Children's Poems IX

The Tapestry of Leaves Michael R. Burch Leaves unfold as life is sold or bartered, for a moment in the sun. The interchange of lives is strange: what reason—life—when death leaves all undone? O, earthly son when rest is won and wrested from this ground, then through my clay's soft mortal soot thrust forth your root until your leaves embrace the sun's bright rays. The Long Days Lengthening Into Darkness Michael R. Burch Today, I can be his happiness and if he delights in hugs and smiles in baseball and long walks talking about Rug Rats, Dinosaurs and Pokemon noticing how his face lights up at my least word, how tender his expression, gazing up at me in adoration O, son, these are the long days lengthening into darkness. Now over the earth (how solemn and still their processions) the clouds gather to extinguish the sun. And what I can give you is perhaps no more nor less than this brief ray dazzling our faces, seeing how soon the night becomes my consideration. Renown Michael R. Burch Words fail us when, at last, we lie unread amid night's parchment leaves, life's chapter past. Whatever I have gained of life, I lost, except for this bright emblem of your smile and I would grasp its meaning closer for a longer while but I am glad with all my heart to be unheard and smile bound here, still strangely mortal, instructed by wise Love not to be sad, when to be the lesser poet meant to be 'the world's best dad.' Miracle by Michael R. Burch for Jeremy The contrails of galaxies mingle, and the dust of that first day still shines. Before I conceived you, before your heart beat, you were mine, and I see infinity leap in your bright, fluent eyes. And you are the best of all that I am. You became and what will be left of me is the flesh you comprise, and I see whatever must be—leaves its mark, yet depends on these indigo skies, on these bright trails of dust, on a veiled, curtained past, on some dream beyond knowing, on the mists of a future too uncertain to heed. And I see your eyes—dauntless, glowing— glowing with the mystery of all they perceive, with the glories of galaxies passed, yet bestowing, though millennia dead, all this pale feathery light. And I see all your wonder—a wonder to me, for, unknowing, of all this portends, still your gaze never wavers. And love is unchallenged in all these vast skies, or by distance, or time. The ghostly moon hovers; I see; and I see all that I am reflected in all that you have become to me.