C R Clark

Each day she sits in a rolling chair
Constrained by straps to avert a spill
Not knowing who or where she is
Not knowing those who love her still
...

Originally written as a song, tune: Joan Baez, All my trials Lord, soon be over

This earthly life has got me down
When I get home, I’ll wear a crown
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Way back in the mountain and beyond bread creek
Where muscadines hang from the hardwood trees
The coyotes howl all through the night
And backbones tingle when the catamount cries.
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A lonely man in the midst of a crowd
Is the loneliest man of all
If only he could forget his pride
He could make friends of them all
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The sky was clear that autumn day
A dried out pile of brush
Had needed burning for quite some time
But there’d never been a rush
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A teacher was, one day, teaching
Her second grader class
The tale of the three little pigs
When she turned to a lovely lass
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His face was brown and wrinkled
His clothes were old and worn
Sitting on a sidewalk bench
He watched the street as traffic swarmed
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To plunge from high on summit’s peak
And ride the current, swift
Survey the earth in sweeping view
As, with the morning clouds, I drift
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Many times when I’m alone, I dream of when we used to go
With sandwiches, out to the lake and watch the people swim
We’d laugh and play for hours, games with little meaning
Until the day had faded, then we’d pack and head for home
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We rose that day, no power at all
The whole county stymied from ice and snow
The central heat, though gas, no good
For, without the “juice, ” it would not go
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Squirrel brushes corn
From my feeder to the ground
Young deer picks it up
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Ain’t camped once this year
Ain’t had a single campfire
Something’s wrong with that
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My wife keeps a feeder for her dear hummingbirds
Outside our window it hangs in the shade
Hummers refresh themselves sunup till dark
They sip and they slurp that red hummer kool aid
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From somewhere deep within my being
The shadow of desperation harbors doubt
And my usual optimism is shaken
But, I pray, it is still intact
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Icy crystals cling
Branches glimmer in the sun
Winter’s masterpiece
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A friend drew me aside one day
And, in me did confide
Of problems with a wayward Son
Such as he could scarce abide
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I had a dream and you were there
In lace, with flowers, in your hair
Your beauty shown and lit the place
A constant smile was on your face
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If I could paint a masterpiece
In portrait show my lady’s grace
As da Vinci in his finest hour
Attained in Mona Lisa’s face
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It’s just an old abandoned farmhouse
On a weedy, grown up moor
I suspect that it has stood there
For a century or more
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In the land of thermal waters, many moons ago
When streams in virgin forests, yet with crystal water flowed
Before the Europeans came from lands so far away
And vowed to conquer for their king, this new land they would claim
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