"A Hopeless Shambles"

As a beginning poet, around age 15, I became extremely frustrated with my poetry and destroyed everything I had written. These are the poems I was able to resurrect, some within the last few weeks...

“A Hopeless Shambles” is how I saw my early attempts at poetry.

These are poems I once considered “a hopeless shambles” but have come to think of more affectionately in my advancing age…



Styx, circa age 18
by Michael R. Burch

Black waters,
deep and dark and still ...
all men have passed this way,
or will.

"Styx" was resurrected by paring a longer poem called "Death" down to its best lines. After being on hold for over a decade,"Styx" has since been published by The Raintown Review, Blue Unicorn and Poezii, where it was translated into Romanian by Petru Dimofte. Other poems that were pared down include "Smoke" and "Leave Taking," which appear in my "Resurrection Timeline" at the end of this page.



However, some of my poems were actively and deliberately destroyed, en masse, when they refused to cooperate…



Sharon, circa age 15-17
by Michael R. Burch

apologies to Byron

I.
Flamingo-minted, pink, pink cheeks,
dark hair streaked with a lisp of dawnlight;
I have seen your shadow creep
through eerie webs spun out of twilight...

And I have longed to kiss your lips,
as sweet as the honeysuckle blooms;
to hold your pale albescent body,
more curvaceous than the moon...

II.
Black-haired beauty, like the night,
stay with me till morning's light.
In shadows, Sharon, become love
until the sun lights our alcove.

Red, red lips reveal white stone:
whet my own, my passions hone.
My all in all I give to you,
in our tongues' exchange of dew.

Now all I ever ask of you
is: do with me what now you do.
In shadows, Sharon, shed your gown;
let all night's walls come tumbling down.

III.

Now I will love you long, Sharon,
as long as longing may be.

The first and third sections are all I can remember of a "Sharon" poem that I destroyed in a fit of frustration around age 15. The middle section was a separate poem written around age 17. My "Sharon" poems were influenced by the biblical Rose of Sharon and by Lord Byron's famous poem "She Walks in Beauty (Like the Night)."

Not all my “nearly lost” poems were destroyed. Some were stuck in an enormous paper file where they lay forgotten for decades…



Righteous, circa age 18
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Come to me tonight
in the twilight, O, and the full moon rising,
spectral and ancient, will mutter a prayer.

Gather your hair
and pin it up, knowing
I will release it a moment anon.

We are not one,
nor is there a scripture
to sanctify nights you might spend in my arms,

but the swarms
of stars revolving above us
revel tonight, the most ardent of lovers.

I believe I wrote "Righteous" either as a high school senior or college freshman. The poem just came to me and I don't remember having to change a word. Many years later I dedicated the poem to my wife Beth. "Righteous" has been published by Writer's Gazette, Tucumcari Literary Review and The Chained Muse.



In the Twilight of Her Tears, circa age 19-20
by Michael R. Burch

In the twilight of her tears
I saw the shadows of the years
that had taken with them all our joys and cares ...

There in an ebbing tide’s spent green
I saw the flotsam of lost dreams
wash out into a sea of wild despair ...

In the scars that marred her eyes
I saw the cataracts of lies
that had shattered all the visions we had shared ...

As from a ravaged iris, tears
seemed to flood the spindrift years
with sorrows that the sea itself despaired ...

I can’t remember exactly when I wrote “In the Twilight of Her Tears” but according to my notes I filed it in 1978, at age 20. However this one feels a bit younger, so I will estimate age 19-20. And I’m leaning toward 19 because this seems to be a companion poem to “Floating/Entaglements,” another poem in which the sea and and the beloved surrealistically become one. I believe “Floating/Entaglements” was written at age 19. In any case, I almost lost “In the Twilight of Her Tears” forever because I wasn’t happy with the poem, put it aside, then forgot it almost completely except for being haunted at times by a vague recollection of a poem with potential. Finally, at age 66 the phrase “of her tears” came back to me and I was able to find the poem in my enormous now-electronic “work in progress” file. I then revised the poem and liked it enough to finally publish it.



