Modest Reach

You've grown, you've grown, my little budding blue
and precious child. Days have passed, and years
have fled beyond my reach, my modest reach,
to places far and shaded, distant fields
of thought and long since faded. Both your blue
and seeking eyes, which once were meek and pale
have swelled to oceans, welled and crested tall
and held at full their highest peak, about
and lately blooming, bold, abound to broad
and deepened heights.

And such astounding sights
those pearls will soon behold- of dawnings doused
and lit, from East its quiver taken, held
and drawn, released upon its Western arch
while skyward trailing long its lighted locks.
A world of distant deeps and needing, dawns
a-loose and steeped in stars cascading, cast
against a sun and sky asunder, down-
ward dropped and bleeding; such astounding sights abound
the world shall wield.

Before I fade to fields
beyond your modest reach, recall the days
where long we lain on Summer's salted sand,
our imprints long since washed away; recall
our Autumn marches, brave you led as close
I followed, guarding sure your every step;
if only brief, of Winters spent on white
and hilltops cold, to you they stood like tall
and covered cliffs! My growing blossom, blue
and blessed, for just this instant know- that since
your Autumn bloom, a month nor day,
nor hour broke bereft of true my deep
undying love about you bound and bent.

Mountain's Dawn

The West horizon, leafed and climbing,
awakens steeped in gray.
Beneath the river's rising mist
the mountain darkly bends,
a deep descent commencing East
to greet the water's edge.

Beyond the river, still and listening, East
the hilltops facing, soft with embers glow.
Quick the embers shift and shade, and deepen-
a golden rush ascending, primrose rising,
sudden glints and lunging Westward leaps
to light the mountain gray.

At once the West horizon sighs.
Amidst the climbing woods
the ashen mist becomes like March's snow;
retreating, riverbound recoiling,
leaving bare the sodden leaves and soil.

The forest dawns;
embers leap and set the leaves a-light,
glaring yellow caught with scarlet,
gold with garnet!
Every tree becomes a flower's quickened bloom,
as pedals lately curled and closed commence with opening,
colors seldom seen arise
and crest the tower's restless reaching,
crest the mountain's shadowed bend,
and crown its hallowed peak.

With all the valley caught ablaze,
the bounding sky returns to blue,
the birds emerge and set to singing,
the river, calm reflecting fleets
who lofting set to Southward sail
as ordered geese commence their crying,
ponder's morning's rise and Western reach,
which buried all that evening left
as jade and deepest green,
beneath its crown of crimson, clear and crisp.

But like a fire
fast consuming,
October's day is short,
and Autumn's early eve
upon the mountain firstly falls;
behind its timbered crest
the wilting sun departs,
its raging red declines to auburn,
shading dim the leafed and downward bend.
The forest sets to dusk,
its crimson chars to claret,
all that shone with yellow, gold and garnet,
sets and darkens,
deep maroon beneath the mounting moon.

Night emerges, black and clear,
obsidian marked with micah.
Its cast expance expends the lasting light
of long expired stars from constellations lit
and placed above the empty earth
when man had yet been spoke,
or given eyes to skyward see.

The obstinate pinetrees stir nor shiver,
wan and quiet, caught
beneath the crescent's palid climb,
as night commences late
to greet the faintest first-light.

Then just beyond the Eastern edge,
faint ascends a thickening glow.
The water casts no crease or quiver,
East the hillsides softening sigh.
Amidst the acorned branches chiming,
the palest chards of color facing,
the West horizon, leafed and climbing,
awakens steeped in gray.

Firefly

I watch the Summer's land-lights,
twilight lit till morning leaping, each
a candles flickering flame.

It's long and late they luminate
August's slow and thickening eventide.
Like minute moons they mute appear
amidst the push of dusk
against the blistering sun;
as if amidst a clouded night
when moon and stars are veiled
then sudden seen
through windows where the clouds abate
and just as sudden dim enshrouded,
so the land-lights wax and wane-
like each a quickened moonlife,
new to full,
new to full.

Then September brings a frost
upon its swift and blackening dusk,
galloping great and shapeless.
Evening breaks the weakening day,
its sunset seeming small and distant
casting thin and frail,
a shy semblence of Summer's pyre.
The little moons as well
begin to wane and fail,
casting only crescents
where once they hung afloat and full.

Midnight bound, I find a faltering flash
just beneath the bending blades of grass,
far below the starlit moonlight.
Stooped to kneeling
slight I lift a single blade and stop;
new to crescent,
new to crescent.

A candle dimly lit and flickering,
mute the long-light fades
beneath the night it lighted
Summer long.