Destiny intertwined

We ask ourselves of our ecology
How to survive upon the globe we share,
How to desvise and follow rules of play
That guarantee we meet our need to care
To keep alive our tiny dwelling place
As blue survivor in the black of space.

The hungry heart

A lady or a girl who's seeking love
May treasure this advice all else above -
Pay heed to how his manners others take
And keep your senses sharp and wits awake,
For if you find what in his nature charms
You may be glad to fold him in your arms.

Old man river

Great Mississippi, you vein of Midwest,
Born midst the mists of the lakes and the the trees,
Child of the waters of permanent birth,
Destined for stories of of legend and fame -
Giant of rivers and monarch of all.

Growing from trickle to newly a stream,
Gaining in confidence over the miles,
Constantly swelling when fed from each side,
Doubling your size once Missouri has joined,
Then heading, mightily, down to the sea,
Swinging, at last, in an arc to discharge
Into the Gulf, where your destiny's met,
Into the waters which swallow you whole,
Only, in turn, to replenish your flow,
Looping from ocean to air, to dry land,
Led by the cycles of Nature which reign,
Taking their cue from the Sun and the Moon,
Ceaselessly turning to bring you new life.

The Age of Skype

To touch the lives of one and all
With possibilities to call
Their loved ones any time of day
Without the need to book and pay
Is true achievement of a type
Unknown, until the Age of Skype.

For surely a new age has dawned
When each and every one with fond
Remembrances and wishes dear
Can mark the milestones of their year,
Preserving bonds of family
No matter where the members be,
And forging friendships over miles
By skyping one another smiles.


Alternative final couplets

So can invention work its wiles
To celebrate yet shrink the miles.

So can invention work its wiles
By skyping to surmount the miles.

So can invention work its wiles
By using Skype to bridge the miles.

Intimation

I heard a sound at night, when I awoke
Surrounded by the dark's indifference.
The sound was in a dream of  conference -
And oh! that I could know of what it spoke!

Inevitablility

What once has gone is gone,
Though day will follow day.
What is to come will come,
Though night impose its sway.

And certain is the fact
That all must keep in sight -
Time's arrow faces front
And none escapes its flight.

The road to Stonor

How charming now the Chilterns stand, replete
In summer leaf beneath a clearing sky.
The thunderstorm has left behind its mark
Along the twisting, lifting lanes tight hemmed
By fresh-cropped hedges that direct the eye
To vistas far-flung on the the sun-lit hills
Where field and park-land draw the wheeling  kites
To seek not beauty, but continued life,
While on the ground a pheasant proudly struts,
His consort, more demure, some way behind.

The road proceeds, enticing with its bends,
Showing now a tiny hamlet nestled
From the the winter winds, now an ample fold
Of land in which a gracious mansion rests,
Home to a noble family of firm
Belief  and domiciled for centuries long
That span good times, and those of darker cast
When prejudice maintained its ugly grasp
Until enlightenment undid its clasp. 

Source of constant joy

Source of constant joy and rare delight,
Staying present come the dark or light -
How you prompt heart's fancy of all kind,
Well of deep invention for the mind,
Transformer of what's daily heard and seen,
Mysterious and bounteous Hippocrene.

Night and day

Dark is the night when passion runs its course
Without evincing true attractive force.

Bright is the the day on which initial lust
Finds happy haven in a mutual trust.

Ambition

If you could know the depth to which I feel,
The tenderness with which I yearn to deal
Your every vital need attention due,
Then you would  see the length to  which I love you
As only one devoted to another
Can wish to be far dearer than a brother.
Were you to see this clear, we should begin
To forge a union stronger than mere kin.

I loved you - Version five

What though I loved you as I used to do,
With love that still may flicker in my soul -
Don't let it further cause distress to you -
To grieve you in no way could be my goal.

I loved you silently, with hope at bay,
As modesty and jealousy would move
My hurt, with truth and tenderness, as may
God grant you leave to have another's love.

Encounter with a slug

How far, Slug, have you belly-walked,

While humans in the garden talked,
To find yourself a well-earned place -
Here on the bottle you now grace,
The very one which, days before,
Brought us fine wine from foreign shore.