Easter, in Jerusalem, circa age 16
by Michael R. Burch

The streets are hushed from fervent song,
for strange lights fill the sky tonight.
A slow mist creeps
up and down the streets
and a star has vanished that once burned bright.
Oh Bethlehem, Bethlehem,
who tends your flocks tonight?
"Feed my sheep,"
"Feed my sheep,"
a Shepherd calls
through the markets and the cattle stalls,
but a fiery sentinel has passed from sight.

Golgotha shudders uneasily,
then wearily settles to sleep again,
and I wonder how they dream
who beat him till he screamed,
"Father, forgive them!"
Ah Nazareth, Nazareth,
now sunken deep into dark sleep,
do you heed His plea
as demons flee,
"Feed my sheep,"
"Feed my sheep."

The temple trembles violently,
a veil lies ripped in two,
and a good man lies
on a mountainside
whose heart was shattered too.
Galilee, oh Galilee,
do your waters pulse and froth?
"Feed my sheep,"
"Feed my sheep,"
the waters creep
to form a starlit cross.

"Easter, in Jerusalem" was published in my college literary journal, Homespun 1977-1978, along with another poem of mine, "A Pledge for Ignorance." "Easter, in Jerusalem" also appeared in a folder of poems I submitted to a poetry contest after my sophomore year in college.



Pilgrim Mountain, circa age 16-18
by Michael R. Burch

I have come to Pilgrim Mountain
to eat icicles and to bathe in the snow.
Do not ask me why I have done this,
for I do not know . . .
but I had a vision of the end of time
and I feared for my soul.

On Pilgrim Mountain the rivers shriek
as they rush toward the valleys, and the rocks
creak and groan in their misery,
for they comprehend they're prey to
night and day,
and ten thousand other fallacies.

Sunlight shatters the stone,
but midnight mends it again
with darkness and a cooling flow.
This is no place for men,
and I know this, but I know
that that which has been must somehow be again.

Now here on Pilgrim Mountain
I shall gouge my eyes with stone
and tear out all my hair;
and though I die alone,
I shall not care . . .

for the night will still roll on
above my weary bones
and these sun-split, shattered stones
of late become their home
here, on Pilgrim Mountain.

I believe "Pilgrim Mountain" was originally written around 1974 at age 16 or thereabouts. According to my notes, it was modified in 1978, then again in 1983. However, the poem remains very close to the original. I seem to remember writing this poem in Mr. Purcell's history trailer. "Pilgrim Mountain" was published by Borderless Journal (Singapore) in 2024, around a half century after it was written.



Sometimes poems slip through the cracks. “Myth” and “Heaven Bent” are poems I wrote around age 18, then forgot about for decades, only to stumble across and publish in my autumn years…



Myth, circa age 18
by Michael R. Burch

Here the recalcitrant wind
sighs with grievance and remorse
over fields of wayward gorse
and thistle-throttled lanes.

And she is the myth of the scythed wheat
hewn and sighing, complete,
waiting, lain in a low sheaf—
full of faith, full of grief.

Here the immaculate dawn
requires belief of the leafed earth
and she is the myth of the mown grain—
golden and humble in all its weary worth.

I believe I wrote the first version of “Myth” toward the end of my senior year of high school. But I was not happy with the fourth line and put the poem aside until 1998, when I revised it at age 40. But I was still not happy with the fourth line, so I put it aside and revised it again in 2020, nearly half a century after originally writing the poem! I believe this remains my only attempt at sprung rhythm.



Heaven Bent, circa age 18
by Michael R. Burch

This life is hell; it can get no worse.
Summon the coroner, the casket, the hearse!
But I'm upwardly mobile. How the hell can I know?
I can only go up; I'm already below!

Published by LIGHT



Because You Came to Me, circa age 18
by Michael R. Burch

Because you came to me with sweet compassion
and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair,
I do not love you after any fashion,
but wildly, in despair.

Because you came to me in my black torment
and kissed me fiercely, blazing like the sun
upon parched desert dunes, till in dawn's foment
they melt, I am undone.

Because I am undone, you have remade me
as suns bring life, as brilliant rains endow
the earth below with leaves, where you now shade me
and bower me, somehow.

I wrote the first version of this poem around age 18, then forgot about it for 30 years. Then something about my wife Beth made me remember the poem, so I revised it and dedicated it to her. “Because You Came to Me” has been published by Setu (India).




