SATURN ION

This car is a vehicle for my body.
This body is a carriage for my spirit.
Oh, may my spirit be a vessel of pure water,
And may Thy Spirit confirm me as Thy daughter.

(27 June 2008, Kebler Pass, Colorado)

RUSTLER’S GULCH BLESSING

The deer will reappear before
It’s time for you to go.
Your spirit was born in this place
Millions of months ago.

I formed your being in this space
Beside a guileless spring.
Thousands of mountains previous
When Maroon Bells could ring.

The dear ones will come to you when
It’s time to cross the stream.
With garlands of bloom – they’ll present
The angel in your dream.

(26 June 2008, above Gothic, Colorado)

SLATE RIVER GULCH

Dimension one: lupined terraces.
Second: aspens in lacy tiers.
Third: looping run-off rivers.
Fourth: dreams without fears.
Fifth: premortal incorruption.
Sixth: dialogic revelation.
Seventh: afterlife’s paradise.
Eighth: unspeakable communions.
Ninth: unexpected reunions.
Tenth: then, now, and when are one.
Time is not a Dimension.

(25 June 2008, Crested Butte, Colorado)

SPRING CREEK RESERVOIR

Truth does not exist except in words.
Words do not exist except in earth.
Earth does not exist except for springs.
Springs do not exist except through light.
Light does not exist except through truth.

(25 June 2008, above Almont, Colorado)

DILLON PINNACLES

If eyes go blind from Beauty,
If sight grows dim from Light,
If feet fall lame seeking the Way,
Let it be so then, Amen.

If minds go mad with Waiting,
If hopes fail from Delay,
If life turns old finding the Place,
Let it be you there, ah Man.

(24 June 2008, Gunnison, Colorado)

SONG OF THE HEART

Your heart’s desire is a clear song,

A melody of memories,

The sense that somehow you belong

To someone, somewhere, perfectly.

And though your voice is not yet strong,

And though the notes don’t seem to please,

Your heart’s desire is a child’s prayer.

“Thy will, not mine, be done,” you say.

Your breath converts into His air.

Your words transform into His way.

A hymn reminds you He is there

In love, in loss, in dark, in day.

(Provo, Utah, 19 September 2004)

PRETTY LITTLE VERSES

I glimpse your face behind a vibrant string.

I find a note of you each place I go.

The song is new – the time is slow. I sing

The words in harp’s arpeggio.

(Provo, Utah, July 17, 2008)

GNO-MOL'O-GY, n.

"A collection of maxims, grave sentences or reflections." Webster 1844

You are better than the depression,

Are brighter than the deprivation,

Are bolder than the desolation,

Braver than the debilitation.

Sing the sonnets of liberation,

Write the legacies of creation,

The verses of exhilaration,

The images of revelation.

(Provo, Utah, June 17, 2008)

THE VFW: A SONG FOR YOUNG SOLDIERS

The veterans of family wars
Are coming home today.
Their heads are bowed,
Their eyes are cloud,
But they make a brave army.

Grandpa with his hunting dog,
Poses for Grandma's painting.
Their only child,
Our Daddy, finds
A patch of four-leaf clover.

The four of us are wounded,
Making bandages of guilt.
I play doctor,
Mike is mailman,
Sister is nurse, and Baby builds.

Mommy drinks with her new man,
Hoping to kill the divorce,
Win her mother,
Save her father,
And force God to punish her.

The Lord of Hosts waits perfectly.
His angels wear soft aprons,
Talk about fears,
Draw out old tears
For the victory of grief.

Before the parade, I walk
Once more down the battered street.
Goodbye to shame,
Farewell to hate.
Get back home. It's not too late.

(Provo, Utah, 31 December 1991)

CHRISTMAS FAIR

I do not know how visions come, or where they go,
Except when worlds are wise with nearly falling snow,
And when I see the windows in the neighbor stars
That open to disclose, dispense salvation's stores.

I do not know how angels move or where they stay,
Except when words of love transfigure what we say,
And when I hear each earth-dressed creature testify
That Christ was born to heal, to bleed, to sanctify.

I know the Spirit speaks in dreams and quiet hymns,
I know the Father sends his children to our homes.
I do not know where visions go, or how they come,
Except in seasons set apart for Christendom.

(Tucson, Arizona, December 1990)

THE DECONSTRUCTION OF BACCHUS AND THE DECOMPOSITION OF MEDEA

Differdá razed a pyramid;
Cicero built a period.
And Freud rode in euphemism,
While Lily wrote in euphuism.

