Psalm for a Solstice

Solstitial shakes and Samhain shivers

Ripple out on distant rivers.

Rumblings of the season's stride

Make quakes on Gaia's lumpen hide.

Seisms seize the torn terrain

And crack it with ecstatic strain.

Signs of winter's coming pall

Stir to quicken gloaming's fall.

The timbre of a growing breeze

Lowers fore the waiting freeze.

The sounds it carries slow and glower.

What once was frantic now is dour.

A muddled message they convey

In nervous dirge and hazy lay.

The tidal rise of that refrain

Reaches peak as summer's slain.

An Untried Triad

I fought off the words that rose to my lips

Whenever I felt your embrace.

It felt strange to contain, but it spared all the pain

That the phrase would have brought to your face.

It's a sentence all know, but I kept it below,

For such things aren't accepted in haste.

It's the truth I believe, but it's not one received

Without risk of creating a waste.

I disguised it in song where it wouldn't go wrong.

It belonged far away from your eyes.

But all that's in the rear, and now there's no fear

To be clear where it wouldn't be wise.

The feeling's too vast to forget when it's passed,

But it's not to be said when it's new.

As the last bell has tolled for the memory I hold,

I can finally say it to you.

Minding the Mines

Delving through this mantled land,

An adept deft with crafty hand

Seeks new fortune by the morn

In riches from earth's bosom torn.

Digging deep into the ground

For any worth that can be found,

His squatty shape displays no wear

As he pursues his single care.

His pointed ear does bear no bead

Of sweat as soil his fingers knead.

His lumpen limbs make moves with grace

That life's denied his wizened face.

His nose is sharp enough to aid

The pick he wields to ply his trade.

But time and toil could never fray

The winsome glint his eyes display.