The Song of Roland, circa age 16-18
by Michael R. Burch

"for spring in retreat"

Rain down,
   strange murmurous water...
      no, summer is not yet nigh.

Cease your complaining,
   for May is,
      calling December a lie,
         still rocking the high white sky.

Sleep now,
   summer hours...
      too soon your time shall come.

Softly straining,
   the raining
      spring begs, "Let me run
         one more hour beneath the sun,
            for soon I shall be gone."

Lie down,
   weary Roland,
      for summer is not yet nigh.

Remember a pyre
   of stars blazing higher
      upon night's immense dark sky
         unsettling as her eyes,
            unregretful, even as you died...

Lie down,
   weary Roland,
      for summer is not yet nigh.

I don't remember exactly when I wrote "The Song of Roland," but I will guess around age 16 because I had weaned myself of archaisms like "nigh" by my late teens. However, "nigh" doesn't seem out of place in this poem. Also, this is one of my more Romantic poems and my Romantic phase was at its zenith from age 14 to 17. I believe I wrote the poem around 1976 and revised it in 1978. I then revised the first stanza around half a century later, on 1-4-2024.



Some poems take longer to write than others. Most of my poems come to me quickly but the next two were written over a period of close to a decade…



Burn, Ovid, circa age 15-24
by Michael R. Burch

"Burn Ovid"—Austin Clarke

Sunday School,
Faith Free Will Baptist, 1973:
I sat imagining watery folds
of pale silk encircling her waist.
Explicit sex was the day's "hot" topic
(how breathlessly I imagined hers)
as she taught us the perils of lust
fraught with inhibition.

I found her unaccountably beautiful,
rolling implausible nouns off the edge of her tongue:
adultery, fornication, masturbation, sodomy.
Acts made suddenly plausible by the faint blush
of her unrouged cheeks,
by her pale lips
accented only by a slight quiver,
a trepidation.

What did those lustrous folds foretell
of our uncommon desire?
Why did she cross and uncross her legs
lovely and long in their taupe sheaths?
Why did her breasts rise pointedly,
as if indicating a direction?

"Come unto me,
(unto me),"
together, we sang,

cheek to breast,
lips on lips,
devout, afire,

my hands
up her skirt,
her pants at her knees:

all night long,
all night long,
in the heavenly choir.

This poem is set at Faith Christian Academy in Goldsboro, NC, which I attended for a year during the ninth grade, in 1972-1973. While the poem definitely had its genesis there, I believe I revised it more than once and didn't finish it publication-wise, until 2001, nearly 28 years later, according to my notes. A companion poem, "Sex 101," was also written about my experiences at FCA that year. These poems have been more heavily edited than most of the poems in this collection.



Sex 101, circa age 15-24
by Michael R. Burch

That day the late spring heat
steamed through the windows of a Crayola-yellow schoolbus
crawling its way up the backwards slopes
of Nowheresville, North Carolina ...

Where we sat exhausted
from the day's skulldrudgery
and the unexpected waves of muggy,
summer-like humidity ...

Giggly first graders sat two abreast
behind senior high students
sprouting their first sparse beards,
their implausible bosoms, their stranger affections ...

The most unlikely coupling—

Lambert, 18, the only college prospect
on the varsity basketball team,
the proverbial talldarkhandsome
swashbuckling cocksman, grinning ...

Beside him, Wanda, 13,
bespectacled, in her primproper attire
and pigtails, staring up at him,
fawneyed, disbelieving ...

And as the bus filled with the improbable musk of her,
as she twitched impaled on his finger
like a dead frog jarred to life by electrodes,
I knew ...

that love is a forlorn enterprise,
that I would never understand it.

This companion poem to "Burn, Ovid" is also set at Faith Christian Academy, in 1972-1973.



