Missouri Sunrise

Clouds fold
To gather in mourning
A hushed stillness
Attends the wake

Between the clouds
A candle
Held upside down
Dripping hot wax
Warms the earth

Until

The flame ignites
Into colors
Sparks of kindling
Flash the sky

Waking the spirit

Follow the light, the light !
Celebration of a life

Morning

Morning streams
Like consciousness
In a sudden
Trips past
The limits
Of night's censor
As thoughts rush out
Before brain catches up

Sharon

A breath of fresh air
blew into his life
and her name is Sharon

Dad

You've accomplished a lot in your life.
Married a beautiful bride.
Retired from a job
That provided well
For your family
For forty years
Interrupted briefly
By the second war
Brought up two wonderful children
Who grew up
To make their own way
In the world
You've lived well
In two houses and
Luxuriously
In an apartment with a pool
You've listened to baseball games
Test-driven cars
Gone to air shows
Played tennis
Suggested discreetly that
The upstairs neighbor
Quiet down after 10 o'clock at night
Peddled a stationary bike
Planted flowers and trees
Made compost
Turned down your hearing aid
When you needed to
Painted the hhouse
Shoveled the snow
Built a garage
Paved the driveway
Complained about the weather
Watched the sun come up
Watched the news
Laughed at Red Skelton
And Lucille Ball
Read the paper
Traveled extensively
And most importantly
Been happy
And made those around you
Happy too

Country Wind

The country wind blows
through her auburn hair
The daisies grow wild
under feet that are bare

The water splashes
in the fishing pond
The apples smell sweet
from the orchard beyond

Sunbeams sail across
butterfly-filled skies
So beautiful, it brings
a tear to her eyes

Rae

My grandma's name was Rae
Like sunshine in the window
A warm place

The Sand Bar

My attempt at a Robert Frost-like Poem and based on a true story:

We went one day to see the river winding

Walking for miles, looking and then finding

A sand bar which could be seen far away

And growing closer, beckoned us to stay

For it looked just like a swimming beach to us

With fine-grained sand and driftwood and such

The main channel of the river flowed by it on both sides

It took the mighty Missouri River long and wide

To hold such a lovely piece of land

And still have room for barges on the other hand

The sun sparkled off the sand as a crane touched down

The ground too hot to touch was what he found

He took off again as we got closer still

The only thing between us and the sand, a hill

Then we saw something we had not seen before

Washed up purposely, it seemed, onto the shore

We looked and looked again for it didn't seem right

For two wooden deck chairs to have drifted into sight

They sat next to one another on the sand bar giving

The appearance that this uninhabited island once held living

Beings who had long since moved away

Leaving chairs where they once stayed

But from our point of view up on the cliff

We couldn't tell if they were really chairs or drift

Wood that just came to rest in pairs

To make us wonder if someone had put it there

Autistic Girl

Let me see your eyes
Amber listens and looks up
Her smile lights the room

This was based on therapy sessions with a 4-year-old autistic girl. One of the things was to encourage her to make eye contact. 

The Storm

The storm writes on the wind

Rhymes lightning with the rain

Freely expresses its thunder

Drops

hail in iambic pentameter

Sends

floods down the page in sestinas

Scrawls sonnets in fresh summer rain