Autumn

In autumn when leaves are gold and rust
no longer green, stifled as by null, corrosive air,
aflame in burning hue of vitriol sky, I ponder
the scheme of life, the cycle of birth decay
and quietly recall old dreams once made.
Like fallen blades upon the earth were swept
away, wind-blown till out of reach and faded
with acid time.
But dreams unlike leaves need no season
to bear, no rain or sunbeams or ethereal air.
The soil from which they spring is neither clay
nor humus black-
but from a spiritual garden they seed,
even if earthly existence of mind decieve.

Copyright 2008 Francis Don Daniels

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

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