I rediscovered some of my older poems at age 66 while going through my high school journal, the Lantern, my college journal, Homespun, my massive electronic work-in-process file where I had tagged a number of poems (“/early/”), and two not-badly-put-together notebooks that date to my sophomore years in high school and college, respectively…



Paradise, age 15
by Michael R. Burch

There's a sparkling stream
And clear blue lake
A home to beaver,
Duck and drake

Where the waters flow
And the winds are soft
And the sky is full
Of birds aloft

Where the long grass waves
In the gentle breeze
And the setting sun
Is a pure cerise

Where the gentle deer
Though timid and shy
Are not afraid
As we pass them by

Where the morning dew
Sparkles in the grass
And the lake's as clear
As a looking glass

Where the trees grow straight
And tall and green
Where the air is pure
And fresh and clean

Where the bluebird trills
Her merry song
As robins and skylarks
Sing along

A place where nature
Is at her best
A place of solitude
Of quiet and rest

This is one of my very earliest poems, written as a song. It appeared in a high school poetry notebook. I had pretty much written "Paradise" off as juvenilia, but found myself liking it for its simplicity and, if I may say so, grace. "Paradise" was published by Borderless Journal (Singapore) in 2024, a half century after it was written.



Desperado, age 15
by Michael R. Burch

Have you ridden the fences
  of plains never-ending
as the wind sighed for lovers
  long past, or long gone?
Have you dreamt of a night
  with a pale moon ascending,
as Death stole a kiss
  from your lips before dawn?

If love is the gold that you seek,
  are you fleeing
for fear that its luster
  may blind you again?
Oh, desperate lover, I loved you
  not knowing
you would flee from my arms
  through this cold, driving rain

to wander alone where the stars do not shine
having stolen the brightness from love — yours and mine.

This sonnet-like poem was inspired by the Eagles song "Desperado" and was probably written in 1973 when I was 15 years old and still in my songwriting phase. I would continue to write songs until age 17, but not having the ability to set them to music, and being too shy about them to share with anyone else, I increasingly wrote “pure poetry.”



Blue Cowboy, circa age 15-16
by Michael R. Burch

He slumps against the pommel,
a lonely, heartsick boy—
his horse his sole companion,
his gun his only toy
—and bitterly regretting
he ever came so far,
forsaking all home's comforts
to sleep beneath the stars,
he sighs.

He thinks about the lover
who awaits his kiss no more
till a tear anoints his lashes,
lit by uncaring stars.
He reaches to his aching breast,
withdraws a golden lock,
and kisses it in silence
as empty as his thoughts
while the wind sighs.

Blue cowboy, ride that lonesome ridge
between the earth and distant stars.
Do not fall; the scorpions
would leap to feast upon your heart.

Blue cowboy, sift the burnt-out sand
for a drop of water warm and brown.
Dream of streams like silver seams
even as you gulp it down.

Blue cowboy, sing defiant songs
to hide the weakness in your soul.
Blue cowboy, ride that lonesome ridge
and wish that you were going home
as the stars sigh.

I wrote this poem during my songwriting phase, sometime between 1973 and 1976, but probably closer to 1973 at age 15. Unpublished.



Cowpoke, circa age 15-16
by Michael R. Burch

Sleep, old man...
your day has long since passed.
The endless plains,
cool midnight rains
and changeless ragged cows
alone remain
of what once was.

You cannot know
just how the Change
will rape the windswept plains
that you so loved...
and so sleep now,
O yes, sleep now...
before you see just how
the Change will come.

Sleep, old man...
your dreams are not our dreams.
The Rio Grande,
stark silver sands
and every obscure brand
of steed and cow
are sure to pass away
as you do now.

I believe this poem was written around the same time as "Blue Cowboy," perhaps on the same day.



Roll On, Red River, circa age 15-16
by Michael R. Burch

Roll on, Red River,
a cowboy has died.
Roll on; we lay him
down here at your side.
Carry him off
to the wild, raging sea...
Roll on, Red River,
and set his soul free.

Roll on, Red River,
roll on to the sea,
and sing him to sleep
as you roll up his dreams.
Sing him to sleep
with some old, lonesome song...
Now roll on, Red River,
and roll him along.

Roll on, Red River
and say a kind word
for an old surly cowhand
who died poor and hurt:
poor as a pauper
and hurt by his friends...
Roll on, Red River,
roll on to the end.

Roll on, Red River,
a cowboy has died.
Nobody loved him
and nobody cried.
A cowboy's not much,
but at least he's a man...
So roll on, Red River,
roll on and be damned.

I believe I wrote the original version of this poem around the time I wrote "Blue Cowboy" and "Cowpoke." I had been reading Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour around this time, and I religiously watched the Kung Fu western TV series from 1972 to 1975.



