A Poet’s Challenge

It is not the sun in all its glory

Wherein a poet’s challenge lies  

But the promise that is held in its rays

That swiftly moves across the skies

As when the radiant sun greets the day

And scatters its quivering beams

It rains more than ten thousand blessings down

Over mountains valleys and streams  

The busy old sun through our curtains shines

Where magnets gleam on the fridge door

Each one glows with a precious memory

Which takes me to a time before?

Old photos taken in moments of time

Caught in the camera’s eagle eye

Of birthday parties and graduations

All treasures of times gone by!

How the sun glistens on magnetic words

Bright adjectives, verbs and phrases

That captures the spark of imagination

To create a poem that amazes

See the sunlight shift to the crumbling wall

Where we hear children laugh at play

While birds are singing upon the wing 

On this bright genial summer day

Late in the evening soft and still

When sunbeams dance the shadows long

Now as each flower closes one by one -

A small bird sings his plaintive song

While the big red sun sinks without a word

Painting the sky with heaven’s light

We stir up the fire within the hearth

And close the curtains to the night!

 Beryl McMullen