Unshaded Glades
In that distant land of remembered time,
I walked sunlit paths only lovers know,
With sharpened spirit and youth’s hope filled prime
In that fast fading past of long ago.
When life’s concerns were but a fleeting shade,
An interlude, cast on the day's clear glow,
An uncertain light in a sunlit glade
From which two lovers future story grows.
And now; recalled through those blurred ages past,
That distant scene is seen through time dimmed eyes,
O’er that far remembered tryst, shadows cast
Where parting lovers spoke their last goodbyes.
Now, a wistful yearning absorbs my mind.
Where, new unshaded glades are there to find?
Barry Stebbings
March, 2023
Categories:
unshaded, memory, metaphor, nostalgia, time,
Form: Sonnet
Of all the times I spent at sea,
The most cherished was blessed night.
Beneath a laden luminous landscape,
Unshaded by harsh unnatural light.
Cast amid gently rolling waves,
With both eyes celestially bound.
Enthralled by a crystallized reflection,
My pulsing heart the only sound.
The warm salty scented breeze,
As we sailed with the ebb and flow.
Awashed with a heightened purpose,
While the crew slumbered down below.
I found my thoughts slowly drifting,
Towards all the wonders I had seen.
From life aquatic to foreign lands,
Surfing highways of deep blue-green.
It cradled me with peace of mind,
That others would never share.
My spirit had been awakened,
And refreshed beyond compare.
The universe and I becoming one,
Though a speck of cosmic dust.
Knowing my soul was sated well,
Which satisfied my galactic lust.
Now with both feet firmly grounded,
Upon the grass of my home state.
I feel compelled to once more travel,
Aboard a briny ship at Heaven's Gate.
Categories:
unshaded, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form: Rhyme
One does not look at the sun
unshaded, often how we approach
truth for the sake our children,
for the sake of the novice, nibbling
at the edges of faith....
Categories:
unshaded, feelings, growth, inspirational, love,
Form: Free verse
Skylight unshaded and yet still it rests
Dark clouds impeding the sunlight’s ingress
To many it’s frightening, but in truth the lightning
May, this day, the catalyst be
This creature I’ve made remains where it’s laid
I’ve poked it and shook it and I’ve even prayed
But out there the lightning, alive and enticing
Whispers, ‘why don’t you use me’
As I fight the notion of strikes from above
I cannot bring harm to this creature I love
But my every action evokes no reaction
A flash gifts the insight to me
For whistles and bells and deafening yells
And salts that administer God-awful smells
Should surely elicit response in the living
What’s left but electricity
So I fetch a cable, the thickest I’m able
One end I fix to it’s neck with a staple
The other end fed to the lightning conductor
The rest is now not up to me
A strike, the house quakes, the creature awakes
It screams ‘I need food’ and then its head shakes
I said it took so long to raise you, that now...
You’re late: the school bus leaves in three
I dedicate this poem to ‘owners’ of teenage sons.
Categories:
unshaded, halloween, parody, sleep,
Form: Rhyme
. for public domain
After Glow
Having no holiday lights to glow,
I left my salt lamp light on low,
and went outside to the prairie road
to see what the nighttime sky would show.
Alas. The winter clouds hid all starlight,
the moon and planets were gone from sight.
For a moment I felt denied a right
as Nature bestowed me one more slight.
Then a beaconed horizon caught my view,
not just one, but at least a dozen few,
some orange, some red, some yellow and blue,
and colors that before I never knew.
From across cornfields shown sparkles of light,
from unshaded windows of dwellings upright,
and my soul swelled an urge to reignite
my extinguished self against the night.
Categories:
unshaded, christmas,
Form: Rhyme
lipstick on his bleach white collar
in the shade of his wife’s blush
his pulse point still feels her breath
colleagues think he’s been fooling around
he has
2/19/2020
Categories:
unshaded, marriage, sensual,
Form: Free verse
Paradise:
Where healthcare receiving
is always as invited
as warm yellow sunshine
after a dark blue hurricane,
Where wealthcare giving
always begins with cooperative invitation
into vulnerable unshaded curiosity,
transparent courage
radiantly shared,
Where our traumas
remain critical exceptions
that prove Earth's positive energy
democratic health/wealth bicameral rule,
When GoldenRule wealth
of co-passions felt
and personally/politically known
are as common as safe breath restoration
sufficiently resonant from LeftBrain calming Here
through proficiently synergetic gratitude
for RightBrain's timeless Now
When safely receiving care
is always as invited
as warm yellow sunshine
after a dark blue hurricane.