You didn't have time
by Michael R. Burch

You didn't have time to love me,
always hurrying here and hurrying there;
you didn't have time to love me,
and you didn't have time to care.

You were playing a reel like a fiddle half-strung:
too busy for love, "too old" to be young . . .
Well, you didn't have time, and now you have none.
You didn't have time, and now you have none.

You didn't have time to take time
and you didn't have time to try.
Every time I asked you why, you said,
"Because, my love; that's why." And then
you didn't have time at all, my love.
You didn't have time at all.

You were wheeling and diving in search of a sun
that had blinded your eyes and left you undone.
Well, you didn't have time, and now you have none.
You didn't have time, and now you have none.

"You didn't have time, and now you have none" is a song-poem that I wrote during my early songwriter phase, around age 17. According to my notes, I wrote it in 1975 and revised it in 1978.



Leaden-eyed lovers, circa age 17
by Michael R. Burch

Leaden-eyed lovers, sung to sleep
by your own breathing,
don't your hear the silence despairing,
and the wind deceiving?

Have you never wondered
if there’s more to life
than a dream of love
and a fear of time?

And what if tonight you have had each other
wildly, totally, as only in love?
What if tomorrow you shall have no others—
is once ever enough?
Is anything ever enough?

Can you save enough love to last till tomorrow?
Can you make enough memories to last when you've aged?
And when you've grown old and are weary of burning,
how then will you rage,
ranging, busy seeking a continual change?

You will never rest easy
as long as you fear
the dull encroachment of the coming years.

You will never learn the meaning of love
if you imagine it fading with a gray hair.

Leaden-eyed lovers, dreams so incurious
are bound to mislead.

Open your eyes, look to each other,
pay time no heed.

Offer each other the promise of tomorrow
and perhaps you may see.

I wrote the original version of “Leaden-eyed lovers” circa age 17. According to my notes I revised it four years later, in 1979. The poem remains largely the same, with minor word changes here and there.



MY “RESURRECTED POEM” TIMELINE



Bible Libel, circa age 11-13
by Michael R. Burch

If God
is good
half the Bible
is libel.

"Bible Libel" is the first poem I can remember writing. Fortunately it was no problem to resurrect from memory. "Bible Libel" has been published online by Boloji (India), Nexus Myanmar (Burma), Kalemati (Iran), Pride Magazine (Nigeria), Brief Poems, Formal Verse, Idle Hearts, AZquotes (in its Top 17 Very Witty Quotes), Quote Master, and numerous other quote websites.



Happiness, circa age 13-14

Happiness is like a bubble,
What's fine now will soon be trouble...

"Happiness" was my first attempt at a longish poem. I don't count it in my rankings because it's not what I consider a publishable poem, but I think I did show a good ear for meter from the very beginning. I’m not sure if I remembered it perfectly, but I did with at least 90% accuracy.



Gone, circa age 13-14
by Michael R. Burch

Tonight, it is dark
and the stars do not shine.

A man who is gone
was a good friend of mine.

We were friends.

And the sky was the strangest shade of orange on gold
when I awoke to find him gone…

"Gone" is actually gone, destroyed in a moment of frustration along with other poems I have not been able to recreate from memory. The appropriately titled "Gone" is the poem that haunts me the most. I have resurrected a few lines, but the rest appear to be gone forever. Another poem I regret destroying was titled "The Seven Stairs" and was inspired by one of my favorite boyhood rock songs, "Stairway to Heaven."



Playmates, circa age 13-14
by Michael R. Burch

WHEN you were my playmate and I was yours,
we spent endless hours with simple toys,
and the sorrows and cares of our indentured days
were uncomprehended ... far, far away ...
for the temptations and trials we had yet to face
were lost in the shadows of an unventured maze.

Then simple pleasures were easy to find
and if they cost us a little, we didn't mind;
for even a penny in a pocket back then
was one penny too many, a penny to spend.

Then feelings were feelings and love was just love,
not a strange, complex mystery to be understood;
while "sin" and "damnation" meant little to us,
since forbidden cookies were our only lusts!

Then we never worried about what we had,
and we were both sure—what was good, what was bad.
And we sometimes quarreled, but we didn't hate;
we seldom gave thought to the uncertainties of fate.

