Morning In Rose Valley
Beside me
The grey-green pond
Laughed in the morning
Light.
Quietly I sat,
While birds all around
Called out to one another,
Stranger! Stranger!
And hid among the reeds.
Please, I thought out loud,
I only want to look at you.
Eventually
They forgot
I was there and
One
Hopped out onto a log
Where we looked
At one another.
Poem first appeared in the anthology “The Old Veranda Swing”
Return to the Sea
I felt the ocean breeze
On my face,
Rejoiced
To hear the rumble
Of waves breaking on the shore –
Took off my shoes
To feel the sand and salt water
Once again and
Remembered
What it was like
To be twenty
With my life
A blank page
Waiting
To be written.
Poem first appeared in the anthology “Island Shores”
On the Farm
The smell of sweet decay
Rises from the fallen leaves
And broken poplars
In late September
Geese cackle noisily
And cowbells ring.
Inside, the smell of apple pies baking
And Uncle Hank’s pipe
There are biscuits on the table
And coffee served in chipped mugs
Real cream and cubes of sugar
“Gather the eggs, would you dear?”
*Poem first appeared in “The Ultra Best Short Verse 2018” Anthology, A Beret Days Book, The Ontario Poetry Society
Sharon
When we were young,
We swam in the beaver dam
And plucked the leaches from each other’s backs.
You were fearless
And knew how to do things –
Like churning ice cream,
Birthing kittens,
And making tomato sandwiches.
The coyotes at night didn’t frighten you at all.
You were the leader
And I would gladly follow
As we marched through fields of wheat,
Down dusty dirt roads,
Because we wanted to go to Grandma’s house
And you knew the way.
We played in the grain bins and hay lofts,
And explored the old farmhouse,
Searching for forgotten treasures
As it slowly sank into the earth.
And when we were thrown
From Uncle Hank’s horse
You got back on, while I…
I was too afraid.
*Poem first appeared in “Canadian Stories” Magazine, Volume 21, No. 123, Year 2018
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