There’s comfort in knowing,

  things come and they go

 

The wind brings a newness,

  whether lilac or snow

 

There’s joy in all laughter,

   freely accrued

 

Music in words,

  spoken only by you

 

A place to be born,

  a moment to die

 

An ending beginning,

  last chance to decide

 

That question unasked,

  its answer unclaimed

 

Both orphans of joy

  … no adopted refrain

 

To sing from the rafters,

  an unfinished hymn

 

That angel before you,

   the angel within

 

Death’s only proffer

  …remembrance to lose

 

As the seasons recouple

  —your world again new

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2016)

 

 

 

 

Should a tree be cut down,

  for missing a branch

 

Should the wounded be chastised,

  for taking a chance

 

Should the cup that’s been broken,

  forsake its last drop

 

Should a man be accountable

  —for what he is not

 

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2016)

The Camp Cookie could be heard singing…

  “Cowboy: You can’t wrangle the future,

     till you stop rustlin the past”

 

(Dewey Wyoming: July, 2016)

“You can’t play with something you don’t own,” said

the father.  “But father, that is the truest definition

of play,” said the Russian boy.  “What is not owned is

not worried about, and what is not worried about sets

you free.”

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2016)

A battalion of feeling,

  a dead soldier’s thoughts

 

A war of contrition,

  last battle not fought

 

Distant artillery,

   final shot from within

 

Its smoke covering over,

—the most original sin

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2016)

 

Where have all the Poets gone,

  has time then captured and slain

 

Those heraldic writers of messaged truth

  —whose shields once bore their names

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

None of you are listening,

  this ending all too real

 

Heaven’s on the horizon

  —with the Devil at the wheel

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

 

Is the truth even electable,

   redemption now a sin

 

The confessional a voting booth

  —where liars dwell within

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

“Commercially Successful”

   —the metaphysical oxymoron

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

My level of concern

  goes only so deep

 

I care only to there

  in meters or feet

 

Beyond that depth

  lies a hidden zone

 

Where beneath the caring

  what’s really known

 

In my efforts to hide

  from the surface again

 

My words shelter there

  immune from the pain

 

Below its demeanor

  I now call out to you

 

From that place that I wander

  —and keep out of view

 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)