Words for Each Season c2005

8/6/2019 Words for Each Season c2005

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RRoobbeerrtt FF.. CCooookk


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Words For Each

SeasonQuestion: How long doesit take to write a poem?

That question, posed tosixteen year old Robert byhis high school AmericanLiterature teacher,beleaguered him for thenext forty-five years whilehis words, some inspired

in an instants insight,took their time to grow,to mature and to evolveinto a voice.

Answer: It can take alifetime!

Life cycles throughseasons, and the poetrywithin paints those cyclesof life.

Robert F. Cook at 16


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Words_

For Each_

Season_

Robert F. Cook __


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Words for Each Season

Robert F. Cook 2005


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Contents

by Chapter

WWWooorrrdddsss FFFooorrr EEEaaaccchhh SSSeeeaaasssooonnn

Dedication & ForewordA New Day ............................ 3The Beach...............................4

Spring Haiku (Chapter I)........5Crocus ....................................6Into the Light .........................7Simple Things.........................8Enclosure................................9Encounter.............................10Sommelier ............................11April Blizzard ........................12

Poem....................................13Anxious Moment...................14Ego Search ...........................15Night Light Out....................16Word Wonder .......................17Rebellion...............................18Revolution ............................19Velocity of Life......................20

Rainy Days............................21Everything to Give.................22Daily Prayer ..........................23Wind Wish............................24

Summer Haiku (Chapter II). 25Summer............................... 26Soothing Summer Nights ..... 27Courage to Love.................... 28Loving ................................. 29Mind Touch ......................... 30Friends ................................ 31Departure ............................. 32Adoration............................. 33Oh Timid Tongue................. 34

Pedestal................................ 35Cover Over Night ................. 36Champagne .......................... 37Doorway............................... 38Silk & Satin Song ................ 39Sounds of Smiling ................ 40Valued Moment.................... 41Week End ............................ 42

Wealth of Love ..................... 43Autumn Haiku (Chapter III) 44Twilight ............................... 45Driftwood ............................. 46Aging................................... 47When the Poetry is Gone ...... 48Moving, Marching, Passing

Time................................. 49

Grey Day.............................. 50Grown Away......................... 51There Is Only Now ............... 52

Winter Haiku (Chapter IV) .. 53Winter ................................. 54The Ebb............................... 55One Candle Lit..................... 56Un In Love .......................... 57

Love Perished ....................... 58Emptiness ............................ 59Lost Faith ............................ 60Reflections............................ 61Sundown.............................. 62Death Watch ........................ 63


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Dedication

to friends.

A New Day

I bid you take a look,pause to reflect, my friend,how life is not a simple bookto forward to the endthen live it back again.

In life we daily come of agewith each turning of a pagereading there what's hidden,new and yet unwritten.

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The Beach(A Foreword)

Like a tall surf crashing,emotion, relentlesslywills and washes the human souluntil beauty, hid within,

emerges like treasurefrom the seashore sands.

Dare with mea risky search,among the rocks beneath the cliffs,drenched by pounding waves

and pulled by undertow.Brave with meexposure at the very edge,where earth and roiled water meet,and limitless space overseesinterminable intermingling.

Walk with mealong the beach.

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Springis to be born.Winters earth turns green.

Buds appear upon the trees.Signs of life return.

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Crocus

Who has called me

upward to the light?Is it not yet Spring?Do I come too soonto bloom,to falsely heralda season

in which new lifewith love and lightwill flower?

If the message wasin error,cover me again

with snow,and let me sleep.

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Into the Light

No more shadow,

nor dark uncertainty.

I am the white light

that surrounds you,

myself unseen,

yet ever there,

illuminating.

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Simple Things

How grand life would beif living were a simple thing,to simply listen to the band,to simply dance, simply sing.

To celebrate the wonder,the mystic miracle of being,

never dwelling in the darkness,always bathed in light and seeing.

The rain would sprinkle every eveningsoftly blue to green, to feeling mellow.Every day the sun would rise

magnificently red and golden yellow.

The essence of simplicity,stripped away of chaff and chatter,condensed to living lovingly,by finding simple things that matter.

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Enclosure

Its a lid on inspiration,for a moment, to stop feelingpenetration into being.

When wallslike iron chambered sheathingwithhold without, without,

within, within.