After the trope of the century,
Though structure buried organicism,
Truth was still a tree in James’s hall,
Growing or petrified, but enduring all.

Rhetoric may depose rationalism;
Science may defer to socialism.
The Maenads may impose egalitarianism,
But what force can save the corpse from imperialism?

Can humanism raise Jason’s children
Or distinguish the blame of Dido’s pyre?
What's so hot about the plunder of adultery?
What's so correct about the politics of desire?

(Tucson, Arizona, Winter 1990)

CHAMBERS (for Mary Lee and Bruce)

To marry is the highest call,
A rainbow in the rear-view mirror
When roads are easing west towards night –
The vault leaps from rock to skylights,
Stairwells, doors, lace windows in Bryce –
And then came that peak of summer,
When you caught the northbound bus
That took you south to Proper Nouns. 8

To wed is the kindest summons,
A prism in the zoom-eyed camera
As angles focus in granite –
The horizon builds chromograms,
Clear paths to the Catalinas –
And when the kaleidoscope paused,
You felt the bevelled beings shine
Who brought your mother home from time. 16

To betroth is the quiet “yes” –
Creosote breathes shir yedidot
Ocotilla shows her bright nails –
Saguaro shades the cottontails –
Your architect drafts garden plans –
And as the trail climbs to Eden,
You learn to sing with morning doves. 23


(Provo, Utah, 10 May 1998)

EFFIGY

You may not touch me:
I am cleaner than fire,
More liquid than the thirst
Of your torch-lit desire.

You cannot harm me:
I am greener than wood,
More tender than the yearn
Of your life to be good.

You do not wound me:
Love is keener than hate,
More patient than the pain
Of your tortured debate.

You will not burn me:
The meaning of light,
More brilliant than flames,
Surrounds me tonight.

(Amherst, Massachusetts, 1994)

LEXICON FOR GETHSEMANE

The words express an oil of evidence,
A lucid balm of keen obedience
Drawn from soil, seed, roots, leaves, hard paper truths,
Toil of tender blooms, for robed betrothal.

Tears, perfume glisten on exquisite feet
Of Christ made verb in brutal holiness.
The hour we shrink, he says, “Endure and sing.
Slip through the definitions this pain wrings.”

(Provo, Utah, 1993)

THE COTTAGE STEPS

A path dips from the cottage to the shore;
Green Bay flickers like Grandpa's Swedish brogue.
Two years old, I step down, too poised to speak,
Where lady's slippers dance between the stones.

The flowers have my welfare in their hands,
For Grandma has not missed me as of yet.
Two springs tall, I bend down, touch the surface
Of a secret whose clean I can't forget.

(1992)

SCISSORS, PAPER, STONE

1.
I worshipped Poetry
But found he had no bones,
Then bowed to Music's form
To find that she lacked tones.
Now, quiet God, I kneel,
Where silence cuts the veil,
And talk to thee, and touch thy toes,
And sing to thee and thee alone.


2.
I drowned in sleep.
I breathed in sand or sea.
Wearily, I brushed through dust
In layered archeology,
Looking for relic dreams.

My former life
Returned in waves or words.
Warily, I sifted on.
And how the hieroglyphs emerged,
How I endured, immersed.


3.
My ignorance is nest
For my intelligence.
Skylark may sing, but she must rest
While tendrils take the test.

Flight leaves me humble, so much ground
Below the godly rounds.

(Tucson, Arizona, 14 Feb 1989)

POETRY IS OUT OF STYLE

But words are eating from my hand.
They follow me home,
Up the slick hill like a black gnome.
Or after I cast millet by the tree
And go, they feast,
So that I see quail prints
On any depth of snow.

So, I'll fing myself
Across the face of the moon
In a string of snowy poems
That will be melting soon.

The poems lie on just this side of sleep,
About my father, about the fight,
About the light I keep
Slightly dreamed, too lightly dreamed.

Always give the benefit of the doubt
Until the last round of light pales out.
Then give the foe the other side of your face.
Nothing he can write there that time won't erase.

(January 1984, Salt Lake City, Utah)

CHRISTMAS SONATA

I pray the arms of God encircle you
In love. The better world you're waiting for
Began the day He gave His Son, who healed
The lame and blind, the barren wife, the cold,
The fallen earth, the fool, the insecure,
The man alone. It's not too late for grace
To crown your home with joy. It is a gift
To hear you witness of him when you lift
Your hands and heart in praise that can erase
The pain, resolve mistakes, sustain, endure,
Ordain, cheer, entertain. You are not old
When loving kindness lights your face and seals
A blessing in your words. Forever more
Rejoice – because of Christ, all life is new.

