Garden of Poetry

Bonfire, by the light of flickering flame,
What scorching tenets you reveal of fate!
Sagas of past friendship and faded fame
Your passionate refrains articulate!
Earnestly you sing tales of ancient folk;
Verse of hearth for a hundred thousand years,
Born on tongues in distant times and places.
I glimpse late firesides in the rising smoke.
In the embers and ashes, through my tears,
I can almost see the somber faces.

 ~ Daniel F Mitchell

Shelter From The Storm

Now and again, I remember the garden that was childhood.
In a fog, I sometimes sense what I never quite understood -
That watercolor dream of all things real and most that are not,
Filtered through the haze of dawn into a clouded melting pot.

The taste of the day was ambrosial nectar from a spring,
The dew drops fresh on the grass beneath my feet. And the bee sting
There and painful, was diluted by comprehension too deep,
All care beyond the touch secured in a peaceful sleep.

Mornings pass, afternoons come and go, evenings give way to night,
And beneath the stars I stand and secretly wish that I might
Gather up enough wishes, and dreams, and hopes, to fill a sea,
And paint them in a never-ending, mystical, fantasy.

Childhood was just a fuzzy rendition of time on my heart.
I watched the show but I never really seemed to play a part.
Like a sky clouded then blue, I am not what I was before.
Now that my mind has cleared, I can’t see the shapes anymore.

~ Daniel F Mitchell

Back into the Black Hole
 

Cosmic dust is what we are,
Remnants of an ancient star,
Drifted to a distant shore,
To dance a while in sunlight,
Then slip away into the night,
Back into the black hole once more.

~ Daniel F Mitchell

There is a shadow man beneath my bed,
Waiting there until the night.
He fills my waking hours with dread -
Anticipation of his fright.