From my book The Lone Knight of Kemsing
When pink lights up the morning sky
Above the fields of frost
Then in the brightness, to the eye,
The stars of night are lost
For when the dome of heaven burns,
Like fire in its hue,
Above the world that ever turns,
It hides the stars from view
And if it be the stars that we
Sometimes cannot discern,
For things can be we cannot see,
What lesson should we learn?
Blog
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That Hides the Stars from View
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It’s Halloween Tonight
From my book A Craftsman at Play in Creation
Ghosts in the trees bob on the breeze
It’s Halloween tonight!
My old friend Jack is finally back
With a grin that’s fiery bright
We’ll pray for the souls of all of those
Who’ve died that we hold dear
For All Souls Day is on the way
It comes this time each year
So Trick or Treat! And candy we’ll eat!
While Jack O’ Lanterns glow
And the old black and the web-winged bat
Prowl as the night winds blow
The moon in shrouds of inky clouds
Burns bright an aureole
Of silvery light in the murky night
While round us the heavens roll
Over dry corn stalks that shake where there walks
Things hidden from our sight
And beyond the veil through the clouds they sail
It’s Halloween tonight! -
Every Morning a Masterpiece
from my book A Craftsman at Play in Creation
Every morning a masterpiece
Greets my waking eye
On the canvas above the world
Spread across the sky
Where The Maker’s boundless beauties
Make men stop and stare
And wonder that He should make this
World with so much care -
Deep Calls Unto Deep
From my book Wings Upon the Unseen Gust
Like the song that once was heard
That haunts your memory
Or your beloved’s murmured word
Soft as moonlight on the sea
Or the mysteries that we view
In our dreams of deepest sleep
The visions that we know are true
For deep calls unto deep -
Oceanus
From my book Victory!
Oceanus was born upon the waves
Between the Old World and the New
With spar and mast set in the sign that saves
Above where the tempest blew
He was born to journey upon the barque,
Bound from birth for the Unknown Shore,
His cradle a Pilgrim’s pitching ark
That swung on the ocean’s roar
Cleaving the heaving seas, toward the Unknown Shore,
Flying ever before the winds that roam,
To a New World he’d never seen before,
That was meant to be his home
NOTE: Oceanus Hopkins was born aboard the Mayflower during the Pilgrim’s Atlantic crossing in 1620. He died in the New World sometime after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock and before 1627, the exact dates of his birth and death being, like his gravesite, unknown. -
Autumn Bright
From my book The Lone Knight of Kemsing
A spray of leaves, autumn bright,
Floating through the golden light
Carried on the breeze that blows
When afternoon in autumn glows
And golden corn, ripe and tall,
Fragrant in the fields of Fall,
In winds that stir its tassled tops,
Toss in fields of swaing crops
Their aroma sweet upon the breeze
That rattles leaves up in the trees
All of these are gifts They give,
Our might God by whom all live -
All the Fruits of Creation Their Glories Give
From my book A Craftsman at Play in Creation
In Autumn time when atop the trees
The colors of fire are in the leaves
The Harvest Moon in the sky will shine
On pumpkins orange upon the vine
Apples are crisp and caramel is sweet
And cider is pressed and deer are fleet
And geese in the sky fly in a “V”
And sap flows brown from the maple tree
For making syrup and sugar soft
And hay is gathered in the barn’s high loft
And the corn is ripe on stalks that sway
And dusk falls soon on All Saints day
All the fruits of Creation their glories give
To the mighty God by Whom they live -
A Wandering Deep
From my book Wings Upon the Unseen Gust
I heard the rumble of the train
From far across the frozen lake
The ice rebounding a refrain
From every rattle it would make
I saw the long line of its cars
Descending down out of the hills
to wend its way beneath the stars
Toward the lake the valley fills
It crossed the bridge that spanned the deep
And continuing on it went
While the world lay still asleep
On its errands it was bent
And I wondered where all it would go
In its travels across this land
What places would it come to know?
Even the seashore’s shining strand?
O forth to go adventuring!
Abroad to seek the journey’s thrills!
A walking stick in hand to swing
And raise the dust of distant hills
And under stars to make my bed
Beside a campfire burning bright
On fragrant boughs to lay my head
And dream all through the night
But what then of the little face
Of the one who waits for me at home
For the one that no one could replace
If his father set out to roam?
And think of what I’ve come to know
Through life beside my own hearth fire
Of love and joy and how they grow
In yielding up our own desire
And embracing an adventure
I never knew that I would find
Grander than the road’s indenture
Beyond the borders maps have lined
For there is a wandering afar
Adn there’s a wandering that’s deep
That steers a course set by the star
Of the promises we keep
It is the journey of the heart
That leads into this mystery
That is love, and has its start
Where our own sacrifice will be
So I will stay where duties bind
And tend this task that’s given me
And walk this road so I might find
Where leads this mystery
And let the train go where it will
Through this world that lies asleep
For I will keep to love’s path still
Wandering on into the deep -
From a Child’s Birth
From my book A Craftsman at Play in Creation
What is this lesson that we’ve been taught
In the miracles God has wrought
In bringing blessings to this Earth
Coming from a child’s birth
Isaac born to Sarah when she was old
And Jacob to Rebekah with her ring of gold
And Joseph, the man who saw in dreams,
Born to Rachel of Laban’s schemes
Moses drawn from the Nile’s water
Even by the Pharoah’s daughter
Samson born when an angel came
In a field to a woman never named
Samuel, the son of the silent prayer
Of Hannah, his mother, in her despair
And John the Baptist who leapt for joy
When still in the womb Elizabeth carried her boy
And Mary’s Son Who sacrificed
For us Himself: Jesus Christ