Until a pen,its fine-lined scratching ekingtiny glints of light,erases dark from night

and lifts the veil from seeing.

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Encounter

Spilling quietly and hidden,behind a thicket, dark, forbidden,until the wafting of a great owl's wingturned my head toward a secret spring.

It was a thrill, an unexpected findthat sent pleasant tickles through my mind.

Its tranquil water, sweet to taste,I sipped then left, though not in haste.

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Sommelier

No waster,there's nothing Ican give a wine,which God had grownupon a vinein luscious grapeswhose essence mellow

richness takesthis humble fellow,just a taster.

There is wisdom in the waysof sommeliers

who taste of each and all.Oh! But very little swallow.

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April Blizzard

As if the earth were green,in sunlight's shadow melting snow,

through darkness rise to preenfrom sleeping, tulips grow.

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Poem

To sketcha thought with wordsas if the inkwere finely blended oilspainting multi-colored sayings.

Then a touch.Then a touch.A shade, a hue,until an image in the mindescapes incarceration.

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Anxious Moment

As if suspendedo'er a chasm dark,I felt a fallingdown, downin pain's anticipation,

then landed into a lightof reality arisingnot to a mountains peak,but to a new plateau.

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Ego Search

Visions of Springspeak unknown wishesand whispered whimsiesdwell around mewith symbiotic needs.

Bits and pieces,remain bits and pieces.

Wholesomeness, elusive,puzzles, Who am I?

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Night Light Out

Darkened shadowsees a terror lurkingamidst attentive stillness.Electrified,paralytic breathlessness

sends creepy-crawlies tauntingsensors in the skinuntil an inner force of ego guidesto flight or fight.

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Word Wonder

Hear musicin the flows of wordslike bubblings from springsthat ripple into thoughtful streamsof sometimes roaring waterfalls,

or mellow meanderingsacross a quiet meadow,pausing past a turn to ponderin a deepened stillness,wonder.

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Rebellion

Why customs so despised,conventions so ignored,while many have surmisedwhat morals do afford?

Forewarned, beware the risk of being,like defiant fools who blindly swam

insistent swimming was their freeing,then drowned from plunging over the dam.

So what of laws and rules?Set by whom? Do we know?Entrust to God, not fools,

to set ways rivers flow.

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Revolution

Do you wonderwhy the Earth revolvesand turns so restlesslyspinning round, around the Sunseeming straining to be free?

There's much described of rules

that hold it steady, true.If those laws did not exist,do you wonderwhat the Earth would do?

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Velocity of Life

Trees move notin all their time to grow,some lasting past a thousand years,the longestliving things we know.

Do they keep some secretthe mobile never learn to share?

Do they love like us?Do they ever measure care?

Perhaps with time enough,near immortal stillness lendsdiscernment of a grander being

and all the soul transcends.

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Rainy Days

Let not raindrops sourthat sigh of sweetness tastedwhen days of sunlight shiningfilled our hearts so warmly.

Nor let us mortals cursehow darkly raining looms,

for every flower bloomsChristened by the wetness.

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Everything to Give

Had I everything to give,my friend,Id give a morning star,a deeply rooted tree,backlit cloudsabove a sunrising oer undiscovered land

with a harbor to the sea,plus three wingedwishes.

What elsewould provision you,

as you turn up again your craft,beached upon the shore,and paddle on?

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Daily Prayer

What poetry movesmy heart todayfor me to askmore than for the sunthat warmly leadsmy soul's pursuit of grace

past sensuality?I would ask to neverpossess another human loved,to only share with bliss,infinity.

I would ask to neverown the earth or sea,to share my time and space,humility.

Let me never curse the windwhich scatters seedsto sow new life,serene subtlety.

Nor ever curse the rainwhile drinking from the cloudsin purity unprofaned,the blood of mercy.

Nor prostitute,by worship of the sunin search of glory,integrity.

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Wind Wish

There's a sparkwithin my soul

much like a smoldering ember,which must be brought to flamebefore the fire dies;before the warmth and lightwhich could have comeshall never.

Stagnant air restrictsmy ember's breathing,and, rain fallsuntil a dampness seepsthrough the shelter that is Iand the mildew creepsupon the ash that lies

as comfort 'rounda faint, persistent glowing,hoping,for a changingsoft breeze blowing.

