An Ode to Emily Dickinson
by Frank Daub
Whatever did you ask for?
Whatever,
for your heart, your soul.
You clothed yourself in disbelief,
You denied your innate beauty.
Superficial measures formed your grief –
Strength nourished your duty
To celebrate the universe.
Your isolated loneliness made bitterness
Sweet.
Lonely observer of humanity’s soul –
You were.
Lonely and humble – in your eyes.
Yet,
There was a holiness in your love.
FOLLOW ME
By Frank Daub
I am sensing my dimensions.
That I have them, I am aware.
The challenge is in knowing.
The tragedy is to care.
Dimensions, definitions
limitations -- all.
The work is not to choose,
But prevent an entrapping wall.
Requirements? Only natural.
Before ending, to make a choice.
“Follow Me”, a haunting message
Follow Me – an eternal voice.
When I Fall
By Frank Daub
When I fall unaware of sin,
is God aware of me? Does He
see sin as second chance to win
Eternity?
And if eternity’s the prize
Which degree will I find there?
The brightened streams of Paradise
Or the tempest--blackened air?
LAUGHING EYES
by Frank Daub
Girl with laughing eyes
beneath the slate-blue skies
and melting sun
I see the excitement of your being
Shimmer --
Reflecting youth into a gentle kind
of image
Meaningful.
The rain of April skies completes
Your soul.
TACTILE
By Frank Daub
Tactilis – the Ancients said.
“Capable of being touched” –
There is a heaviness in this word,
That awakens the soul – too much.
Of lost proximity, hand
Touching – hand?
Or
Love
reaching the empty space
Of an unresponsive land.
A Hearing Chased
By Frank Daub
When Affirmation is sought by pen,
then
Appreciative voices ought
To be accumulated -- by thoughtful
listening.
But approval is hard to come by.
Putting words in the proper space
Eradicates the message
Of the sender’s assumed face.
Once read, appreciated --
then turned leaden.
The sender tries another voice.
Stillness, thoughts depreciated.
Not by sender’s choice.
Watch for the claws – beware
A pause
Of trying.
It would be better --
A silence kept –
A message fading, then dying.
Our Opossum Has a Strong Propensity for Crime
By Frank Daub
Discovered in a backyard nighttime check –
an opossum wandering behind our garden shed.
Pin-pointed face, squinting eyes.
It did not run -- to my surprise.
Only staring, lighted softly by the porchlight.
Little.
Sleek in a white-gray-tan-straight-fur-slicked-down way.
The streets around are not friendly to its kind.
This unfair truth made up my mind.
I should let the shed-bottom harbor it.
This would require: FEEDING.
I decided the feeding plan -- without data-based reference --
would be workable.
I tried every sort of natural vegetable.
Walnuts added when the berries nurtured
hordes of ants --
Not
the opossum.
The dietary effort proved it.
Our opossum has a strong propensity for crime.
Particular it is to nighttime
sneaking forays - for food of course.
(This assured the legality of it for me.)
Our opossum was not particular to dietary do’s and don’ts;
Being just inclined to FEEDING its necessary wants.
The animal had a penchant – not a preference --
an exceeding zest for anything edible.
Incredible.
Barking. Off, away
By Frank Daub
She is UNAWARE that she cannot stay – too long.
Her time is limited to short intensiveness,
so, she doesn’t hold back, but plays
and zooms in circles through every room
open to her padded paws.
Stopping suddenly short –
she remembers the love we share
and she pads back to sit looking up at me.
That is when I pray that pups are part of Heaven.
DEEPHEARTED
By Frank Daub
Softly told –
in the manner of a wedding vow –
“I am going home”.
Said in the morning light sitting at my side.
I saw the Bride
that she had been. The GIRL
that willed to give all –
And DID.
I write it now – to help my soul
ACCEPT the fate He sent.
Belief comes now in waiting
And
Holding tight the Sacrament –
of living as He told us
So.
Garden
by Frank Daub
I will talk with you tonight
and – you will answer with yellow flowers,
pale yellow roses,
BRIGHT
wax leaves tied in splashed white bowers.
In dark and on a sea
of white,
You will breathe
into my hand
Perfuming eternity with your gift --
To never leave.
New Born
By Frank Daub
Putting up the wash – Again
one wooden clothes pin gripped
tightly
in her lips. On toe-tips; blonde hair wind-whipped
dangling in her eyes.
The sun an apricot surprise
on the back of her legs.
All busy hanging clothes
and
Watching in the yard to see the baby lulling in the doze
Of May.
My perennial loving Guard.
Absolute
by Frank Daub
I have always dealt -- in absolutes.
I was educated in this way.
The greatest Man who ever lived
knew NIGHTIME -- from the day.
An absolute stands timelessly
above the doubt –
and tall.
Yet those who will not understand
Reject truth as a wall.
September’s Apples
By Frank Daub
September apples rest in the cellar,
barely in the light,
mellow,
turning cider
beneath their shining skins like cinnamon wine.
I bite one –
juice bubbles out
to the edges of my mouth.
There is sweetness first.
Then at once the tart September taste and
the white circle roughly broken from
the red round.
How long, I wonder, before the white darkens.
The white goes nut colored
before
I can finish peeling the red entirety --
Or
after I’ve taken the first bite.
What is it that makes us put apples in the cellar?
To keep them Autumn-like, extending the
crispness of a season bringing harvest?
This, or it does something to their flavor that the sun can’t finish.
I try to remember how the apples tasted when the old man and I pulled them
from the tree.
They were cold.
A little less mellow.
They are sweeter now.
Being buried was good for them. Buried in the deep cool of this cellar,
away from the sun.
The Question Is
By Frank Daub
How could I have doubted
in that sky-colored look of yours
any
words spilled in the air between us.
With the melting honey fragrance of
your hair
and the litany of intentions filling
the pale luster of your face.
How could I have questioned anything.
Or would it have been less fruitful
if I had not said
that I was not certain.
To give you stronger opportunity to speak
assurance.
It is a young game
that keeps us young and close --
the question is.
And the answer comes from the sky-color
of your eyes –
in a soothing torrent of yes.
Explain To Me
By Frank Daub
Explain to me the heavy duty of this thought:
That your beauty grows upon this day.
For no sooner do I turn
to see
the freshness of the sunlight come to play
its golden magic on the brilliance of your face.
I wonder, then, at the music of your voice
and joy to hear the softness of it.
Explain to me the heavy duty of this truth:
That your beauty grows upon this day.
You come to me,
in the morning of your youth,
while the freshness of the sunlight plays
its golden magic on the softness of your countenance.
This beauty is my sustenance.
Explain to me the lovely meaning of your eyes.
I wonder at their softness and I joy to see
The endless feeling that in their tender beauty lies.
In all this world is no more peaceful sight to me.
The endless limits of your pureness sighs
in the sky-blue meaning of your eyes.
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