(Salt Lake City, Utah, December 1983)

BILLET-DOUX

It is said
That those who deeply love
Write letters to their men.

Not to send,
They fold the pages again and again,
Waiting for waiting to end.

What is right?
Should I have hid this note
Behind your screen tonight?

I love you,
And should I die for saying so,
Then you will write me, too?

(Salt Lake City, Utah, 1983)

GARDENS ARE FOREVER

Steve woke in the petitioned Eden morning, drove
The truck to Riverton, returned with the tiller,
Pitched the plot with dung, alarmed the machine,
And for three hours toiled the earth to garden
While we spaded out parables of stone.

After lunch, he wished his own golden height into
Four rows of corn, as Katrina leaned tomatoes
In shady craters, and the rest of us set squash
In hills, lettuce in lines, and sowed pinks – to adorn
Belief that beauty still swells under this May sun.

When it was all done, he turned a smile that bound
The hearts of all his family into one.
A sprinkler began the patient watering.
A righteous man is a tree by a river.

(Provo, Utah, May 1982)

MELODIOUS SONNET

While waters sleep and thirst in cold mirage
After the months of cricket-summer streams,
The northern tribes return in calumet
To flicker snow in vertigo designs.
Deliberately refining paths, the flakes
Forgive bold footprints, line the evergreens,
And risk awakening the fasting birds.
Then wind and wingtips murmur foreign words
With tongues of flame because the sky-line leans
And melts the hexahedron stars. Light breaks
Shivering in the world that glints and shines
As spirits sing who turn to bless the day
In frost with grace: “Forget the blizzard dreams;
Love re-creates us in His own image.”

(Provo, Utah, 1981)

TO ONE WHO KNOWS

You were meant to be
A metaphor for me:
The cool breath of stars
That touch us before we learn
What they lose to give us light.
See – they fade to grains of sand
Beyond the river, where angels
Coat pearls of love in their muscle hearts.
It doesn't matter that we didn't understand.
Draw back. The stars will sing again.
Cottonwood snow drifts on the wind.
We will be friends.
In these bounds of time,
You were my poetry.

(Provo, Utah, July 1981)

STATE WRESTLING CHAMP

Before the final match and the mat and the roar,
He sits under the bleachers, pressing his mind
Against the wood and the steel and our naive pride,
Rising to stretch his strength into the walls
And out the door for a grip of heavy, desert air.
Grabbing the night with tight lungs, no doubts,
He pins his fear to the rigid floor.

(Provo, Utah, 1981)

LA COJITA

The wind across the altiplano leaps
And halts like a club-footed child. The lame,
Incessant cries of sheep more slowly claim
The chill domain wherein the river sleeps.
Upon the bridge, the hill, the homes, light creeps
To clear the ridge of whispers, and the same
Pale signs and sounds bid us define the name
Of God on the face of a girl who keeps
The flocks: Leonora limps the dry land
Of awkward plants and trilobites. She smiles,
Rests a pebble in her sling, and tilts
It till the stone arcs into sky on bands
Of simple clouds, then stings the ground for miles,
While in her laughter the crippled plain lilts.

(Provo, Utah, 1981)

LIGHTS AND PERFECTIONS

As you travel on storms of mist and fear,
Within the wooden ark of your clean lives
A window shines, some say a precious stone,
A wedding gift of vision for your home.
The integrated brightness of this hope
Carries your eyes to covenant clouds above
Mount Zion, where the promise of the Lord
Bends double prisms to the waiting world.

Now under the rainbows, as man and wife,
Between the mirrors of one life, you kneel
To face each other like gold cherubim
Whose wings just meet over the mercy seat,
And touch over the testimony ark,
And kiss over the altar whose corners
Will form the compass of the earth, the lands
Where you will sing and dwell, the kingdom come
Where you will sail on seas of glass and fire
To know your God, the Urim and Thummim
Of all your faith and love and pure desire.

(Provo, Utah, August 1980)

MISSIONARY REUNION

Leni, then a girl with a lace smile,
Lent us her baptismal dress in Santa Cruz,
Knowing there was sainthood to share
And nothing to lose.

