Once When Visiting a Tall Grass Prairie

Tall and free the prairie grasses sway-
Indiangrass, Grama and Big Bluestem-
stately watching over wildflower throngs
blanketing each gentle slope
of hill.
Brothers' keepers who signal
the sauntering clouds dreaming their way
in summer's arcing
sun.
It's the reign of yellows as far as the eye
can see: saw-toothed sunflowers,
showy goldenrod, tiny, rivieting tufts
of partridge pea.
Athrall in this sea of color
I maunder through the grasses,
occasional blue asters my
compass.
I hum to the buz of workman bees,
travel unmarked paths, together mine
for prairie sweetness, when suddenly
a patch of gentian appears at my
feet.
And congress with monarchs and swallowtails
who bask atop the golden buds,
dazed and drunk from Nature's
love.
Like a magnet I stick in this place
without force or rule,
without preconceived agreement.
In a place where I have no place
as the grasses who sentry,
the buds that feed my senses
or bees and butterflies who dispatch
command for future seed.
A feeling which is at once
void and abundant,
lost yet found, the ending
and a new
beginning.


Copyright 2008 Francis Don Daniels

The Hourglass

Woman of infinite beauty,
eyes of crystal and celestial body,
horizon where sleeps the eternal sun.
With flowing lines and undulating waves
the mountains, fields and streams mirrored you.
Out on the blue deep, I
was but a lone seafarer when you came.
So shrill the siren call
I could not tell the sky from the sea.
Countless hours of hope and despair
all driven by your call,
but must it end without your love.

Hourglass: the sand that flows is me.

The spell remains floating
like a link in a timeless chain.
Lost on a desert caravan I
roam the dunes of ancient time,
withered and parched and mind awry,
forlorn of your magic waters.

Woman in my mind, the hourglass
shall never stop flowing for you.
If only I can keep this heavy heart adrift,
lest it drown in its sinking sadness.

Woman of infinite beauty.

Copyright 2008 Francis Don Daniels

The Mirror

Look in the mirror and see your soul.
See how your heart blooms
with a thousand flowers.
Kiss the cheeks of a friend.
In his face is nurtured the petals of a rose.
The garden blooms long past spring and summer,
hummingbirds yet hover by their magic,
butterflies still float on the breeze-
why not drink of yourself, eternal sweetness,
so that winter not be so cold.
Life is a game to play as our own
and there resides the Truth
which sweeps away the lie:
fluid as a sailing ship,
free as an ocean gull,
even as the ebb and flow of tide.
Look in the mirror-
the glass cannot hide
that I am your reflection
as you are surely mine.

Imagine us kissing rose petals.


Copyright 2008 Francis Don Daniels