Love’s Garden
in four seasons
Amid tulip, daffodil and phloxfirst
love buds, springs new joy.
Discovering that honeysuckle kiss
embracing tight as climbing Rose

Amid daisy, lily and mint
lasting love renews, hearts hold true.
Savoring that honeysuckle kiss
rooting firm as English Ivy.

Amid mum, aster, and sage
lost love forlorn, parts bitter-sweet.
Longing that honeysuckle kiss
bracing firm from Autumn storms.

Amid frost-frozen leaf decay
failed love dies, leaves only pain.
Mourning that honeysuckle kiss
sealing life’s bliss in Winter’s snow.

Amid all flowers, plants and greens
God’s love makes room for all.
Creator of that honeysuckle kiss
His hand tills, Love’s Garden fills.

The Road to New Hope
Almost time for me to leave,
get on the road to new hope.
Turn away the sadness within.
Point my face to the Eastern sun,
Grab the cats, smile, move on.

Adjust mind and body.
Ease the physical burdens,
Quell the emotional distress.
Heal pain, embrace renewal.

Leave this cozy Ivy-covered brick
Once hostel for two making future plans.
Now cloistering one in bitter-sweet memories
Where walls weep with disappointment

Three decades of commitment diminished
Another’s mind set on a quest for Original Happiness.
Vows disregarded, spirit shattered, dreams dead-ended,
Is this earthly fulfillment weighted by an Original Offense?

Civil authorities cut God’s sealed bond
Is man’s paper decree official, firm and final?
Or is reckoning still due in the High Court?
Where Almighty Justice rules everlasting!

Prairie Verses
The Texas Panhandle
Longhorn steers stagger blistered atop Stove Mesa.
Leather-dry tongues, curling, eyes even sweat.
Once sturdy hooves soften like melting candle wax.
Blood boiling, backbone baking, it’s a 128 degrees F.

Sidewinders carving curves across hot sand.
Rodents burrow deep for cool root cellars.
Predator and prey share scarce shade in this swelter.
Finding shelter is urgent business, delay is death.

Old cowboys, sagging prostrate, aching in the saddle
Steady mounts oozing foamy-white from the flanks.
Tumbleweed ,Switch Grass crackle at every hoof-fall.
So hot to make you cry, feet tinder dry, you die.

Kansas Golden Plains
Nose tastes the sweet smell of ripening grain.
Corn, soybean, alfalfa abound in furtive fields.
Vast, fertile acres carefully tilled and tended.
Oh, how beautiful these golden Kansas plains.

America‘s bounty! Harvest for the world!
Sweat shed in the honest labors of generations
Families of farmers toil from rise to set.
Seeding land, tending hearth, affirming self.

Blessed with courage, fortitude and dedication .
They preserver, unheralded heroes, proud citizens.
Pilgrims of the fields, bear misfortune, undiminished.
Tilling success with nobleness, love of land over all.

Confirmed in soul by self-control, every gain divine.
Finding liberty by overcoming strife that’s their life.
Adversity ignored, faith implored, grace their reward.
Leaving legacy enduring for merit in the High Place.

Dakota Buffalo
Wooly rovers , in millions, dominant, unmolested.
Waves of great buffalo filling the Dakota landscape.
Pungent their musk of careless, carefree wandering.
Rumbling hooves beat out an anthem of freedom.

Honored, revered, to sustain the native Lakota Sioux.
The Great Spirit’s gift of food, clothing and shelter.
Slaughtered, no mercy, by wild-eyed white hunters.
Killed for trophy, heads severed, carcass left to rot.

Restored in enlightened times by men of conscience.
Managed by science, penned by fence, in Man’s grip.
Cloistered from those beautiful for spacious skies.
Prevented from roaming in amber waves of grain.