We each have taken summer's seat
Upon our patio replete
With verdant folio and flower,
Amidst which you had found your bower.
So as we sat here at our ease,
Out of the Sun, but in the breeze,
You came a-waltzing, if you please.
And clambered quick, though leglessly,
On what was put down carelessly,
Next to your unknown sluggy prescence
Which now, we see, is of the essence
And plays its part in Nature's scheme,
Earning its portion of esteem.

Slug! Are you the lesser for not having legs?
Slug! Do you feel envy when I use my pegs?
To you, we are no more than stimulus,
Which makes us think of you as timorous.
This gap between two worlds will ever be -
Our states are what determine how we see.
Your place with us is in your proper sphere,
Remote from our concerns, and yet so near.
Our guests depart, but you with us remain
And repossess, of right, your just domain.
 

A star is born

All persons of assured reflection know
The game of Scrabble is for those who go
Alone, courageous with their random tiles,
In conflict with their rivals' verbal wiles.

Apprenticeship in coalition's nest
Encourages the nestling, but at best
Can only show the iron in the breast
With which the gifted tyro can contest
Himself the long-crowned sovereigns of the board
Whose reigns will finish when a win is scored
By one whose days of shadow will be ended
Once he no longer deigns to be appended.

A point remains concerning how to play,
Essential to the winning of the day -
Newcomers to the solo art of Scrabble
Must bear in mind, above the constant babble,
The rule which is the mojo for success:
No victor can afford to nonscore ess.

On our way

In childhood's rapt embrace our days were timed
To find the elements with which we chimed,
To come to know how others than ourselves
May view the selfsame things as if the elves
Had told them deep within the wiser wood
That what we may think harmful can be good.

These were full days of happiness and joy
With dear companions round the growing boy,
The stage was decked with vibrant sets to show
How youthful energy and hearts aglow
Would find and nurture talent into flower
And demonstrate the promise of its power.

Though much is only memory and - yes! -
A dim remembrance of how more gave less,
Yet in the noble effort of the strife
We found a meaning and a worth to life
Which in the purview of its many ways
 Revealed how some may act while others gaze.

Summer storm

We watched the summer garden by the sea,
All lush , with shades of green the gusts revealed
And hid as storm chased storm across the sky,
Where gulls low down on slender wings swept by
And vanished where the tree's fine supple form
Bent wisely to the prompting of the wind
While lightning stroke preceded thunder roll.
Such was the background to a gentle lunch
In shelter from the reach of nature's force.

Continuum of time

Nowhere is their stasis,
No place can stay untouched
By passage of fleet time
As witness and recorder ,
Observer unaffected
By its presence never missed,
Itself inert as catalyst of change.

The need we share

If all the molten magma of the Earth,
Erupting, could disperse  abroad its fearsome fire,
Destroying in its flow the precious worth
Of air and sea and land in grinding gyre;

And if tempestuous winds, world-wide unloosed,
Could propagate the fury of their power
That in its heedless violence reduced
To rubble humblest home and proudest tower -

Then  we, who now confront a total war
That threatens termination of our kind,
Must strengthen  our commitment to implore
We leave the doomed idealists behind,
And from their failing thought  no more imbue
The teachings that deny our globe its due.

To a Birthday Girl or Boy at a milestone of their life

A word of welcome to the big six-oh,
Where all newcomers count their years and go
From fifty-nine to higher realms of life
Where rising peaks show vistas that are rife
With days of family happiness and peace
Which, in their passing, lend their years increase.

The scales of life

We use our human scale to gauge the rest,
But so the others can alike attest.
The mayfly counts eternity in days,
The tortoise generations of ours stays.
The old look back upon a past of dreams,
The young look forward to what likely seems.
Whenever babes are in their mothers' arms
We wish them vigour to survive alarms.

Rhyme for a new-found scrabble word

The scene is set, the Sun has riz,
The team begin their urgent biz
To paint the ceiling in a day
And send a blemish on its way.
Now hear the brushes slurp, then slop
Their welcome covering on top
Of that disfigurement, that glower
Left over by the errant shower
That flooded on the ceiling bright
And turned to black its pristine white.
The active part is soon achieved
Far faster than at first conceived,
Once the shy Sun reveals his face
To bid the work renew its pace
Until what's left is to retire,
Await the drying and admire.