I never saw such frightened eyes
As hers tonight. New Stake President's wife,
Heart a flight away from home,
Oblivious to her glory,
She held a baby son.

I would have given her my wedding dress,
Even things I don't yet own.

(Provo, Utah, April 1980)

MAYOLA MOORE – REISNER CONVALESCENT HOME

The skin on your left wrist is torn,
Like tissue kept in a handbag
Or paper on a birthday gift.
Your face may sag into a smile,
But your eyes make you beautiful,
Nested in cataract lenses:
New-fledged wrens resting in shadows.

(Provo, Utah, April 1979)

SANTIAGO DE HUATA – SEVEN MONTHS HOME

Pre-Incan sunlight bronzes the afternoon
And climbs the slopes of Huata ahead of me,
Looking for ruins.

I follow seams of broken walls, mazing
Up the fields left to fallow centuries
Near the shards of a great highway.
Above the town,

My breath becomes the wind – Andean thin.
I hear flutes. The walls run in harmonies,
Stone upon stone, small voices buried with
Monolith and bone.

The spirit of some bare-backed beast has taught me
To seek: there are temples, there are cities,
There are kings. They await the restoration
Of all things.

Unbound faces with bright obsidian eyes,
Burnished wind-bruised cheeks, hand-woven laughter,
Flinting shy smiles.

I rush to meet them on just the next ridge
And find myself--here on the edge and sigh
To where the sun sinks like golden treasure
To the depths of Lake Titicaca, lingers,
Blazes, and still breathes over and under
The ancient sky.

(Provo, Utah, January 1979)

GREAT AUNT ELIZABETH

Dresser scarf drapes across her toiletries
Like unexpected snow. I start to dust,
Place the fine cloth where it belongs, beneath
The cool mirror and the Jean Nate bath set.

She lies between the unpressed linen sheets
And will not let me touch her when it hurts.
Fearing my silence is the cause of her pain,
I sit by her and ask, "Are you sleeping?"
She answers with a squint, "No, dear." We read
Until I cannot hold still or keep awake.

Once in a while she lets me bathe her feet.
They are firm as the inside of good shoes.
When washed they look smaller, as if they had
Dissolved like soap into softened water.

Her hair is a fragile, breathless halo
Falling, the fluff of a ripe dandelion.
I soothe it, and now she makes a circle
Of the captured white, winds it on her finger
Like the ring of her life. I say goodnight.

(Spring 1976 Tucson, Arizona)

NAME SAKE

"He spake, and my poor name He named" (James Montgomery)

When you see the waxing moon,
I am speaking your name.
When you hear the snow-melt's tune,
I am saying your name.
When you sense the deer springing,
When you touch the lake's flame,
When you smell the tree singing,
I am calling your name.

If you were the only one,
I would still give my Son.

(Tibble Fork Reservoir, 9 June 2008)

THE SECRET OF LUND (To Arthur Henry King, 1910-2000)

Our mentor, who wast our teacher,

Rememberéd be thy face.

Thy studies here; thy wisdom there

In shadow as it was in morn.

Behind the Grand Hotel,

Beyond the Dome-Church bell,

Past the rune-stoned college,

Down the boot-stained cobbles,

Dusk led to etymology,

A plot for philology:

The botanical tree garden

Honoring Linné’s biology.

Exhale feeds birch, beech, pine, and vine,

Open-air orchids, greenhouse cactus,

Parabolic orchards, paradisaical fruit,

Leaf, trunk, and bloom in God’s Växthus.

The Branch that gave us this day

Our daily breath, deprives us of fear

As we release those who dread us,

And rescues us from death,

And brings us not into pollution.

For Lund is a kingdom,

And a tower, and a grove,

For ever, for Arthur, amen, again.

(Lund, Sweden; Sunday, 17 August 2003)

FRISK LUFT (To cousin Mary Forsström Sjöö)

Blessed spirits dance quietly

With patient anticipation.

When did I wait so actively,

Cleansing the air with breezy hope,

Shining through shade from field to slope

Disciplined emancipation?

If I had their breath, I would sing.

Mosses would spring near mica paths.

Golden ore would come spilling down

From Burberg to Mary’s home

While she dreamed. Sighs would be healthy,

Yawning to raise a cathedral

In the highest soprano’s mind.

(Ljustorp, Sweden, Summer 2003)

ALNÖ I AGOSTI

Daisies in her eyes,

Berries in her veins,

August in her hair,

She returns to Sundsvall,

The valley of wholeness,

Or, the bay by the vale.

