Earth, softened
by Cloud's kiss,
Wind, stirring glass
Water into rippling
stimulation,
Grass, gently touched
by Sun's caress,
Roots, entangling long
fingers in unbreakable
embrace,
Petals, unfurled by the
dawn of Cold's dusk,
Skin glowing,
Flowing beneath
fingertips
Like liquid sun,
Bodies intricately entwining,
Like the deep-stretching
Roots,
The high-grappling Branches,
The full-reaching
Blooms,
Light, Air, Water, Earth,
Flesh:
From the chill of
Winter's slumber,
Sun Fire awakens the
Lovers of Spring
The days were long, but, oh, the years went fast,
And friends beloved have vanished from the scene.
I earned no honor past the name “Marine,”
And learned from Frost that nothing gold can last.
I laughed and wept and tried to serve the right,
And loved my country more than I loved life,
I thought her freedom always worth the strife,
And duty still the surest guiding light.
The past can charm with cherished memory,
But we are judged by what we do this hour,
For doing now is what gives us our power—
Tomorrow is a dream that may not be.
So go and do and strive and clear the way,
All victory lies in serving well today.
She is an apparition in that crowd
of museum Van Goghers, a white ibis
perched on crossed heron legs, a white iris amid bent purple
irises, tall, proud,
still there, when the tour trails off. Her highbrowed,
bronzed face is thin parchment, in its dryness –
worry lines writ large on a dark papyrus
no one understands. Elegance unbowed
is she, stationed there, despite the cloud
around her. Adored once as an Isis ,
now reed-thin, she’s in the Road With Cypress
and Star, fading. Her cypress shroud
begins with her well-made wig askew, now
ill-fitting petals on a wet, black bough.
A deep breath, her dad's arm, and off she goes
down the aisle, draped in white satin
with silvery beads
All eyes are on her, but she sees only him
their hopes and a few steps
in between
In seconds she's there, he reaches for her hand,
taking it so gently, as gently as I hope
he holds her heart