New Year’s Eve

So it is,
So it has been,
So it will be.
In the middle of a Winter’s night,
We mortals deem to end
A cosmic fragment we call a year.
With a solemn stroke,
A clang of chimes,
A blow of horns,
With shouts, hugs, kisses.
Watch the dawn
And yearn for Spring.

A Word

Alone,
a word of awesome power
dealing a blow that crushes
and destroys each fiber
of the heart,
Alone.

Real Tomorrows

Fire-lit shadows dance upon the ceiling
And frost drapes the hedgerows in the lanes
And then it paints with icy fingers,
Lovely pictures on cottage window panes.

A haloed moon races in the heavens,
And stars, like angel lamps, are slowly lit.
‘Tis then, my dear, I would love to see you,
As by the fire-bright hearth I sit.

I explore the glowing castles in the embers,
And recreate my world as it was then,
But this contains memories of sadness
For I know dear heart, we can’t go back again.

So I say goodbye to dancing shadows,
And to frost on the hedgerows in the lane,
And to the lovely, winter chilled pictures
Painted on the cottage window panes.

Our lives are lived in a world of real tomorrows
Time takes its toll on dreams of “used to be,”
But there is one thing I know for certain
My youth was sweet because you cared for me.

Sanctuary Of Memories

Christmas night.

I close my eyes,
And slip into the sanctuary of memories.

There,
Echoes of a tune
That I sang in childhood.
A simple melody of my youth,
A carol of Christmas pageants gone.

Its centuries old refrain
Lingers among the hazy vision
Of specters now at rest.

Ancient words
Numb the body like a Winter chill
As I see the child I was
In the comfort
Of those who protected me.

Dizzy senses filled with pipe smoke.
Crackling fire lit logs,
Dancing bubble lights upon the tree,
Her gentle hand,
His warm smile,
Forever haunting.

The choir of my school days softly sing,
“Of all the trees that are in the woods,
The holly bears the crown.”