotion heart to heart
Which once had been spaced far apart,
But now in consort each aspire
To draw the nearer to love's fire.