Pearls of hay litter the fields –

Beads of light glitter her sight –

Signs of life gathered in bales.

She had not known what was a “sound.”

This time no spirits danced around,

Yet white jewels loiter on the ground.

(Alnö, Vasternorrland, Sweden, August 2002)

LJUSTORP I JULI

Vi komma til Ljustorp – ljusets by –
Vi stå i juli – dagers flod –
Molna tvätta himmelen per vit –
Juvelen skölja gräset per guld –
Genom livs skuggans dalet.

Våra folk vattna gravenstens plantna –
Under virvlande soldisket –
Nedanför snörensade kapellet –
Lägre minnesmärkes portet –
Den här är hur vi älska döde.

Oväntadlig – dörrna låsa upp –
Fönsterna vaksam – vi gå in –
Träda berget av stilla sidoskeppna –
Omringde på trillande kullna för mil –
Det här är hur de tala to us:

“Du som här inträder
Forgät icke att detta är en helig plats
Och en himmelens port.
Var tyst och stilla.
Av vördnad för det vigda rummet
Och av försyn för dem som här fira Gudstjänst.
Tilbed Gud din Fader i Himmelen i ande och sanning.
Lyssna med andakt till ordet om Jesus Kristus din Frälsare.
Bliv en levande sten Andens tempel,
Guds kyrka och församling.
Gud välsigne din ingång och utgång
Från nu och till evig tid.”

***

We come to Ljustorp -- "croft of light" --

We stand in July -- tide of lights --

Clouds washing the sky in white --

Jewels rinsing the grass in gold --

Through the valley of the shadow of life.

Our folk water the gravestone plants --

Under the whirling sundisk --

Below the snow-purged chapel --

Beneath the gate of remembrance --

This is how we love the dead.

Unexpectedly -- doors unlock --

Windows watching -- we walk in --

Enter the berg of quiet aisles --

Surrounded by tumbling hills for miles –

This is how they speak to us:

Thou who treadest herein,

Do not forget that this is

A holy place and

Heaven’s portal.

Be silent and still.

With respect for this sacred room,

And with mindfulness for those

Who here performed divine services,

Pray to God, thy Father in Heaven,

In spirit and truth.

Listen with reverence to the word

Of Jesus Christ, thy Savior.

Become a living stone,

The temple of the Spirit,

God's church and congregation.

God bless thine coming in and going out

From now and till eternity.

[door plaque translation]

(Ljustorp, Vasternorrland, Sweden, July 2001)

O, ZION, SING! (Isaiah 54; 3 Nephi 22)

O, Zion, sing! Rejoice in song,

Though desolate, though all alone.

Such children you shall bring to life,

As much as any married wife.

Enlarge the curtains of your tent;

Stretch forth your stakes in covenant;

For you shall break forth right and left;

Your soul shall no more be bereft.

Fear not; you shall not be ashamed.

The Lord, our Maker, knows your name.

You shall forget the trials of youth;

Our God will heal thee with His truth.

For every moment filled with pain,

His promise will redeem again.

He’ll gather thee with mercy pure.

His loving kindness will endure.

When you feel lost, or tossed with storm,

A rainbow leads the way back home.

Great windows gleam in pleasant halls;

Fair gems adorn the temple walls.

The Lord shall teach thy children peace;

In righteousness they shall increase.

His presence is your resting place,

And in this House you seek His face.

In spite of harm, you shall not fear.

Though terror threatens to press near,

The tools of those who would destroy

The Lord transforms into your joy.

The words of those who would condemn

Becomes His judgment over them.

This is His servants’ heritage.

This is His blessed lineage.

(20 October 2003, Pleasant Grove, Utah)

[Sing to the tune of “I Know that My Redeemer Lives”; Hymn # 136]

GAS-TROL'O-GY, n.

“A treatise on the stomach.” Webster 1844

Thanks be Deitum for Stomachs:

Umbilical Yummies –

Evasive teenage Holding Tanks –

Mid-life bread-dough Tummies –

My Sister’s torn Esophagus

Repaired by Surgery,

Resulting in a Miracle,

The Birth of Emily.

(7 June 2008, Provo, Utah)

WORDCRAFTER (For Arthur H. King)

First poems are for practice –

Next verses are for dreams –

Inspiration is the third

Of daily words in rhemes.

Mimesis is the frame –

Poiesis proffers schemes –

A “sermo humilis” approach

Enlightens pure-style themes.

