Sunlight and Shadows

Finding poetry in star dust, sunbeams, and passing clouds

  • Not

    I am not thinking about a pink elephant in a purple sky

    I am not thinking about what happens when dreams die

    I am not thinking about a cage full of yellow birds

    I am not thinking about what can change with a few words

    I am not remembering the roads I didn’t take

    I am not remembering a princess castle birthday cake

    I am not remembering that glance in the rearview mirror

    I am not remembering all the things I wrote to get here

    I am not wishing for a fancy carriage or silver skates

    I am not wishing for a trip across all fifty states

    I am not wishing for one more spin on the dance floor

    I am not wishing for a different life anymore

    ,

  • Window

    I want to show to you

    The world through my eyes

    To give to you the beauty

    Of all life’s lows and highs

    I want you to feel

    The world as I do

    To know its joy and love

    Its pain and heartbreak too

    I want to walk with you

    Through time’s winding trails

    To find in what I write

    A thread of common tale

  • Bluegrass

    The rhythm circles round and round

    The banjo chuckles and the fiddle cries

    Through the guitar’s climbing harmonies

    Our bluegrass music soars and sighs

    Begin with blues of trouble, loss

    The next, a freight train’s rhythmic ride

    Then turn to faith and glory land

    And end at the old home countryside

    What other songs can lift the soul

    Can sing its joy and cry its tears

    To capture in one melody

    Life’s hopes and sorrows, love and fears

    ,

  • Captured

    All these feelings swirling around inside

    Looming, growing, but look at them, they hide

    Weighing down my heart, dragging on my feet

    Gray worry, purple dread, and black defeat

    On top of that, orange irritation, blue regret

    Red frustration, yellow to just forget

    Becomes a swirling, tangled, muddy mess

    Of feelings I can’t reach, connect, express

    All the thoughts, the jumbled, scattered parts

    Each word, idea forms and then departs

    Trying to hold these fleeting bands of smoke

    To clear the air before I cough and choke

    How to condense these vapors into drops

    Of water to be captured, put in stops

    And somehow match them to emotions’ hues

    A puzzle with too many pieces to choose

    Too many pieces, none that fit

    Easier to let them be, just quit

    Except that if I let them be

    They will never let go of me

  • Mission

    Let the wheels roll for freedom

    Fill the road full for freedom

    Although silent for a while

    Now the bells toll for freedom

    We will stand on conviction

    Take back what they stole for freedom

    No division, no distraction

    Unified our goal for freedom

    We won’t stop until victory

    Makes our new lives whole for freedom

    ,

  • Outside

    On the outside looking in

    This is where I’ve always been

    I belong but have no place

    Still I hold on just in case

    On the outside looking in

    Hoping this is when I’ll win

    The door’s ajar, I step inside

    But I’m ignored and pushed aside

    On the outside looking in

    Rejected, shamed, and hurt again

    That world inside, I finally see

    Is a twisted, warped reality

    On the outside looking in

    A better life I will begin

    I find it’s outside I belong

    Where I can heal, where I grow strong

    ,