Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Three Poem Drafts

Life

How lost I am!
These city streets
with falsehood speak
to weary feet
and never I
can extricate
my ways from lie
nor straighten fate,
for all must wind
through crooked ways!
But I will find
some pleasant place
where roses grow
and trees uprise
and cool my toes
in fountain-sighs;
perhaps then you,
still lost as well,
will meet with me
and stories tell
as I sing songs
and on we pass
from hostile stone
to heaven's grass.

Wave-Like Threads

Our God, who governs galaxies
by subtle wave-like threads
and gives all parts direction,
can He have set His tread
on such dry earthen lands
as this old world, and cared
for sparrow and for lily small,
unstarlike and so spare?
But wave-like threads still bind
the pinion-wings in flight
and rippled spaced and time,
with chance but without fault,
builds up the gilded bloom;
no prejudice constrains
the Highest to contempt
of endless details strewn
throughout an endless space.
Then shall the little plant
bemoan its lonely fate?
No ground will gird complaint.
For God who makes the stars
from myriad subtle things
makes us, and it, and all,
and so we give Him thanks.

Indian Blankets

Indian blankets
burst with color
if I will or nill.
I only will to see
or else not to see,
take joy in flame and gold
or fret for nothing.

Firewheel or Indian Blanket with a Spider at the back
 Indian blanket photo, Wing-Chi Poon, @ McKinney Falls State Park, Austin TX