Roudolph the red nosed reindeer
had a very broken leg
and if you ever saw it
you would say it made you beg
What would Santa do now?
with his lead reindeer in a full leg cast
would he be able to deliver
all the world gifts very fast?
Then the answer came to him,
as a way to carry on the glee
for all the reindeer to wear a headlamp
and they all went down in history
Categories:
headlamp, christmas,
Form: Rhyme
The cedar dock splinters out to the moon's shine
Like the second hand ticking along
A white-faced clock
Drawing in loose boats and green moths
To its sweep of time
Is there any difference
Between those little dots of cabin lights
Strung like pearls along the shore
Three miles across Torch Lake
And the stars crowded light years away?
Orbs swirling with life in the dark
Even now
We only but understand the skin of the universe
The ripples of a lake
Thin clouds aching like fossils
Under the moon’s archeological search by headlamp
My wife and I at the campfire
Measure distance
By the relief of this quieted July Sunday night
And the passing orbits of the space station
Three cycles
Is the most we’ve ever survived
Depends on how full the cooler is
And how many words we have left to hum and turn
Holding hands as the night whittles away
And the flames lower to a bath of embers
To the tapping Morse code of our bare toes.
Categories:
headlamp, beach, earth, july, moon,
Form: Free verse
Once lit by flickering torch light
with animal tallow mixed with ocher
daubed on subterranean rock walls
now lit by streetlights or LED headlamp
slashes of spray paint and magic markers
splattered on concrete bridge abutments,
boxcars, or walls of tenement ghettos,
but the message is the same
we were here.
Categories:
headlamp, symbolism,
Form: Free verse