Sunlight and Shadows


  • College Chaos

    Cars circling round and round

    For the best space to be found

    Counting minutes once they park

    Out come faces pale and dark

    Hurry with a bag of books

    Giving others sideways looks

    Stoic buildings staring on

    Until every student’s gone

    Into the doors to find pale rooms

    Where they’ll sit through boring dooms

    To learn or just watch a show

    Of lecturers who think they know

    The answers but don’t have a clue

    Of what real teachers would do

    But these students won’t give in

    Until their new knowledge they win

    Though they are battered, worn, and pale

    They’re determined to prevail

    ,


  • Lakeside Sunrise

    The water, dark from midnight sleep

    Now mirrors lines of radiant glow

    From morning clouds of brilliant gold

    That with the rising sun’s rays flow

    While jeweled rocks and lapping waves

    Clad in magnificent attire

    The ever-widening path of glass

    On which advances the ball of fire

    ,


  • Hard Pressed

    I am fighting

    Fighting a war I didn’t begin

    Fighting a battle from within

    Fighting and determined to win

    I was a prisoner

    A prisoner of a troubled past

    A prisoner of the role I was cast

    A prisoner but not the last

    I am fighting

    Fighting to escape tyranny

    Fighting for who I was meant to be

    Fighting hard for victory

    I will be free

    Free to love without demand

    Free to give a helping hand

    Free to take my own true stand

    ,


  • Mixed Up

    My thoughts are such a jumble

    They rattle, spin and tumble

    The words I thought I said

    Mean something else instead

    The feelings that I’m feeling

    Are trapped by a glass ceiling

    And when I try to write

    The words I want take flight

    My life is so unknown right now

    We will get through, I’m not sure how

    My plans rock back and forth each day

    I know that there will be a way

    I don’t have to know it all

    Or get it right on every call

    I’m not alone out in this stream

    And I know I can trust our team

    ,


  • Nightfall

    Darkness drops on dimming dusk

    Sky is sprinkled with salt of stars

    Gilded glints of gold aglow

    Wake the world from wandering hours

    Who can speed the break of dawn?

    Who can heal the night’s long scars?

    ,


  • Seeking

    All the light we cannot see

    Yet fills our blood with yearning so

    The pull of new discovery

    The faith in things we do not know

    We press on sure to find the door

    The innate longing to be free

    The light that led me to a crack

    Where I could see but could not reach

    The slap that caused me to pull back

    And listen to what it would teach

    The crushing truth on hopes of youth

    I grew to stand within the breach

    Sunrise dawn’s brave beams of light

    To bathe the soul from night’s dark wake

    The tumult of the storm set right

    The midnight watch we each must make

    To find our place, to run our race

    And build a love that cannot break

    ,