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Summer,and livingis easy.The most enduring

love arises in summer.Ultimate beauty.

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Summer

How beauty is a summer's day,its skin a well tanned Earth

all clothed in best of green.

A smiling face shines warmlythrough hazy bluish eyes.

A framing crown of tussled hair,gleaming silver white,

glows red or sometimes goldenas a halo o'er the dusk.

Then, beauty is a summer's eve,a symphony of sounds on stagein soft-lit shadowed hideawayswhere a lightly veiled reflectionbeams with sighs and criesamong the hearts that wander under

velvet curtains of the night.

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Soothing Summer Nights

Summer nights appear more tender,cooler, clearer, compared to days.Soothing breezes freshly renderlove transparent, and lift the haze.

Most any night can seem that way,when someone comes to still your fears,

who finds transforming words to saythat change to joyous, sorrows tears.

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Courage to Love

It isnt easy to be bold,to hold that love wont be betrayed,to open up, exposed to cold,and brave the venture unafraid.

So delicate the human heart,though dauntless, daily feeding life,

from petty punctures comes apart.The body bleeds, succumbs to strife.

Yet trusting comes, the fear abates.Courage returns, risk abiding,the gift of loving celebratesenigmas of the souls confiding.

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Loving

To loveis to grow to knowthat dreams of passionare not awakened fromlike passages of seasonsas springs become summersor days become years.

While seasons pass,as have seasons past,dreams of lovingflower,by their blossoms

sharing,time transcending.

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Mind Touch

Come,be with mewhere no space between us lie,one in one to sharea mind touch.

Come share the well

from which I drink.I've known the thirst you have.If your heart feels cold,let me warm it close to mine.

No ransom would I ask,

nor would I impedeyour journey to whatever questwould take you onbeyond me.

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Friends

I asked my friend,Do you love me?

My friend said,Friends don't ask;friends just give.

I told my friend,I love you.

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Departure

Against tomorrow's parting,let me share, today,some deep thought with you.

Tomorrow,with only fading visionsof our faces,

in the quiet awayfrom echoes of our voices,that thought through whichwe were one,within each other,will linger.

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Adoration

For youwithin me bloomsa special feeling

At nightit taunts my dreamsand stays my sleep from me.

By day,it steals away my thoughtsto images of youand your wordslinger in my mind

like your touch upon my skin,like the warmthof your hand in mine.

'Tis pleasin'.

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Oh Timid Tongue

I wish that she could knowhow into me, within my being,the feelings that now bloom and growfrom senses more than seeing.

Yet I dread and cannot bearthat she would turn her gaze this way

to become accusingly awareof what timid words Id have to say.

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Pedestal

What column, alabaster white,stayed my hand reach outfor chancing not quite bold enough,forsaking consummation?

No permission needed grantingsolely than my own;

nor was the column morethan awed imagination.

Refused invitation to the sun riseto linger in the moon's reflection,and turned away with emptiness

to stare with consternation.

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Cover Over Night

Love's ephemeral fabric,cozy, snug, woven tightly,presses on us with no weight.It clings secure but lightly,

like a heavenly embrace.

Love preserves as wholes our souls.It shelters us from our stormsand dangling, empty endings.Love protects in all its formswhat raging winds seek ravage.

Love stays with us through darknesstill someone, some way healing,comes to us to grip our faith,to stay our falling feeling,lifted by the Saviors Grace.

Like a cover over night,edge to edge across the sky,barring gloom and foggy mist,while within its folds we lie,love harbors us by the Gift.

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Champagne

What mysteries releasedby bubbles in a wine?Or the glowing warmththat seeps into my mindfrom a single sipand touching lip to lipto find you fully free

to feel no shame with me.

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Doorway

Don't look to me and thinksomehow I'd set you free.Nor was it in the drink

you sat and shared with me.

The prison that was youalways held an open door.

That now you see it toois all and nothing more.

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Silk & Satin SongLet me sing a song

of love to you my love,

a song of silk and satin clothlightly looped and soft.

A silken scarf beneath your chin,satin sash around your waist.

Let me lay a satin pillow nearand sing love's silken song.

A song to touch your heart

until crystal tears appear,

to sparkle down a satin cheekto dampen silken hair,

to lie moist 'pon my fingertipsthat brush them light away

and cool the burning burrow,of anguish buried deep.

