So have we survived another winter!
Pleasure once again comes out to play.
Remember when our days were dark and bitter?
In a few short weeks, warm winds have had their way,
Nestling into hollows where there lay,
Gripped by cold, winter's last white litter.

THESE PAST FEW YEARS HAVE NOT BEEN EASY FOR ME

These past few years have not been easy for me.
How I made it through them, I can't say.
All your love has helped me reach this day.
Now I cast my thanks upon your sea,
Knowing of the love that's there for me,
Yearning without loss for what is mine.
Only in that love can I define,
Unloosing all my fears, my self-to-be.

PRECISELY THE POLARITIES

Precisely the polarities
Parenthesizing pleasure
Persuade us to anesthetize
The love we fear to feel.

A train of trivialities,
Buried, becomes treasure,
As we sentimentalize
A boredom that was real.

How might we find a fantasy
That strides into the heart,
Awakening the winter wind
Bearing death and pain?

How might we live an ecstasy
That picks our joys apart,
Leaving what we love behind
On wings, on winds, in chains?

ALTHOUGH A DAUGHTER, I WRITE THIS AS A MOTHER

Although a daughter, I write this as a mother.
We're both mothers now, of child-daughters:
You, a grandmother forced to be a mother,
And I, a widow, alone with my fatherless daughter.
Death has thus shaped both our lives in ways
We would not have chosen. Yet life is still the bright,
Painfully lovely thing it was always:
Our children like dancers on a dark, splendid night,
Needing our loves as I needed yours; your love
The same song as ever, a lullaby I remember
So well from my time in your arms. We move
In slow spirals towards the stars. September
Has weeks like June, yet is closer to the fall.
Love has no answers, yet its beauty answers all.

HABIT IS THE HAND THAT SHAPES THE HEART

Habit is the hand that shapes the heart.
A soul becomes the soldier of its faith.
Peace prevails through courage and by art.
Pride is vanity, the preacher saith.
Yet love is sky to mountains and to seas.
Evil and good lie blissful in its arms.
All may find that joy with equal ease,
Sunlight radiant above life's storms.
The character is written on the face
Even as the soul receives its grace,
Restored to innocence and on its knees.

TIME AFTER TIME THEY COME TO DESTROY US

Time after time they come to destroy us,
Day after day we live;
In love that flows from parents to children
We find the strength to give,
In love that flows beneath all memory
We find the strength to give.

Under the earth we lay our sorrows,
Life keeps them fresh and green;
In growth that springs from sunshine and rain
We find the strength to dream,
In hope that springs from the wounds of the earth
We find the strength to dream.

Come with me and fill my heart,
Come fill me with your song;
In the beauty of your smiling face
I know I will be strong,
In the beauty of your grieving face
I know I will be strong.

Tenderness lies enwrapped in darkness,
Music fills the night;
In love we feel for those who have loved us
There is eternal light,
In love we feel for one another
There is eternal light.

AILEEN

Aileen has reached the ripe old age of eighty!
In her there's been much music, song, and dance.
Love like wind on sand designed her life,
Early on a mother and a wife.
Even in late years she's had romance,
Nor has she followed else but love and beauty.

I am a poet and webmaster of the popular poetry site, Poems for Free, at http://www.poemsforfree.com.