The “music of endorsement” sings

Redeeming love’s refrain –

Revision makes the valleys hills

Remission makes rough places plain.

(6 June 2008, Provo, Utah)

THE FARMER TAKES A WIFE (to Karen & Kurt B.)

“‘Morning’ – means ‘Milking’ – to the Farmer” (Dickinson Fr191)

The lord is a shepherd: we shall have bread.

The lady a milkmaid: we shall have cream.

He gives us sweet loaves and holy water.

She feeds us warm milk and honey-butter.

He revives the soul: she provides the meal.

Though we walk in the wilderness, he guards.

Though we faint in the wasted world, she kneads.

His rod of iron turns away the wolf.

Her staff of duty spins the hand-shorn wool.

He carries a cruse of oil to the board.

She blesses a cake of corn with pure words.

Truly, good men and mild queens flow from them

To the doors of our time, and we shall eat

In the dairy of husbands and housewives.

(Provo, Utah, 14 October 2003)

FAMILY NAME “We – Temples build – I said” (Dickinson Fr475)

Gertrude Frieda Caroline Koehn: Grandma,

You painted a moon whose light was almost

Lost in oily rivers and brush-stroke trees.

You revived dim roses and irises

From a background that would not let them breathe.

They hung on the gas-stained walls of the rooms

Where you let me read nursery rimes and Norse

Mythology, or had me thread legends

From your box of sequins and chipped pearl beads.

After your death and the quiet funeral

Of my dad, your only child, I gathered

The gold-edged pieces of the china he

Gave you, left in the dark pride of Grandpa's

Home like untouched treasures in a dry tomb,

Like dishes we shall eat manna from

When we are no longer alone. Today

You came to heal me. Your name is written

New in my heart on a hidden white stone.

(Provo, Utah, 14 May 1979)

SAFE PLACE

Medieval-me walks with infant-I,

Hand in hand, below the sky,

Where rabbits pause with clear brown ears,

Then rush to hide from our best fears.

The adult-I asks the little-me

What other places we'd like to see:

The mica mountain, the lawn of birds,

The house where light creates new words.

We pace ourselves around the track

With other families, front and back.

The childhood-I asks the grownup-me

What other places we must be:

Andean plains, the Nordic lands,

The beach where waves erase old sands,

The cottage steps, the Sundance trail,

The spirit world beyond the veil.

The angel-me sings with ageing-I,

Voice with voice, earth to sky,

Along the fence, our friends appear,

One by one, ear to ear.


(Pima College Track, Tucson, Arizona, Summer 1991)

SUNDSVALL I SOMRAS: ANCESTRAL ONOMASTICS

In Sweden’s croft of light, behold,
Names and lives of predecessors.
Back to Pleasant Grove with records,
Sons and daughters on my shoulder,

As I sheave the harvest, listen,
My home fills with angel orders.
Breath and line of household courses,
Ljustorp’s cradle holds our christening.

(Ljustorp, Sweden, Summer 2002)

THE CRITICISM OF BACHELORS AND THE COMPOSITION OF MAIDENS

I'm not a Marxist-feminist.
Wasn't Marx a male?
I'm just a lexicographist,
My business - to prevail.

I'm tired of undressed sexuality,
Weary of repressed spirituality.
Revolution is the opiate of the Lyceum,
But revelation still opens the Museum.

My major is musing.
My minor is theory.
Home is my economy.
Thoreau, can you hear me?

(Tucson, Arizona, Spring 1990)

LIMERICKS

Elections are seldom amusing –

The tensions of winning and losing

Can cause some distress.

Yet, oh how they bless

In spite of the mudslings and schmoozing!

A pallid young damsel named Bella

Encountered a vampiric Fella.

In Twilight they Fell

In Love with their Smell –

And instantly were a Best Sella.

There was a young wizard named Harry,

Whose tales grew increasingly scary.

Peter Rabbit he’s NOT,

Though his name starts with POT.

With Miss Beatrix I’d rather tarry.

There once was a Poet – named Dickinson

Who wrote – to a mentor called Higginson –

He critiqued – her Off-Rimes

And her – Beau-Jangle Times –

So she vowed – to eschew Publicationson.

There once – was a Maiden – named Emily

Who kept – to her Home – and her Family –

Some thought it was Odd

Until she wrote God –

Who anwered – in Metered Facsimile.

H.D. (“Harmless Drudge”)