MY FATHER
.
Drawn as a young boy
into my fathers
prideful melancholy; an
endless gloom, still brooding
within me, that asks,
why a man,
who so easily and
habitually asserted he loved me,
has never once said he respected me,
or anyone else for that matter.
.
A SPITED HEART
.
A spited heart will often rail
in soulful vindication,
to recompense, or to assail,
a spited heart will often rail,
but till revenge completely fails
and one finds liberation,
a spited heart will often rail
in soulful vindication
.
CLEANSED MOUNTAIN AIR
.
Sunlight purges dark uncertainties. From a sweeping burst of showers; cleansed mountain air revives us. Raindrops drip quietly from the foliage. Preceding us, a flock of small bird’s chirp flutter and flit. We wondered: had they been sent to lead us into the wonders we sought? The side hills, and alluvial deposits, are dappled with snow, and soft textures of lady’s slipper, yellow-star-thistle, and the (recently) endangered bolander’s clover.
.
In myriad shades
Nature’s palette of colors
Are perfectly brushed
.
A NEVER-ENDING STRUGGLE
.
It’s a never-ending struggle
For writers overwrought
Who run in circles probing
Another source of thought
.
A marathon of reasoning
In all its heat conceives
A poet’s right to cerebrate
On anything he sees
.
A CRITIC’S EAR
.
A thought wrought
as a clear-bright sphere,
with craft, delight, or wisdom,
can seldom change a cynic’s sneer,
or rarely please a critic’s ear…
.
FROM ALL OF LIFE’S TRAVAILS
.
There’s a song to sing
when all seems cruel,
and fair endeavor fails,
a song of sweet exemption,
from all of life’s travails
.
A song that seeps
throughout the heart,
when nothing else prevails,
a song of one’s redemption,
from all of life’s travails
.
“What is this song,”
the deaf man signs,
“and can I sing it too?
This way to lift my spirits high
and help me see it through.”
.
“And could we
fly above the din,”
the destitute contend,
“if all we know is heartache,
and laws that apprehend.”
.
And what of life’s indignities,
and all that keeps us down,
the glean of our bad choices,
that force us to the ground,
and how at times dire circumstance
can stop the good we’ve done,
.
“WHAT CAN WE DO…” the shattered cry,
“to bring this to an end?”
.
SPEAKING FOR MYSELF:
.
never should you fear
another’s condemnations,
nor should you dread the naysayers,
or the outburst of another’s indignations, or
their scandals, or ugly-spirited scheming, and
never should you doubt your endowments…
Establish a strong enduring foundation,
in honesty, staying the course,
in all joy and longsuffering,
strengthening others with the gifts loaned you,
as you press on towards a soon-emerging LIGHT

© richard lloyd cederberg
1/2019
  richardlloydcederberg.com