Categories:
unshaded, caregiving, courage, health, paradise,
Form: Political Verse
Where Love Grew
Beneath the maple tree
is where our love first started to grow
Green buds of unblossomed love,
basking in the golden dappled light
of spring’s awakening
A sweet kiss given,
sweet as maple ...
given beneath the swaying branches
Dancing to the wind music of spring,
as you lullabied me with sweet whisperings
Under the unshaded maple tree
is where our love first began to seed,
and take root into the heart of me
Beneath the maple tree
is where your love started to grow inside of me
Your love lifted me above the branches so high
It took me beyond the expansion
of the bright blue sky
Lasting longer than time
marked in tree rings to be seen
For in the seed of growth came strength of bond
that flourished on soft emerald grass,
under the shaded maple tree
Through rain and sun,
all storms to pass
Our sweet whisperings of love do last
Within my heart, within my soul,
I am as tall as the maple tree with you
We are still dancing to the wind music
each spring anew
Beneath the maple tree
where our love grew
Heidi Sands collaboration with Freddie Robinson Jr.
3/10/17
Categories:
unshaded, love, tree,
Form: Free verse
I moved onto the farm when I was eleven,
To the farm eroded of trees.
I’d stand on the hill in the middle of summer,
Unshaded in a blistering breeze.
Then the winter shook hands and my work it began,
Iron barrow, saplings, and a spade.
I planted, I nurtured, hundreds of trees,
Before I realised I’d been betrayed.
It took a plague of rabbits a week to destroy,
Every tree in my little plantation.
So I replanted each tree, surrounded with plastic,
In a war of land occupation.
Then the sheep we had, broke through a fence,
And devoured every little one.
Damn, new strategy, wire mesh for each,
The regrowth had, now, just begun.
Then a drought, “you’re kidding” every tree turned to dust,
Every tree I’d planted with care.
The drought broke when I was fifteen, so I replanted the hill,
Replanted on a wing and a prayer.
Now, thirty years since, you can’t see the hill anymore,
It’s blanketed by leaves on the trees.
You can now stand on the hill in the middle of summer,
Shaded with a cool, calm, comfortable breeze.
Categories:
unshaded, farm, success,
Form: Quatrain
Thinking of one who is not under the shade of tree
Thinking of pouring the shade in the unshaded free
Looking the eyes trying to aid other
In the dark putting the light further
In the heap of sand like a sandune
Making every effort not single lune
Water to a barren waterless world
Like a tune of the odourless curled
O trees open up give green and shade light
Make the world again everywhere delight
Categories:
unshaded, deep, tree,
Form: Couplet
Colours
Would that the world was black and white
no colours, or their hues, to blur the sight
all things, quick sorted, left or right.
No nuance of the eye, or mind
nor deviation from the norm, to find
hidden in the muted edge of graying line.
Is there no peace within unshaded lie,
no colour twixt the harshness of cold dye
save the blotted smear as colours dry.
Who drained the colour, stole from break of day
that which drew the colours home to stay,
condemned us to this black and white display,
Sucked from love the crimson red of heart
tamed the variance of sweet and tart
hit the bullseye with a dull and tasteless dart.
What if the colours should some day return
to fulfill the dreams for which we yearn
would it then be black and white we scorn?
for Shadow Hamilton
contest - Colours
6/26/2014
Categories:
unshaded, color,
Form: Verse
In his final moments
He clutched his sheet in fear
Staring at the wallpaper
He knows his time is near
The unshaded lightbulb
The dust around the room
Black mould in the windowsill
Adding to the gloom
Loved ones stand around him
For their tearful last goodbyes
Forever shall be without him
But he cannot reason why
His thoughts now are desperate
And nothing shall they gain
But to toy with logic, reason
Might help to ease the pain
The universe for him
Is not beyond the sky
For when his time expires
His universe will die
He recalls a varnished box
And now his fears somehow subside
It was stored in an upstairs cupboard
Where he sometimes used to hide
The distinctive smell of varnish
The rusty broken locks
Tins of enamel paint
Occupy the box
Time seems at a standstill
As he revisits his past
A time once thought forgotten
He prays this time to last
He opens up the fusty box
To take a look inside
His father’s name inside the lid
Consumed is he with pride
His loved ones weep with sorrow
As he walks his final mile
His body still and lifeless
He exits with a smile
Categories:
unshaded, absence, death, loss, universe,
Form: Rhyme
Chosen, tantalised, to there so close thine eyes, in musical moments,
Released all cares through reaching recitals, so buried now within the stave's,
Fingers flexing, skilfully etching, a melody of all the heart to both hear and see.
Exciting sounds of pure perfection, racing to the senses from all direction.
Resounding then loud, so as to hear the beat of heart,
Memories in music then a part,
Quavered and crocheted, in poetic abundance.
Such the resonance the soul to see!
Traverse me there then, upon the clouds of Clarinet!
Wing me wandered, upon the Harps repose.
Vail me unshaded in stringed ecstasy of Violin,
For then in all my heart and mind they do so sing!
Chorus me in carpets then, of orchestrated bliss!
So finely woven intricate, in Oboes saddened kiss.
That all of this can take me so to heavens new,
That all of symphony, could make my heart renewed!
Reeling me, searching me! So to find!
The ache of stirring reeds, enriches the mind,
Coaxing me then so now, to a winged height,
With music formed in fretted sagacious sound!
In music then, there is poetry found!
Categories:
unshaded, music, uplifting, visionary, me,
Form: I do not know?