In her car, the woman in deeepest melancholy sat.
Rain falling, tears falling, splat!
She thought of those many days before.
With many a handsome suitor at her door.
She closed her eyes and she warmly remembered!
Teaching bubbling children in those autumn-hued Septembers.
That cold, icicle-like day in Chicago when she gave birth.
The cries, the screaming, her baby, girl, a world of worth.
Walking back in time, then she recalled the day she got married.
Alas, now her husband, sleeps with sweet angels, buried.
Happily, then she sees herself when she was a runner.
Up and down the great hills of San Francisco many a spring and summer.
In mystical dreams only, can she now dance.
She whispers to God quietly for just please,for one more chance?
Suddenly, out of her trance awakened to stark reality.
Her grandson saying," Hey,open the car, Nana, it's only me."
The present brought back to her, by her generational progeny.
So grateful for a fulfilling past, bright present and future brimming with joy and ecstasy.
10/19/2024
The Days Come, Warmer
Time has ammassed the many aspects of me,
Which I then collect, design and tatt
Into delicate lace edgings for my aging, and which I then
Lay out into rings around the bases of tree trunks
To become splendor again, anew across the landscape
— with the fragrance of lilies — orange, yellow, purple —
Bursting their blooms through the darkened earth
Beside the already growing roses, asters, peonies and hostas —
To celebrate meeting a new season of warmth in the forest;
Awaiting evensong, to grace this day’s ending work and memories
With the birds flocking, circling, singing out overhead
From here to the horison’s moonrise.
———————————————————————————————-
(c) sally young eslinger 5/12/2023
SUPPLICATIONS EvenSong
My Daddy does all things in all things He does
in mind petitions invocations
In my requests are all known
Beseeching vespers reaping salvations
in mind petitions invocations
Earnest are mine request Help me Daddy
Beseeching vespers reaping salvations
Thanksgiving evensong
Earnest are mine request Help me Daddy
In my requests are all known
Thanksgiving evensong
My Daddy does all things in all things He does
2/3/23
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr. 2023©
Evensong of Hope
We all hope for freedom from pain.
Or..that our sadness will go away.
Or, please God, let my dear lover, stay.
In dry spells, most citizens hope for rain.
As poets, we hope to create beauty.
To move and melt other fellow souls.
Glistening like bright amber coals….
Writing, indeed, ‘tis our spiritual duty!
We hope we one day get a POTD.
I declare, one for you and one for me!
We can sip tea, then, under my orange tree.
And may courage, always come to us easily.
Be your genuine self here, no matter what.
Impressive poems, do impact me not.
Make other poet souls, come alive, not rot!
Freshly scented, breezy, as sliced coconut.
10/16/2022
The bistred day has fallen still,
A darkened mead hangs overhead;
The hush within the evening chill
Chants now the yore is gone to bed.
A gently breeze steals from the west,
Cool along the shadowed lanes;
The sunburned broil, now at rest,
Its warmth has gone, though still remains.
The cool night air stands all alone
Anon the past is gone to sleep;
Daytime secrets tossed and blown,
The faithful night for ere to keep.
Secrets that the breeze fears speak,
Winnowing in the night-time swell;
Brushing eastward 'gainst your cheek...
The whispered wind mayn't kiss-n'-tell.
Evensong is served this eve
All around the moonlit shrine;
Absolution cedes when you believe,
The cool night air is sweet as wine.
Drink your fill in solemn thought,
Let your mind escape within;
Cleanse your conscience, ever fraught,
Save your soul! ~ confess your sin!
Here beneath a cloudless sky
You're not alone ~ you seldom are;
Within the dim nocturnals fly
As someone watches from afar.
So, meditate, your faith elate,
Ruminate, and yet beware;
Intoxicate your mindless state,
Drinking in the cool night air.
Let me be peaceful
Angels, cover me with blue stars
Grateful to the core
10/30/2020
#1
The wind blows, weaving through the trees
The song of evening in the breeze
A warmth of love and light and song
A joyful beat when days are long
The light fades softly from the sky
The swan-winged clouds let out a sigh
A tune too soft to put to word
The sweetest song that’s e’er been heard
A golden sunset in the sky
The evenbirds let out a cry
A story of the days grown long
The beauty of sleeping evensong
A golden tincture to the sky
as to the west it goes its way,
last fleeting glance of the sun’s eye
ere night-time comes to wrest the day.
Sat tired within my garden there
high on a tree an anthems sung,
a feathered lovechild of the airr
affirming joy of life on wing.
Its song more permanent than I
though I may think to own the tree
it cares not and all change defies
for that small bird owns liberty.
Nine hundred years these arches rang :
With fervent praise the people sang.
In early days the monks would chant
As from the heights bright beams would slant
Illuminating Norman stone
And soften with a pallid light,
With Benedictine monotone,
To put all worldly dark to flight.
With skill, in stone, mere men have wrought
A timeless edifice, which sought
To witness to the power eternal,
With habit, cowl and vow fraternal.
And still, today, the peoples sing,
Sweet music echoing from the walls;
The organ thunders, anthems ring
From medieval quire stalls.
Sleeping beside the obloquy's poet,
2:40 am,a candle seeks it's death:
In the plight of your dream.
Slow breathing,
Perhaps the moons learns of her slumbering,
Where the labyrinths of reposing,
Remembers the calm sought,
Of your silent silhouette,
Burn on the walls of the memory.
Are the dreams fluent?
And ever flowing as the heart which stirs,
The compassion of your lucid nature,
In the eyes unto tonight's remembrances.
I can only weave,
The picturesque beatification,
Let me become the seeker,
Of an unconscious truth,
At how loved is she,
The dreamer of my eyes beholding,
Keep safely the soul unmeasured,
And find morning,
Kissing sunlight unto Hestia's hearth
And into the eyes of a woman,
Who found her home,
By the resting.
Arisen by a poet's words
Becomes cleansed in her chrysalis.
For my sins and everything I ever did or sought to be,
Contempt and dying to be clever in unfathomed pools of sadness,
I plumbed each depth and splashed the ether, oscillated shakily,
Strapped to dark beliefs and definitions, all I gleaned of me was badness.
In my heart I hoarded secrets, guarded, gloated jealously,
Something touched quiescent feelings, split the stone upon the grave;
Resurrected dead ambitions with a Lazarus decree
And in doing so, in side-effect, unearthed a soul to save.
You did nothing of importance, so you reckoned pensively,
But if not for you, at close of play, I would have stayed the same;
Doing penance, going nowhere, shooting blanks haphazardly
In a thermos of reflection with nowhere to lay the blame.
In the dusky tones of evensong a plaintive melody
Croons through mazes in my image and exalts together days;
So perhaps, by your sweet process, you brought out the best in me,
And therein must lie the truth, that what we had has worked both ways.
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