Freedom abandoned years and years ago
Choosing to be your wife-partner for life
Packed suitcase with that which fit, but didn’t know
Some baggage slipped along just to add strife
Left behind schooling, leisure but didn't understand
Some might be needed including my ego
Days I wanted to dance but barely could stand
Unlike childhood dancing, believed in credo
The engagement ring a beauty, wedding ring plain
Home wedding, then our future lay before
Where dreams played a different life refrain
Brides can't drop who they are, forget past store
Memories, character blends have to take place
'Til she becomes a person God filled with grace...
Autumn unbuttons the
afternoon, loosens its
gold along the lane. A leaf
comes down without a sound
and lands inside last night’s rain.
I used to press these little
flames between the pages of a
book, believing something
bright would stay if only I
refused to look. Now
copper gathers at my
feet; the branches
open to the grey. I
leave the fallen
leaves untouch
ed and take
the long
way
home
tod
ay.
Am i selfish to want more?
i get up the courage to talk to her for the first time in two weeks.
i ask her how school is,
“Good.”
She says
“My mom wants to know if you can come to my talent show on the 30th.”
i ask
“No I have a sleepover that night.”
Oh…ok
“Have you ordered your black swan costume yet?”
i ask
“Oh I had to cancel because of the phone thing.”
oh…ok
You had to cancel because it’s me?
You have a sleepover the night before but you can’t take the time to spend halloween with me?
The one who just moved here.
The one who you know has no friends.
The one who you know for a fact is hurting.
the one you know is leaving.
“oh it’s ok. it’s with maddie right?”
“yeah.”
A person leaves a memory,
a voice still breathing in an empty room;
a parent leaves a child's hand to hold
the wisdom gathered through a lifetime's bloom.
A lover leaves an absence at the door,
a chair untouched, a silence in the bed;
and words survive in letters, photographs,
small objects keeping what the heart once said.
Some leave a scar where tenderness once lay,
some leave a wound that time cannot erase;
some leave a garden, a house, a tree—
a changed and quiet place that bears their trace.
A life leaves footprints even after death,
a legacy written in another's days;
yet we abandon dreams we cannot carry,
and leave behind the selves we once displayed.
We cannot take our possessions into night,
nor carry earth's green forests when we go;
humanity leaves its shadow on the planet—
a wound, a wonder, and a debt we owe.
And long after memory has lost our name,
when even our last photograph is gone,
somewhere, somehow, because we once were here,
the darkness will be different from the dawn.
After years of efforts and struggles
human beings have been able to
unfold the secrets of nature
treasured beneath the soil
in the deep oceans,underneath hill slopes
and in mountain peaks.
Only a few with dedication and determination
could reach the goal.
Penetrating through the challenges, posed by nature
efforts meet success and what is accomplished
is the mark of humanity on Earth.
The inventions give a reason for the existence
and happenings of certain phenomena on Earth.
The great personalities leave behind
a zeal to move on,a hope for existence.
What is left behind, is always an inspiration
for the generations to arrive.
The greatest mark of humanity on Earth
is the discovery of what is present,
yet unknown for centuries...
Great personalities are remembered
even after centuries, for their great contributions to mankind...
Give a cow enough grass,
never exceed it no matter what,
or it will shamelessly ask for more.
Once the fat keeps them away from the cold,
Grinding further, their teeth become boulders,
until the verdant is nowhere to be seen.
A mere flower evades from the sight of gardeners,
too afraid to smell its own scent.
A heel crushing the soil,
stepping a life in thought it was never created
Touch me...
like it's the first time
Hold me...
like I'm a lost lamb
Kiss me...
like it's the last time
Love me...
for the man I am
It's hard to believe
that not that long ago
you and I were strangers.
Now we feel closer
than family
meeting in the middle
of infinity,
Finding in each other
the friend we have ached for
in need and in darkness
becoming each other's light
shining bright
at precisely the right time...
My Anam Cara
My dear friend
What a joy to meet you
As my heart begins to mend.
There's a touch of magic
in how this came to be,
a rescuing of something deep
that I didn't know needed saving.
Entering this unknown realm
my heart widens in awe -
This forever friendship
our privileged newfound bond
unique and emotional,
powerful and strong...
My Anam Cara
My dear friend
What a joy to meet you
As my heart begins to mend.
At a time of vulnerability
a weary, confused soul
found in you a reason
why happy tears can roll.
We share instinctive understanding
our likes and humour too.
