Blue moon, and all is well

There, in the desert,
hides a well
so deep
that no one knows
but you and me.
And though
you have forgotten,
maybe once in a blue moon--
perhaps tonight--
you will remember,
and the water will refresh you
once again.

Hush

Snow falls, the dust of Heaven,

as the silent stillness comes

to hush the night.

I sit alone,
and write these words
by glow of lamplight
shining on the streets below,
shining on the snow.

Fountainhead

"For true love is inexhaustible; the more you give, the more you have. And if you go to draw at the true fountainhead, the more water you draw, the more abundant is its flow.”

--Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The time God chooses

"I am not alone at all, I thought. I was never alone at all. And that, of course, is the message of Christmas. We are never alone. Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, the world seemingly most indifferent. For this is still the time God chooses."

--Taylor Caldwell

The gift

True love's the gift which God has given

To man alone beneath the heaven:

It is not fantasy's hot fire,

Whose wishes soon as granted fly;

It liveth not in fierce desire.

--Sir Walter Scott

A Christmas Carol

The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap,

His hair was like a light.

(O weary, weary were the world,

But here is all aright.)


The Christ-child lay on Mary's breast

His hair was like a star.

(O stern and cunning are the kings,

But here the true hearts are.)


The Christ-child lay on Mary's heart,

His hair was like a fire.

(O weary, weary is the world,

But here the world's desire.)


The Christ-child stood on Mary's knee,

His hair was like a crown,

And all the flowers looked up at Him,

And all the stars looked down.


--G.K. Chesterton

A blessed Christmas to you and to those you love.

I wish you Love

The winter winds blow cold,

the soft June breeze is far away:

much time has come and gone.

Today, as Christmas eve approaches,

have I sought and found the courage

to read once more--I could not before now--

the last words that you wrote to me:

they were so strange.

From some hidden, dark recess within you

they came forth--as a draught

laced with anger and reproach,

the likes of which, 'til then,

I had not knowledge or taste:

nor braced myself

against that which I did not foresee--

a drink to lay waste to love.

No sooner had I sipped, its bitterness

sent a chill through my veins.

The blade of your words cut deeply,

the scar remains.

Yet, in the season of our Hope,
when our God comes as a little Child,

our King brings peace to those

whose will is good and mild. And so

I wish you everything He wants for you.

Though it is true that I do not understand

I forgive, dear friend I never knew.

And I wish you Love.

After all

"After all, say what we will, the one supreme luxury of life is sympathetic companionship."

--Jessie Willcox Smith

Jewel

I am your jewel,

your treasure,

your love without measure.

How do I know?

Beacuse you've told me so.

The Little Match Girl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUSzQBaWq0Q

Warm

With Heaven above,

your arms surround me,

safely enfolding me.

You hold me, and the chill

melts away.

Let us stay here forever,

never saying goodbye,

just you and me, and God above.

Oh, your love

is shelter in the storm.

Your love is warm.

Waiting

"her soul was waiting... for someone."

--from Alexander Pushkin's Eugene Onegin

Beauty

"Is she kind as she is fair?
For beauty lives with kindness.
Love doth to her eyes repair,
To help him of his blindness,
And, being help’d, inhabits there."

--William Shakespeare in Two Gentlemen of Verona

Words

“When he spoke, what tender words he used!

So softly, that like flakes of feathered snow,

They melted as they fell.”

--John Dryden

Hold fast

“Hold fast to dreams,

For if dreams die,

Life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly,

Hold fast to dreams,

For if dreams go,

Life is a barren field,

Frozen with snow."

--Langston Hughes

Fire and snow

“As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.”

--William Shakespeare

Stars in the snow

“A billion stars go spinning through the night, blazing high above your head. But in you is the presence that will be, when all the stars are dead.”

--Rainer Maria Rilke

Snow Moon

It's snowing!

By candlelight

"She loved the balcony, the session

of waiting for the dawn to blush,

when, in pale sky, the stars' procession

fades from the view, and in the hush

earth's rim grows light, and a forewarning

whisper of breeze announces morning,

and slowly day begins to climb.

In winter, when for longer time

the shades of night within their keeping

hold half the world still unreleased,

and when, by misty moon, the east

is softly, indolently sleeping,

wakened at the same hour of night

"Tatyana'd rise by candlelight."

--from Alexander Pushkin's Eugene Onegin

The moving moon

“The moving moon went up the sky,

And nowhere did abide:

Softly she was going up,

And a star or two beside.”

--Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Little thorn

The air was frigid tonight as I walked by moonlight to the chapel to spend an hour with the King of Heaven and Earth. The waning moon shone brightly, lighting my path so well that I easily made my way across the frosty grass. The stars were as clear as crystals in the cold night sky-- they're always clearer when it's colder-- twinkling in their places in the dark canopy far above me. How many times have I come this way? So many memories flooded my senses as I walked along carrying my little thorn to offer to Our Lord.

So many more memories crowded around me when I entered the chapel and saw Him there, in the Blessed Sacrament, in the monstrance. The little thorn pricked at me as I held it more tightly, and I swallowed hard against the narrowing in my throat. Hot tears began to well up in my eyes as I whispered a prayer that they would not fall: and they stopped. I thanked God and offered the thorn to Our Blessed Lord, even as I told Him how small it was compared to even the tiniest from His spiny crown. Even so, this thorn is the one which continues to cost me the most, so I know that it has value in His eyes. Oh dear little thorn, I love you because you remind me that there is joy even in the midst of sorrow. One day, perhaps not too long from now, you will be a beautiful rose. Our Blessed Mother is tending you, dear flower in my heart, and I can almost smell your fragrance already...

Souls

“Our souls sit close and silently within,

And their own webs from their own entrails spin;

And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such,

That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch.”

--John Dryden

Words

“Words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.”

--Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Cold

"Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter

The thoughts that arise in me.”

--Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Full moon

"I suppose there were moonless nights and dark ones with but a silver shaving of pale stars in the sky, but I remember them all as flooded with the rich indolence of a full moon."

--Willa Cather

Always

"'Tis the human touch in the world that counts-

the touch of your hand and mine-

Which means far more to the sinking heart

than shelter or bread or wine.

For shelter is gone when the night is o'er,

and bread lasts only a day.

But the touch of the hand

and the sound of the voice

live on in the soul always."

--Spencer M. Free

Ah, moon...

(And so he wrote these words:)

“Ah, Moon of my Delight who know'st no wane,

The Moon of Heav'n is rising once again:

How oft hereafter rising shall she look

Through this same Garden after me - in vain!”

--Edward Fitzgerald

Dreams

"The dreams of childhood--its airy fables, its graceful, beautiful, humane, impossible adornments of the world beyond: so good to be remembered when outgrown..."*

--Charles Dickens

*(But are they always outgrown?)

Shall we dance?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO5xwaqU8PQ

Letter

The tears of my heart spill out

as words on paper,

like rivulets forming a stream

of lines without banks.

There is no rhyme or reason

to this letter; there is only

the sense,the distant memory

of the face of a long-lost friend

whose images fades even as

the ink dries on this page.

The long road

"White in the moon the long road lies."

--A. E. Housman

Fairy elves

“Fairy elves,

Whose midnight revels, by a forest side

Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,

Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon

Sits arbitress.”

--John Milton

A sickle moon

A ship, an isle, a sickle moon

With few but with how splendid stars

The mirrors of the sea are strewn

Between their silver bars.”

--James Elroy Flecker

Sweet harmony

“How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank.

Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music

Creep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night

Become the touches of sweet harmony.”

--William Shakespeare

By moonlight

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”

--Oscar Wilde

Underneath the Stars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wajspUPiQ8

Underneath the stars I'll meet you.

Underneath the stars I'll greet you.

There beneath the stars I'll leave you

Before you go of your own free will.

Go gently.

Underneath the stars you met me.

Underneath the stars you left me.

I wonder if the stars regret me.

At least you'll go of your own free will.

Go gently.

Here beneath the stars I'm bending

And here beneath the stars not ending.

Why on earth am I pretending?

I'm here again, the stars befriending;

They come and go of their own free will.

Go gently.

Go gently.


Underneath the stars you met me and

Underneath the stars you left me.

I wonder if the stars regret me.

I'm sure they'd like me if they only met me;

They come and go of their own free will

Go gently.

Go gently.

Go gently.

Song at twilight

How I miss you so!

It's been forever since I've seen you,

but nothing's changed, you know;

except that I am surer

than I ever was before

that every day I miss you

more and more and more...

Crescent moon

A slice of lemon in the night sky...

Sunset

Red at night, sailor's delight...

By moonlight or by candlelight, in the gardens of the night...

here begins my after-hours trail of flowers.

(Watch for me by moonlight...)