Comments below the poem and pictures. ENJOY!
Friend,
(Inspired by a P. Shelley fragment)
Sit down here and clear your mind
Of all its grief and sorrow,
For they are guests of yesterday
Who won’t be here tomorrow.
The sun ascends throughout the East
As it moves through its ranges.
The steady moon’s a stalwart friend,
But it’s known for its changes.
We may suffer much today,
And it may seem to last,
But let us not haul misery
From the unchanging past--
A past that’s locked within its time
That never ebbs nor flows
While we are free to seek our peace
And find it wherever it goes.
Kellie and I visited some of our regular haunts yesterday on Highway 19 in Missouri, the scenic river way with a special guest, my mother. It was too hot to do much hiking, so we drove to many different places. Usually, such a trip encourages the taking of many pictures and the writing of a new poem. I didn't take a single picture, and I was not inspired by anything to write. So, why do we have a new poem?
This morning as I was reading through articles and poems shared with me by my fellow writer and email correspondent Patrick Gillespie (https://poemshape.wordpress.com/), I happened upon a fragment written by Percy Shelley. I believe that it later became part of a long poem, something about The Spanish... something or other. I haven't read the information since this morning and forgot the name of it. Anyway, his fragment did inspire me to write this rather simple, but poignant poem, in only a few minutes.
The picture at the top of the page is a picture of a female bluebird. I cannot be sure that it is the same bird, but bluebirds have raised five or six clutches or broods in this box right outside my window this summer alone. Another bluebird, or perhaps the same one, also raised one brood in the birdhouse on my grapevine pole. I think it wasn't shaded enough to keep the young birds cool, so the adults left the birdhouse after the weather got hot.
The doe pictured below is also an animal friend that it is possible that we see regularly on our daily walks. I do not know how to tell one deer from another, but there are five or six does that we see quite often when we exercise. Luna, the dog, never saw this deer even though it was probably 100 feet or less from us. The deer stood perfectly still until we stopped so that I could snap the picture. When we stopped, it bolted. I was lucky that I snapped the shot right before it turned and leapt into the bushes.