Hell, we seldom thought about the next day,
when tomorrow seemed hidden—adventures away.
Though sometimes we dreamed of adventures past,
and wondered, at times, why things couldn't last.

Still, we never worried about getting by,
and we didn't know that we were to die ...
when we spent endless hours with simple toys,
and I was your playmate, and we were boys.

This is probably the poem that "made" me, because my high school English teacher, Anne Meyers, called it "beautiful" and I took that to mean I was surely the Second Coming of Percy Bysshe Shelley! "Happiness" and "Playmates" were the first longer poems I wrote after deciding to become a poet. There were intervening minor poems, but they were lost forever when I destroyed all my work in frustration at my lack of progress. Fortunately, I was able to recover my better poems from memory, other than "Gone" and "The Seven Stairs."

"Playmates" was originally published by The Lyric.



Smoke, circa age 14
by Michael R. Burch

The hazy, smoke-filled skies of summer I remember well;
farewell was on my mind, and the thoughts that I can't tell
rang bells within (the din was in) my mind, and I can't say
if what we had was good or bad, or where it is today.
The endless days of summer's haze I still recall today;
she spoke and smoky skies stood still as summer slipped away ...

"Smoke" was an easy poem to recreate from memory, due to its rhythm and the density of its rhymes. "Smoke" appeared in my high school journal, the Lantern, in 1976. It also appeared in my college literary journal, Homespun, in 1977. It has since been published by The Eclectic Muse (Canada), Lost Love (Potcake Chapbooks, UK), Fullosia Press and Better Than Starbucks. It has also been translated into Romanian and published by Petru Dimofte in Poezii.



Leave Taking, circa age 14-15
by Michael R. Burch

Brilliant leaves abandon battered limbs
to waltz upon ecstatic winds
until they die.

But the barren and embittered trees,
lament the frolic of the leaves
and curse the bleak November sky ...

Now, as I watch the leaves' high flight
before the fading autumn light,
I think that, perhaps, at last I may

have learned what it means to say—
goodbye.

"Leave Taking" started out as a stanza in a much longer poem, "Jessamyn's Song," that dates to around age 14-16. "Leave Taking" has been published by The Lyric, Mindful of Poetry, Silver Stork Magazine and There is Something in the Autumn (an anthology). The longer version appears later on this page.



All My Children, circa age 14-15
by Michael R. Burch

It is May now, gentle May,
and the sun shines pleasantly
upon the blousy flowers
of this backyard cemet'ry,
upon my children as they sleep.

Oh, there is Hank in the daisies now,
with a mound of earth for a pillow;
his face as harsh as his monument,
but his voice as soft as the wind through the willows.

And there is Meg beside the spring
that sings her endless sleep.
Though it's often said of stiller waters,
sometimes quicksilver streams run deep.

And there is Frankie, little Frankie,
tucked in safe at last,
a child who weakened and died too soon,
but whose heart was always steadfast.

And there is Mary by the bushes
where she hid so well,
her face as dark as their berries,
yet her eyes far darker still.

And Andy ... there is Andy,
sleeping in the clover,
a child who never saw the sun
so soon his life was over.

And Em'ly, oh my Em'ly!,
the prettiest of all ...
now she's put aside her dreams
of beaus kind, dark and tall
for dreams dreamed not at all.

It is May now, gentle May
and the sun shines pleasantly
upon this backyard garden,
on the graves of all my children ...

God, keep them safe until
I join them, as I will.
God, guard their tender dust
until I meet them, as I must.

"All My Children" is a poem I had forgotten for nearly 50 years until another poet, Robert Lavett Smith, mentioned the poem "We Are Seven" by William Wordsworth. As I read Wordsworth's poem about a little girl who refused to admit that some of her siblings were missing, I remembered a poem I had written as a teenager about a mother who clung as tenaciously to the memory of her children. The line "It is May now, merry May" popped into my head and helped me locate the poem in my archives. I believe I wrote this poem about the same time as "Jessamyn's Song," which would place it around 1972-1973 at age 14-15, or thereabouts. I can tell it's one of my early poems because I was still allowing myself archaisms like "cemet'ry" which I would have avoided in my late teens. It is admittedly a sentimental poem, but then human beings are sentimental creatures.



