Sunlight and Shadows

Finding poetry in star dust, sunbeams, and passing clouds

  • Rising Tide

    Change moves like the rolling tide

    Slow but unstoppable force

    Pushing in or out to sea

    Inexorably from the source

    Moment’s glance can never tell

    What direction is its course

    Brilliant sky and blazing sun

    Paint the ocean aqua green

    Tempest winds and tall dark clouds

    Turn it to a stormy scene

    Sunset’s glowing reds and golds

    Calm the waves by evening

    Each molecule only turns

    Within the wave round and round

    But great ships are miles moved

    Out to sea or run aground

    Such subtle shifts with such great change

    Nowhere else on earth are found

    ,

  • Slippery

    Sometimes it seems that all my tires do is spin

    No matter how I go, I cannot ever win

    I’m accelerating on a bed of ice

    And get stuck even deeper however many tries

    I have zero traction when I try to make a turn

    Direction is not changeable until I crash and burn

    I press the brakes, there’s nothing there, the pedal hits the floor

    I’m skidding, sliding, swerving just to keep from hurting more

    I can see where I should go, I just can’t find out how

    There is too much snow and ice to leave where I am now

    Until I realize, it’s my tires, and get out of my car

    Can’t change the road but I can change what all my actions are

    On skis I learn to glide and ride together with the snow

    I can turn and steer with ease toward where I want to go

    I pick up speed, I slow and stop, I’m fully in control

    The snow and ice no longer block, but help me reach the goal

    ,

  • Hard Road

    It hurts to keep on falling down

    To spend time getting off the ground

    I wish for perfect, no mistakes

    But now I see the time it takes

    Until the skill is learned and found

    It hurts to try the best I know

    Then pangs of judgement haunt me so

    I want to always call it right

    But I can’t tell from this new height

    Always the certain way to go

    It hurts to walk in paths so new

    Break in a trail where thickets grew

    I look for markers of the way

    But I can’t in the safe place stay

    And reach the place I should be too

    Sometimes it feels so hard to do

    But the only way forward is through

    ,

  • Petals

    Dried flowers are talking

    With rich rose hues still

    They marked an achievement

    Or a student’s skill

    Dried flowers are talking

    Their bright spring buds fell

    Standing by the bedside

    For one to get well

    Dried flowers are talking

    In wilted bouquets

    Petal-scattered aisles

    Of happy wedding days

    Dried flowers are talking

    Laid at the grave

    To close this life’s journey

    Sweet memories to save

    ,

  • Footsteps

    Walking in the footsteps I took so long ago

    Looking back through years past on what I didn’t know

    Pondering life’s meaning, how moments come and go

    Feeling all those things now I couldn’t feel back then

    Wondering the reason that I am here again

    Thinking of the choices, of what else could have been

    Letting go of questions of why and how and when

    Stepping through the splinters of hurt that still are here

    Lighting up past darkness so I no longer fear

    Storing up the good things, the moments I hold dear

    Turning toward the sunshine so shadows disappear

    Walking in new footsteps as future pathways grow

    ,

  • Height

    I’m so afraid of falling

    Now that I’ve climbed this high

    The rocks so loose and foreign

    I’m hanging in the sky

    I thought I’d never reach it

    Slide back at every try

    This height still makes me dizzy

    The air so cold and thin

    The ground so far below me

    From where I did begin

    I fear that I’m too weak from

    The hard places I’ve been

    You tell me not to look down

    But where I want to go

    To trust the ropes to hold me

    From tumbling down below

    I’ll focus on my handholds

    And trust in what I know

    ,