THE LOST IMAGE

THE LOST IMAGE

                                           

There's a camera taking pictures
Can it tell just what I see?
Can it capture the real feeling
and the person that's inside me?

As I stand outside the church
looking down the empty highway
the shadows of the night
are quickly growing

My long dress whiping up the footprints
My hair pouring down my face
like tears pouring in my heart
Cause I know what it was...
all just a lie

The leaves are rustling lightly
 a cold breeze stirs them in the lights
of one lonely car that's passing
just a motion without heart,
in the night

My feet are cold here on the stone step
the threshold of a lost dream
and you're trying to capture that
like an image of the past,
of a ghost in black and white,
as if to make it real
But it wasn't meant to be, for me

The church is dark and empty
The contract null and void
The action is all past
There's a poster on the wall that says NO TRESPASSING

I tried to be the image that you wanted
but I couldn't live up to your reality
I can't be someone else
I can only be me

I had to leave it
I had to walk away
to become invisible again
and as silent as the new moon in December

It's just a memory of a memory
of one that was never made
of a dream that was best left where it was,
in the heart and mind,
where it would forever be sweet

Say good-bye to Richard
Say good-bye to Jean
Say good-bye to all of it
cause a nightmare's not my idea of a dream ...................

*written in 1970

LANDLOCKED

                                                           LANDLOCKED

 I am a foreigner to my music once again
I've let it drift off to a land far across time
and though I think about the days gone by quite frequently
There doesn't seem to be much chance to make a rhyme

My path seems to have taken me away
from all the dreams I knew, that once, for me, were real
and though I still touch upon those dreams from time to time
they have lost their shiny, innocent appeal

When I wake up now, it's no longer to the music
and to hours spent in rapture of the tunes
The sun above has passed through many seasons
and I no longer feel the call of rising moons

There was a quietness that one filled all my being
and miracles occurred with frequency
until I took to sailing with the landlocked
then was driven by a cold wind, out to sea

Although the soft spectrum of light still lingers near me
and entices me to come and share its song
I am bound to other voices for the time
that simply say to me that it does not belong

Perhaps one day I'll find the wind has changed
and become a constant breeze back to the stars
but for now the visions of the past are all I live by
for there doesn't seem much chance to make a rhyme

*originally written  Thursday, 2/5/1975 at 11 am

THE RIVER THROUGH OUR VALLEY ( a memory and a dream)

                                                  
                                                 THE RIVER THROUGH OUR VALLEY

                                                        ( a memory and a dream)

On cold days, silver-grey and lazy
 after rain, dark and fast and hazy
sparkling in the sun beneath a bright sky
with tides running low  and running high
      is the river
      is the river
     through our valley


So carefree when its sunny
Splashing children being funny
Teasing sailboats as they drift
Our water garden, our gift
   That's the river
   That's the river
   through our valley

I remember as a child
watching it by night
when the stars were full and bright
as a train rushed into sight
bobbing shoulders to the Moon
saying, "I'll be changing soon!"
  That's the river
  That's the river
  though our valley

An autumn night a meteor shower
dazzled us for over an hour
as we rode the river upstream
following the Sloop was like a sweet dream
     On that river
     On that river
     through our valley

More than a river, it's a friend
with little towns at every bend
and people out to sing their songs
to keep it clear and keep it strong
We can't replace the gifts it gives
as it will, long as it lives

     That sweet river
     That sweet river
     through our valley

• written in 1970

For the Pleasure of a Tree

                                                                     For the Pleasure of a Tree

                                                             
                                                   Outside the windows
                                                   the sunshine glares
                                                   rows of apartments
                                                   hot concrete squares

                                                  Designated spaces
                                                  for parking cars
                                                  across the highway
                                                  restaurants and bars
 

                                                  A reckless breeze
                                                  molests the rooms
                                                  children screaming
                                                 city fumes

                                                  A factory bellows
                                                  smoke from stacks
                                                  What I crave
                                                  this city lacks

                                                 Off, in my  mind,
                                                 a stream runs free
                                                 the gentle hum
                                                 of a busy bee

                                                Children laughing
                                                playing games
                                                flowers blooming
                                                from showery rains

                                               A country Fair
                                               alit with smiles
                                               All far away
                                               from this land of aisles

                                               A favorite place
                                               a world long past
                                               the dreams I dreamed
                                               and prayed would last
   
                                              The night's breeze, soft,
                                              cool and clear
                                              the weeping willow
                                              without tears

                                             It's graceful tendrils
                                             a home by day
                                             for singing birds
                                             to dance and sway

                                            Beneath its boughs
                                            a shaded dome
                                            of tiny leaves
                                            my second home

                                           How these memories
                                           come to haunt me
                                             and oh!
                                                for the pleasure of a tree


written in 1975

SILENT WORDS

   SILENT WORDS

My cries have fallen on deaf ears for so long that it seems all but hopeless that my prayers will finally be answered... but I know that all things are possible, and continue to pray.

This is the end of a road I have been on for a very long time. It is not one I would have chosen.
I have survived every peril along the way, finding blessings to sustain me, to keep me going for one more day, for one more hour, only to find that the end of this road is filled with the monsters that threaten to take my life.

My heart has been broken into many pieces, bit by bit. Nearly everything that I love and hold dear has been taken... all the love and effort I put into them, all the beauty they contain,  dashed upon the rocks... a pile of rubble, and me among them.

I am numb from shock and unbearable pain. I can only cry.

My tears are my blood... my life draining from me.

I sit in silence. Words, unspoken, trapped inside me. I dare not speak, for the time has not yet come. I count the minutes. I relive the memories of the end... I dream of the future and I pray.