What I'm trying to say is,
"I deeply appreciate you!"...
My Anam Cara
My dear friend
What joy to meet you
As my heart begins to mend.
My Anam Cara
My dear friend
You've found lodging in my heart
with a hug that has no end.
autumn shakes trees threadbare
spent leaves loosen from brittle stems
each clinging to its bough
waiting for the pluck of the wind
to uncover what waits in their axils
one leaf lies pressed flat
between pages seldom turned
sheltered from rain and light
its veins mirror buried roots
grounded in what it remembers
wine stains the glass
one mouthful remains untouched
thirst lingers at the rim
its sweetness deepens in restraint
the poised tongue, tastes what it has left behind
on dust-laden shelves
books keep mementos between well-thumbed pages
dog-eared by the aftermath
where spines remember the press of hands
finding places spent years forget
as leaf settles on leaf
each layer buries another
last laid, first recalled
the gathered stack of a life
waiting for the scurry of a wanton wind
neither dusk nor dawn
can deceive me about the leaves
I shed, keep, forgo, forget,
give away, hold back—
each leaf, a page I can't keep.
Friend, what would you give
To not feel the pain of loss
When a child passes?
Departing this life needs to be far more
About what we leave; not what's left.
Upon my demise, what is left behind
Will not be what I would be leaving.
Things left would not be the source
Nor the essence of my believing.
Careless observations are deceiving.
Beware of what our lives are teaching.
Although my leaving will bring grieving,
And what is left can be most helpful,
I pray that what I leave will bring rejoicing;
That the life lived will be a source of healing.
May there be gifts that keep on giving;
Eternal qualities that will not be fading.
Written: October 04, 2026, as A sample for the contest What we leave Behind.
We do not leave our footsteps to the earth;
the rain unthreads them, reed by reed, from stone.
Nor does the house remember what we were—
its walls absorb our voices, then grow lone.
We leave the warmth that lingered in a chair,
a photograph grown silver at the seam,
the scent of roses suspended in the air,
a half-remembered cadence in a dream.
We leave the words we uttered without care,
the wound they opened, and the scar that stayed;
the kindness no one witnessed anywhere,
the small reprieve a stranger’s grief was paid.
We leave ourselves in those who knew our name:
a gesture, an expression, a way of seeing;
some ember smouldering beneath the ash of time,
some unanswered question still becoming.
Perhaps our truest legacy is not what lasts,
but what, once touched by us, is changed—
a life made gentler, briefly, by our passing;
a darkness that remembers it was light.
Do the empty, balding patches on my head express it to you?
How I’ve stayed silent
just so you could heal?
How I’ve cried endless nights over you,
just so I don’t ruin you any more than I have.
How you don’t even care to look me in the eyes
at dance or to even watch me dance.
How you dare to even say
“I don’t want a hug from you.”
To my face,
mind you.
Something I would never dare to do to you,
because I would be scared if I hurt you.
What have I done to deserve such hate?
What can I do to reverse it?
What have I done for you to not even look at me?
What can I do to reverse it?
What can I do to help you?
nothing.
They say you can’t count hairs,
but you sure can count the friends you’ve lost.
378 hairs.
only 7 friends.
Would God be God if I did not exist,
A living force if I did not have life?
Would there be any point in Universe
If I was not there to enjoy it all
And to affirm that God is truly great,
A wise Creator, an eternal power
That underlies existence of myself?
What stops me from believing that He needs
My weakness just as I demand His strength,
My feeble mind as much as I’m in need
Of every element of His enormous thought?
And why can’t I, to end my nightly prayers,
Instead of my impertinent amens,
Smile back at Him and very simply say:
You’re welcome, Lord, that both of us exist!
The Dark Moon
The garden holds its breath.
The gate has misplaced its shape.
Beyond it, the dam keeps only
the stars that have fallen in.
The Young Moon
A sliver of moon silhouettes
In the dark branches of the gums
enough to find the washing line,
my hand against the rail.
The White Moon
Each night it finds more of the yard:
the cracked birdbath, the pail beneath the tap,
the chair you left facing the creek.
Each morning, less of me remains
at the window.
For several nights, nowhere is dark enough—
the cup on the sill, the unlatched gate,
the possum’s startled eyes
burning in the grevillea.
The Old Moon
The brightness withdraws:
first from the water, then the fence,
then the chair, which becomes
only a chair again.
Above the roof, one pale hook
unfastens itself from the dark.
I close the curtain
without looking back.
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