Jessamyn's Song, circa age 14-16
by Michael R. Burch

16
There are meadows heathered with thoughts of you,
where the honeysuckle winds
in fragrant, tangled vines
down to the water's edge.

Through the wind-bent grass I watch time pass
slow with the dying day
on its lolling, rolling way ...
And I know you'll soon be mine.

17
There are oak trees haggard and gnarled by Time
where the shrewd squirrel makes his lair,
sleeping through winters unaware
of the white commotion below.

By the waning sun I keep watch upon
the earth as she spins—so slow!—
and I know within
they're absolved from sin
who sleep beneath the snow.

They have no sin, and we sin not
although we sleep and dream in bliss
while others rage, and charge ... and die,
and all our nights' elations miss.

For life is ours, and through our veins
it pulses with a tranquil flow,
though in others' it may surge and froth
and carry passions to and fro.

18
By murmuring streams I sometimes dream
of whirling reels, of taut bows lancing,
when my partner's the prettiest dancing,
and she is always you.

So let the meadows rest in peace,
and let the woodlands lie ...
Life's the pulse in your heart and in mine—
let us not let it die.

19
By the windmill we have often kissed
as your clothing slipped,
exposing pale breasts and paler hips
to the naked glory of the sun.

Yes, my darling, I do love you
with all my wicked heart.
Promise that you'll be my bride
and these lips will never part
for any other's.

20
There are daisies plaited through the fields
that make the valleys shine
(though the darker hawthorns wind
up to the highest ledge).

As the rising sun
                  blinks lazily on
the horizon's eastern edge,
I watch the tangerine dawn
congeal to a brighter lime.

Oh, the season I love best is fall—
the trees coyly shedding their leaves, and all
creation watching, in thrall.

And you in your wedding dress, so calm,
seem less of this earth than the sky.

I expect you at any moment to
ascend through the brightening dimensionless blue
to softly go floating by—
a cloud or a pure-white butterfly.

21
There are rivers sparkling bright as spring
and others somber as the Nile,
but whether they may frown or smile,
none can match this brilliant stream
beside whose banks I lie and dream;
her waters, flowing swift, yet mild,
lull to sleep my new-born child!

22
There are mountains purple and pocked with Time,
home to goats and misfit trees ...
in lofty grandeur above vexed seas
they lift their haughty heads.

When the sun explodes over tonsured domes
and bright fountains splash in youthful ruin
against the strange antediluvian runes
of tales to this day untold ...

I taste with my eyes the dawn's harsh gold
and breathe the frigid mountain air,
drinking deeply, wondering where
the magic days of youth have flown.

23
There are forests aged and ripe with rain
that loom at the brink of the trout's blue home.
There deer go to feast of the frothy foam,
to lap the gurgling water.

In murky shallows, swamped with slime,
the largemouth bass now sleeps,
his muddy memories dark and deep,
safe 'neath the sodden loam.

And often I have wondered
how it must feel to sleep
for timeless ages, fathoms deep
within a winter dream.

26
By the window ledge where the candle begs
the night for light to live,
the deepening darkness gives
the heart good cause to shudder.
For there are curly, tousled heads
that know one use for bed
and not any other ...

"Goodnight father."
"Goodnight mother."
"Goodnight sister."
"Goodnight brother."
"Tomorrow new adventures
we surely shall discover!"

30
Brilliant leaves abandon battered limbs
to waltz upon ecstatic winds
until they die.

But the barren and embittered trees,
lament the frolic of the leaves
and curse the bleak November sky.

Now, as I watch the leaves' high flight
before the fading autumn light,
I think that, perhaps, at last I may
have learned what it means to say

goodbye.

The first stanza is slated to be published by The Lyric as "Ferns" and the closing stanza was originally published by The Lyric as "Leave Taking." The complete version of "Jessamyn's Song" appeared in my contest manuscript, circa age 19-20, but it was substantially complete by age 16, just too long for my high school or college journals.

By age 14, I had written six poems that would later be published by literary journals: "Bible Libel," "Smoke," "Leave Taking," "Ferns/Jessamyn's Song," "All My Children"and "Playmates."

Any poems not mentioned in this timeline are apparently gone forever, along with most of “Gone” and “The Seven Stairs” in its entirety except for its title.