Then, sigh upon my breastwhile wrapped in silk and satin,

to rest in intermission,unbinding and unbound.

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Sounds of Smiling

The earth moved,it seemed to breathe today.

From within the crushof peopled city sidewalks,I'd heard a soundand looked to the west

to see your voicecarried seated ina golden setting sun.

Then, a twinklingthrough the dimnessof a twilight's coming

grew wondrously to a song.'Twas your smile!

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Valued Moment

What could you settle forwhile all my lifeI can't share with you?

You give all of you,

but ask of me so little.Should I kill a flower freshly,send its waning bloom acrossthose miles and minds that separate?Or, a picture?Or a letters written words?

Let me promise youat least one day,when all our worldly cares will pauseto lend our sharing walkingto a meadow midst a mountain glen.

With sunshine smiling on us,knee deep in fragrant flowers blooming,encircled by protective treeswithin whose boughs canaries sing,will come our valued moment.

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Week End

Two daysseem so little timeto be with you.There are so many days

through-out the yearwhen Im not nearto hear your voice,to see your smile,and share with youa while.

Life's timeis less than a momentin eternity's totality,

yet one daycan seem a yearof many thousand moments.

Then, two days?Twice a thousand moments,savored every one.

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Wealth Of Love

What incredible richesdo we havein the sensitivity to love.

To know love's tasteupon the tongue,

its feel into the fingers,the sense of its scentfloating freely with the breeze.

Its springtime rains refreshand we're warmedby its morning summer sun.

Oh, to lavish inthe harvest splendorof its autumn fullness.

Only wheneverits last leaf lay fallen

and the winds of winter numb,need we yieldto sleep without it.

Yet then,yea, even then,love's seed awaitslike an enduring coin,perpetually spendable.

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Autumn bringsfalling leaves.Autumn leaves, falling,

mark the passing of summer.Savor the harvest.

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Twilight

Into the eve, I'd grown wearyfrom a day too full and long.

At last to rest, reposed in slumber,thoughts at ease and calm.

Twilight creeps upon my forest,creating momentary stillness.

Through fading clouds the stars appear,the moon drifts, luminescent.

What world is this? I wonder.Where am I? I ask.Away awash in secret wishes,

awareness never sees.

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Driftwood

The truthof who I amemerges while the earthabout my roots erodes.Knurled and gnarled,my character is exposed.

Yet should this flotsam washupon some distant shore,like a prize to be collected,someone will gather meand take me hometo decorate a hopeful garden.

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Aging

Is aging whenthe poetry is gone

with wanderings midstthe leaves of summer whimsyfallen in a golden bronzeof Autumn?

When dreams

of eventualityare supplanted by realitywith peaks not climbed,nor deserts crossed,and stars not reached?

'Tis when the living's done,like rivers having run,as senses dim the sun,and rhythm doesn't rhymewith time.

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When the Poetry is Gone

When words no longerflutter through the mindlike Monarchs among the milkweedor hummingbirds among the hostas,when no thought creeps cleverlylike a squirrel down a leaning limbto steal away an offering to the birds,

is when the poetry is goneand aging has become.

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Moving, Marching, Passing Time

Life is plainly slipping by.Try to breathe, but only sigh,

vainly counting passing dayswhile all the years are going,interminably flowing,lacking knowing better ways,missing all the reasons why.

What balanced out the pleasureforsaken from our leisure,committed to attainingpetty paltry earthly gainswith their unrelenting chains

oppressively remainingburdensome quests for measure?

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Grey Day

What could makeyour grey day go away?Would you rathernever being born?Forego the bliss,the thrill of your first kissor the sensual full sharing

of man and woman caring,or with friends,those never ending endsof permanence in changethrough together growing?Open up your eyes

fully to your mind's all senses' seeing.There really are no senseless things,merely sometimes senseless being!

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Grown Away

What happened to all

those warm-lit summer daysthe cool of coming Fall

has come to push away?Leaves are mostly turning now

to give away their deep, lush greens.I will ever wonder how

to understand what changing means.

You were the sunto me my friend.

With more than anyone,I didn't want an end.

Where did the driftfrom sharing's course begin

and cause the riftin thought that we are in?

Can we grow away from loveas simply as the seasons wheel?

What evolved we're guilty ofthat caused this loss I feel?

And yet, I do rememberhow we would drink to rainy days!

