Author Unknown "Footprints"

One night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene, he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand; one belonging to him, and the other to the Lord.

When the last scene of his life flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times in his life.

This really bothered him and he questioned the Lord about it. "Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you, you'd walk with me all the way. But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times of my life, there is only one set of footprints. I don't understand why when I needed you most you would leave me."

The Lord replied, "My precious child, I love you and would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you."

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Percy Bysshe Shelley"Ozymandias"
 

I met a traveler from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

stand in the desert..... Near them, on the sand,

half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

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Langston Hughes"Harlem"

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore---

and then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over----

like syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

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Fadwa Tuqman "After Twenty Years"
 

Here the foot prints stop;

Here the moon

Lies with the wolves, the dogs, and the stones,

Behind the rocks and the tents, behind the trees.

Here the moon

Sells its face every night,

For a dagger, a candle, a braid of rain.

Don't throw a stone in their fire;

Don't steal the glass rings from the gypsies' fingers.

They slept, and so did the fish and the stones and the trees.

Here the foot prints stop;

Here the moon was in labour.

Gypsies!

Give her then the glass rings

and the blue bracelets.

Translated from Arabic, translator unknown

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Ella Wheeler Wilcox "Solitude"
 

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;

Weep, and you weep alone,

For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,

But has trouble enough of its own.

Sing, and the hills will answer;

Sigh, it is lost on the air,

The echoes bound to a joyful sound,

But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;

Grieve, and they turn and go.

They want full measure of all your pleasure,

But they do not need your woe.

Be glad, and your friends are manyl

Be sad, and you lose them all,---

There are none to decline your nectared wine,

But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;

Fast, and the world goes by.

Succeed and give, and it helps you live,

But no man can help you die.

There is room in the halls of pleasure

For a long and lordly train,

But one by one we must all file on

Through the narrow aisles of pain.

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Anne Morrow Lindbergh

"The Man and the Child"

It is the man in us who works;

Who earns his daily bread and anxious scans

The Evening skies to know tomorrow's plans;

It is the man who hurries as he walks;

Finds courage in a crowd, shouts as he talks;

Who shuts his eyes and burrrows through his task;

Who doubts his neighbor and who wears a mask;

Who moves in armor and who hides his tears.

It is the man in us who fears.

It is the child in us who plays;

Who sees no happiness beyond today's;

Who sings for joy; who wonders, and who weeps;

It is the child in us at night who sleeps.

It is the child who silent turns his face,

Open and maskless, naked of defense,

Simple with trust, distilled of all pretense,

To sudden beauty in another's face----

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"A Leaf, a Flower, and a Stone"
 

Now there are no more words,

I bring a leaf, a flower, and a stone.

A leaf for my mouth

That can no longer speak,

Where you may trace

Along vein's laddered lace,

Graven as heiroglyph,

Thought's grouping, tentative

But certain, toward your south:

A leaf for my mouth.

A flower for my heart

That finds no song;

Purer than rhyme,

Fragrance may climb,

Petal on petal,

Up the perfumed stair

To you, aware

Of music more profound,

More innocent than art:

A flower for my heart.

A stone for my hand

That silent comes to rest

Within your palm, a bird,

Hidden upon the nest,

Who, in a spiral, heard,

Mid-flight, the call

That sent its body small

Plummeting earthward, home,

Heavy with gravity

It cannot understand:

A stone for my hand.

Now there are no more words,

But you will know, when I sing

For others, that I bring

To you alone

A leaf, a flower, and a stone.

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"Testament"
 

I left all world to you when I died:

Beauty of earth and air and sea;

Leap of a swallow or a tree;

Kiss of rain and wind's embrace;

Passion of storm and winter's face;

Touch of feather, flower, and stone;

Chiselled line of branch or bone;

Flight of stars, night's caravan;

Song of crickets---and of man----

All these I put in my testament,

All these I bequethed you when I went.

These too, these too

I leave to you!

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"The Unicorn in Captivity" excerpt

(After the tapestry in The Cloisters)

Here sits the Unicorn

In captivity;

His bright invulnerability

Captive at last;

The chase long past,

Winded and spent,

By the kind's spears rent;

Collared and tied

To a pomegranate tree---

Here sits the Unicorn

In captivity,

Yet free.

Quiet, the Unicorn,

In contemplation stilled,

With acceptance filled;

Quiet, save for his horn;

Alive in his horn;

Horisontally,

In captivity;

Perpendicularly,

Free.

As prisoners might,

Looking on high at night,

From day-close discipline

Of walls and bars,

To night-free infinity

Of sky and stars,

Find here felicity:

So is he free----

The Unicorn.

What is liberty?

Here lives the Unicorn,

In captivity,

Free.

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Judith Ortiz Cofer"What the Gypsy said to her Children"
 

We are like the dead

invisible to those who do not

want to see,

and color is our only protection against

the killing silence of their eyes,

the crimson of our tents pitched

like a scream

in the fields of our foes,

the amber warmth of our fires

where we gather to lift our voices

in the purple lament of our songs,

And beyond the scope of their senses

where all colors blend into one

we will build our cities of light,

we will carve them

out of the granite of their hatred,

with our own brown hands.

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Joyce Carol Thomas"Black Child"
 

My mother says I am

Still honey in sassafras tea

My father calls me the

Brown sugar of his days

Yet they warn

There are those who

Have brewed a

Bitter potion for

Children kissed long by the sun

Therefore I approach

The cup slowly

But first I ask

Who has set this table

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George Gordon, Lord Byron"She walks in Beauty" excerpt
 

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o'er her face;

Where thoughts serevely sweet express

How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

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Shakespeare "Sonnet 116"
 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O, no; it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests and is never shaken:

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

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Grace 

"Perfection"
 

Sometimes I cry for love,

then when I have finally found it again

I weep for the finding.

