Homespun poetry that makes people happy.
Nature's Masterpieces

Summer Vignette

Unblemished blue of fun-gold skies,

Fresh flowers, skimming butterflies,

Child-happy swimming pool and park,

Fireflies to chase with velvet dark.

Dusk whippoorwills whose plaintive calls

Wrap mystery around it all,

As nature hums a carefree tune

To pace sweet summer afternoon.

Tapestry of Spring

The dew-wet dawn is radiant, fresh, and still,

The sleepy sun has barely topped the hill;

Light , crisp, and bracing hints of piney breeze.

Waft gently from the cones of needled trees.

 

A blush of pink is restful to the eye;

Between grey trunks, the redbud blossoms fly,

As if afloat like gossamer in flight.

Here, there, with dogwood punctuated white.

 

The forest floor below, sweet, needle strewn,

Rests in a leafy shade  of afternoon.

Bright shafts of sun, like golden arrows too,

The light of tiny blossoms, rich and new.

 

Small worlds of wonder live as time goes by.

So miniature, they escape the casual eye.

Through many halls the echoing songs of birds,

Sweet, liquid notes of joy, may all be heard.

 

A place so calm, so natural and fair,

That one may rest his soul while lingering there.

Trumpets of Dawn

Cradled in the lap of summer

Morning glory blossoms shine

Bright with dawn’s first crystal dewdrops

Tender trumpets of the vine.

Color-feast of August rainbow—

Purple, blue, magenta, white—

Living, fairy—tinted canvas

Unveiled from the robe of night.

Mountains

There’s a majesty to mountains

Rolled and tumbled, reaching high

Up through wispy white-cloud vapors

To a deep blue bowl of sky.

Bright green trees  spread to adorn them,

Sparkling streams of water fall

Bubbling, ice-cold, foaming, splashing…

Adding beauty to it all.

Oh, how bracing is the pine scent

And the cold clean atmosphere,

Mixed with melody of bird notes

Ringing sweet and crystal clear.

On those little mountain meadows

Fenced by quaking aspen trees,

Deer and fawn graze in the bounty

Of green grass up to their knees.

Layered, rainbow-tinted sandstones

Testify to ages past,

Beautiful and reassuring

That our earth will always last.

Changing of the Guard

The rosy rising sun issued the order

A raccoon fishing in a silvery stream

Washed hands and face ambled down a footpath

Toward his den tree and a day of dreams

A yellow moon dipped low behind a hill top,

Frogs finished serenades and closed their eyes,

An owl flew home without a feathery murmur

As dawn light brought the blue to sunny skies.

A squirrel left his next and started grooming,

A robin found a worm and flew away

Toward a nest of hungry, growing fledglings

As roosters crowed to recognize the day.

A herd of cows stood knee-deep in the clover,

A woodchuck yawned and peered out from his den

While other daylight creatures came on duty

Until the night guard took their posts again.

God’s Gold

Sunny face of deepest summer,

Smiling countenance of gold

Waving over blooming garden,

Sturdy-stemmed, broad-leaved and bold.

Whispering a rustling welcome

To each cool September dawn,

Dark green leaves as rough as leather

Follow sunshine until it’s gone.

Grateful for each cooling, raindrop,

Petals sip night’s star-kissed dew;

Morning finds her decked with diamonds,

Sunray-brilliant, fresh, and new.

Golden beauty for beholders,

Nectar for the summer bee,

Seed store for sojourning songsters –

God’s gold generosity.

Feeding the Birds

Hang this feeder beside the house

And birds from field and stream

Will warble their magic music

And serenade your dreams

Your dawns will be filled with melody,

From spring until golden fall,

And even in winter, some bright-eyes friends

Will pay you a social call.

Summer Reverie

Give me a golden afternoon
Where white clouds roll on high
And stand like castles towering
Against the summer sky.
Where the sun is warm, and grass is green
With breeze as soft as spring,
And trees nearby that rise on high
With warblers as they sing.
The lullaby a brooklet makes,
On twinkling gravel rill,
While spinning dreams, it almost seems
That time itself stands still.

Published in Country Scene, Ideals

Be Still, My Soul

There’s quiet comfort everywhere
If we take take time for listening:
The sighing of a summer wind,
Sunbursts of dewdrops glistening.
A solo of the maple leaf
Which taps my windowpane,
The liquid lullaby at night
Of softly falling rain.
A cricket’s cheerful, trilling song,
A bluebird’s tender note,
The wake-up, get-up, cheerful call
That bubbles from wrens’ throats,
Wind ripples in June ripening grain,
A woolly cloud on high,
Arising like the whitewashed walls
Of castles in the sky.
The rainbow splash of setting sun,
An evening’s quiet shade.
There’s comfort in God’s lovely world
For us especially made.

Harvest Call

The wheat is cut, a bumper yield,
And sunshine falls upon the field
Of stubble, yellow as spun gold.
Where bales of straw lay tightly rolled.

The cricket sings among the weeds,
And tree frogs pipe from slender reeds,
Red clover, wet with dew at dawn,
Tell of a harvest come and gone.

So short that time from blossomed spring
Till combines hum and sickles sing;
So short a time from spring to fall,
To the end of work and the harvest call.

Ideals Thanksgiving 1986