This frost in mid-Septemberbrings yearning for those care-free ways.

Now, a quiet silence liesupon the playground of our sharing.

I've mellow tears and several sighs

while peering through the fence, still caring.The fence remains a fence,dividing separate ways we've grown;

but, whatever changes hence,the memory, I'll ever own.

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There Is Only Now

Where will we gowhere before we haven't gone?

Whom will we seewhom before we haven't seen?How will we touchhow before we haven't touched?

Is alwaystomorrow, tomorrow?

Was it never yesterday?

There is no futureuntil the present's past.

There is only now.

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Winter,

and the livingsdone.Aches of winter creepperniciously through twilight.

Life force dissipates.

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Winter

Lonely nights are thesethrough weary barren trees,where shortened days are grey,less light to guide the way.

Time changes seasons,sometimes even reasons.

Spring or Fall?Do we ever know at all?

I must assume I know,despite new fallen snow,forgetting all that might have been,

the world shall be green again.

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The Ebb

A ripple, a whisper, a wave, a roar,the tide from in moves out once more.

Then looking where before unseento slime and sludge in shapeless melting...left by the Ebb...Helpless, drying, dying forms

...left by the Ebb...

A ripple, a whisper, a wave, a roar,the tide from out moves in once more.

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One Candle Lit

Quiet prayers to you,for hope and brightnessembodied in this candle-light,the flame of which,though flickeredby the wind,still softly burns

eternal.

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Un In Love

A hand not held,

a head hung low,

a firm, determined turning

away from two paths meeting

a walking on

a one

alone.

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Love Perished

Are you really gone awaymy love?

Am I not againto touch your lips by mine

or breath with youour loving's fragrancenor share a sip of wine?

Nor share anything at allbut memories

of many precious momentswhen time seemed time enoughtill taken by a tragic lossfrom words not spoken...

By our silence, we ceased speakinglove which overflowed our hearts.

Neither reached the otherand the blossom,nourish needed,died.

Are you reallygone away?

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Emptiness

Its door ajar,the cupboards emptybut for a lowlypitcher, itselfwithout contents.

Move along

o hungry soul.Theres nothing hereon which to feed.But take with youthis pitcherper chancing

that another pantryfares more well.

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Lost Faith

Last night I had a dream,in which we played a game.

You placed a blindfold on my eyes,then turned me 'round and 'round.

Love would be the prize for winning,

to find it when the turning stopped.

The turning stopped but love was gone,the game lost from not seeing.

This morning, I awoke,

remembering the dream.

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Reflections

The aches of truthcreep through me

with the fogthat swirls above the iceupon a winters lakewhere I walk

vicariously,gazing into

reflections.My pretentious mind,that coped by fantasy,is openedby words more sharpenedthan a surgeons knivesto cut away my dreams.I awake to seethe mirror lies.

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Sundown

When clouds obscurethe stars at night,

When fires that burned withinshall cease to burn as bright,

When bridges o'er deepest chasms

fail to span them quite,When falling is forever

from a breathless height,

When all the wings of wisheslose the feel of flight,

When taps to flowing springsclose upon them tight,

When deeply earnest hopesdesert their wills to fight,

When strengths of fullest faithsbe sapped of all their might,

When all that's ever been wrongshall cancel every right,

When touch and taste and scentwink out with sound and sight,

When all emotion leaves

except a blinding fright,

That's when Sundown comes,life's end without the light.

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Death WatchIn the Spring,when the warm wind comes a'coursin'from the west to meet the risin' sun,

when the roots of plants and treesawaken to another sipand all about me mate,

as the ashen greyof Winter's earth grows green,why must I die?

Come, gather 'round me fam'ly all

to hear me breathe one last.I'll hold as best I canwhile you journey many milesto witness my farewell.

Yes, cry my loves,'cause that's all can be done...

with the same tears to stars a'fallin'or to flowers a'wiltin'...for the purpose changes make.

As death will changes make,look about.See the Spring.

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More about the

Author

Cook, reared in ruralMichigan, made his wayto the west coast in 1982

and has resided in Oregonsince 1987.

After forty years ofclimbing corporatepyramids in the businessworld, he leaped off thatladder at age sixty-one topursue his true love, hisultimate avocationwriting.

Robert F. Cook at 61


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Words for Each Season c2005

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