The forbidden is always the most intriguing,

it gives the illusion

of green grass and white daisies.

And the fence that separates us is not high.

Yet I find that I separate myself,

purposefully finding distances to climb.

My heart admires distance, because it was once too close.

I'm too tired to find any solace in closing my eyes.

The more exhausted I become the more determined I am

to keep my eyes open.

Because when I close my eyes, I am haunted.

Not by a ghost, because he is faceless,

but instead, by a Demon lover,

poised on the outskirts of town,

roaming with his pack.

Then I remember.

The lioness is the one who hunts.

I am no huntress.

But I am called into the hunt anyway.

It is either a hunt to destroy his memory,

or to find what remains of him inside of me.

And when we find what we seek,

there is no

attack,

only a cold empty field,

and the grass turns a purple shade like the twilight sky.

Night falls and I must be haunted,

because the huntress in me is only satisfied

with his memory. And there is not enough of him to satisfy her hunger.

And I consign them all

to that region of my mind and soul

that has been numbed by vicious silence,

the terror of never knowing,

the way that wondering each day

and contemplating every night

who he is with has eaten away at my words

until there is only that frozen magic horse,

who's wings that would trasport him into flight

have been exchanged for the crown, the unicorn.

Flightless.....

and chained to his memory is cold bereft grass.

In purple twilight everyone is cast in shadow and

I keep forget-me-nots growing.

And I become the one who haunts,

the guise of the huntress slipping easily away

to reveal the daisies.

The perfect little pretty flowers.

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"Oracles"
 

The ringleader was the statue.

She had an instrument on display,

and a flirtatious tilt to her chin.

It was the red cloth

that made me think

of the partisan decision.

They cast her down like that face in the sand.

They admitted to their crimes,

and she was the only relevance,

the gesture,

the gift.

The oracle in her banjo, and her braided hair,

like wavelengths of light, she reached them,

flamboyant in her method of reminding.

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"Coming"

Coming of Winter
leaves rock and drop
breaking windless silence
spider webs
streak catching light and matching grey.
Blue sky still peaks around clouds bringing ominous
joy of winter.

Make believe trials
playing house
we all fall down
no color can be life.
Life leads to death
and death is the absence of color.
 

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Terry Kettering"The Elephant in the Room"
 

There's an elephant in the room.

It is large and squatting, so it is hard to get around it.

Yet we squeeze by with "How are you?" and "I'm fine"...

And a thousand other forms of trivial chatter.

We talk about the weather.

We talk about work.

We talk about everything else -- except the elephant in the room.

There's an elephant in the room.

We all know it is there.

We are thinking about the elephant as we talk together.

It is constantly on our minds.

For, you see, it is a very big elephant.

It has hurt us all.

But we do not talk about the elephant in the room.

Oh, please, say her name. Oh, please, say "Barbara" again.

Oh, please, let's talk about the elephant in the room.

For if we talk about her death, perhaps we can talk about her life.

Can I say "Barbara" to you and not have you look away?

For if I cannot, then you are leaving me

Alone ...

In a room...

With an elephant.

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John Milton"Sabrina the Water Nymph" (SONG)
 

Sabrina fair,

Listen where thou art sitting

Under the glassie, cool, translucent wave,

In twisted braids of Lillies knitting

The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair,

Listen for dear honour's sake,

Goddess of the silver lake,

Listen and save.

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Solo
 

What if it is not your heart I quote

what if it's an entirely diffierent note?

What if those words I've spoken at last

aren't just a phrase..to cite the past?

What if what flows from the heart to the eyes

are not just pretend...are not only lies?

What if that heart, that beats as my own

is a signal...that you're not alone?

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Author Unknown "My apple tree, my brightness"
 

I am stretched on your grave

And will lie there forever

If your hands were in mine

I'd be sure we'd not sever

My apple tree my brightness

It's time we were together

For I smell of the earth

And am worn by the weather

When my family thinks

That I'm safe in my bed

From night until morning

I am stretched at your head

Calling out to the air

With tears hot and wild

My grief for the girl

That I loved as a child

Do you remember

The night we were lost

In the shade of the blackthorn

And the chill of the frost

Thanks be to Jesus

We did what was right

And your maiden head still

Is your pillar of light

The priests and the friars

Approach me in dread

Because I still love you

My love and you're dead

I still would be your shelter

Through rain and through storm

And with you in your cold grave

I cannot sleep warm

So I'm stretched on your grave

And will lie there forever

If your hands were in mine

I'd be sure we'd not sever

My apple tree my brightness

It's time we were together

For I smell of the earth

And am worn by the weather.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson
 

To laugh often and love much;

to win the respect of intelligent persons

and affection of children;

to earn the approbation of honest critics

and to endure the betrayal of false friends;

to appreciate beauty;

to find the best in others;

to give of one's self;

to leave the world a bit better,

whether by a healthy child,

a garden path,

or a redeemed social condition;

to have played and laughed with exultation;

to know that even one life

has breathed easier because you have lived---

This is to have succeeded.

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May Swenson"The Blindman"
 

The blindman placed

a tulip on his tongue for purple's taste.

Cheek to grass, his green

was rough excitement's sheen

of little whips.

In water to his lips

he named the sea blue and white,

the basin of his tears and fallen beads of sight.

He said: The scarf is red;

I feel the vectors to its thread

that dance down from the sun. I know

the seven fragrances of the rainbow.

I have caressed

the orange hair of flames. Pressed

to my ear,

a pomegranate lets me hear

crimson's flute.

Trumpets tell me yellow. Only ebony is mute.

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