The Sea Gull

(1)



I mocked-up a rainbow
on the bright of my azure eyes,
on silver wings of a sea gull,
I flew through its brimming skies;
while all about the ether,
I perceived odd, stirring wiles,
like spirits in interchange rejoined
across the isles.
Thus taken was my thought
and my heart filled with song,
that I crowded near the hues
upon a cloud and hummed along;
and with my lute and plectrum strummed
an old forgotten tune,
and we danced ourselves to twilight
as the colors shroud the moon.


(2)


I dreamed upon the tranquil air
with the scarlet moon my pillow;
the fainting hues as with a magnet
translated silver bursts-
spiraled streams of stars hung
down toward the earth,
which embraced the weeping evening
like a willow.
I awoke from my dream
enamored with lustrous light,
to a gentle star which shot not fire,
yet glowed the cosmos where every point was night.
Sleep-eyed the spirits murmured
as they viewed the light above,
"It is the work of beauty,
it's Venus with her love."


(3)


The sleepless hours passed
too soon before the dawn,
for scarcely had I seen
the silver orbs be born;
but chagrin which I felt
dispelled on golden ray
when from the East rose
our spirits on the postulate of day.
On his brassy cry, the sea gull and I
cleft on through heaving sky;
with each tempest whirled, his body swirled,
but like a spirit, he'd never die-
content in his home where he's free to roam
over wave, cloud and peak,
and make his dreams with the ocean foam
for a shore as calm as sleek.


(4)


And with great boldness
I mocked-up a place,
that all our fond adventures
should live within one space;
where the nights are long
and the constellations keen,
and the mountains kiss the heavens
and are swathed with evergreen;
with ethereal mornings
each a budding-palette sight,
for blessed by Apollo
with his golden rays of light.
And the gull and I descended
onto the still Maggiore shore,
where the hues of my azure eyes
shone rainbows evermore.



Copyright 2008 Francis Don Daniels

A Better Life

Funny how we skirt the obvious,
dismiss life's simple ways,
mistaking happiness
for something not worthwhile.
Ever know a farmer disgruntled
to rise before the dawn,
grandma complaining
the quilt's too much to knit,
a woodworker gnashing
his teeth at one more cabinet to turn?
But things less fertile
to the sheepskin promoting
our corporate worth,
like Moses' staff leading
us from bondage of provincial ways
to an eden of material birth:
borrowed freedom for food and roof,
insatiable wants and whims,
to escape on Disney
the starkness of our fate,
empty longings
for a better life.

Copyright 2008 Francis Don Daniels

Sunday Morning

I always knew it was Sunday.
Not by a talk-show, text-message,
movie, or other place to go -
things foreign to my novice notions.
It was more to do with smells and tastes,
sounds and scenes and lots of feelings.
Like the wafting sweetness jarring
me from my dreams to a sleepy grope
toward the kitchen , swiftly morphed
to bulging eyes for Grandma's kettle cakes.
"It's the buttermilk", she proclaimed,
"and the secret way you knead the dough."
Many Sunday mornings followed
with the same bugle call of clanging pots and pans,
me up and scurrying to learn the hidden secret:
flour sifted to a grain, buttermilk soured
not too long, water with just enough,
a smidgen of salt, fingers gently burrowing
through the gooey mush.
Ans like sorcery from the black-ironed kettle
out flipped the golden cakes.
For years I preteneded the secret,
(my props fancy gadgets and store-bought mix),
when came a day I recalled devouring
the scrumptious cakes, and Grandma,
eyes sharp to my affection, her face awash
with rosy smile which seemed to glow
ever brighter,
with every cake
I ate.


Copyright 2008 Francis Don Daniels