From ocean's wave a Wanderer came,
With visage tanned and dun:
His Mother, when he told his name,
Scarce knew her long-lost son;
So altered was his face and frame
By the ill course he had run.
There was hot fever in his blood,
And dark thoughts in his brain;
And oh! to turn his heart to good
......
"And will you cut a stone for him,
To set above his head?
And will you cut a stone for him--
A stone for him?" she said.
Three days before, a splintered rock
Had struck her lover dead--
Had struck him in the quarry dead,
Where, careless of a warning call,
He loitered, while the shot was fired--
......
They sent me a salwar kameez
&nb sp; peacock-blue,
& nbsp; and another
glistening like an orange split open,
embossed slippers, gold and black
&nbs p; points curling.
Candy-striped glass bangles
&n bsp; snapped, drew blood.
Like at school, fashions changed
&n bsp; in Pakistan -
......
When the gong sounds ten in the morning and I walk to school by our
lane.
Every day I meet the hawker crying, "Bangles, crystal
bangles!"
There is nothing to hurry him on, there is no road he must
take, no place he must go to, no time when he must come home.
I wish I were a hawker, spending my day in the road, crying,
"Bangles, crystal bangles!"
When at four in the afternoon I come back from the school,
I can see through the gate of that house the gardener digging
......
I dreamed that, as I wandered by the way,
Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring,
And gentle odours led my steps astray,
Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring
Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay
Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling
Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,
But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.
There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,
......
(In loving memory from her children left behind)
When you were needed, you were always there,
Doing tender things that revealed your care.
Love you displayed in many other ways;
Mother - our earthly saint of yesterdays.
Your compliments, sometimes overstated,
Pleased us no end - are still appreciated.
Warmhearted smiles with eyes aglow;
......
The sun falls,
And night begins,
Blue irises enthrall,
The eyes of my kin.
I never shared that ocean,
I was always miles behind,
always reachin',
never could unwind.
My eyes of grass,
On a summer's day,
......
it never came with conclusion as how the night took its time to raise a sunshine
to survive in the wild makes no sense for such a young wolf
to be part of a pack , to learn how to defend , avoid danger , hunt — crushed hares , bison , and moose
much more to be close to them all
blood dripping all the way to my mom’s home
at heightened peril of death , all lone and numb from hunger
wandering through unknown terrain , limping , some bones broken
no such scheme in mind for how the high spirits turned way upside down
to ponder why it unfolded just as it did
......
April Brooks was four years old, prattling a blue streak, like comets;
Or backwards walking time, seizing swiftly, days of golden promise.
April lived with parents and older sister, in the sunshine of a valley;
And petals wore dew pearls and fragrance, all along the green alley.
April and sister, Dawn, loved horses, though still too young to ride;
But, they adored fairy-tales about them, like lilac, at rose's bedside.
Fuchsia was the color of fall skies, and the fun year was fading away,
......
My children tell me of a mystic
Living by the lake
In a green and purple house
Surrounded by gardens of giant flowers
Who takes small dreamers
On uncharted adventures where
They choose their directions and she
Finds their way
My children tell me
......