Nonet for JoeBear

Ode To JoeBear
(Joseph Blair)

Chow Hall food wasn't very good but
the company was very nice.
I was not mature enough
to appreciate
the friend you were.
I am glad
I can
now.

Expected Death

Photo © Dawn Allynn


… And laying there, upon the ground,
with gaze fixed toward the waning day,
the acorn lay without a sound,
amidst the autumns disarray.

The green of life now all but gone
it’s edges yellowed, brown and dry,
the acorn sadly watched the oak
and waited for it’s time to die.

Wretched away from all it’d known,
from sap and leaf, from bark and limb,
the acorn fell upon the ground –
removed by Mother Nature’s whim.

“Oh grief, oh sadness!” The acorn cried,
“How awful is my deep despair!
How I crave to reach the sky,
To die down here seems so unfair.”

Bereft of hope, he missed his home.
His head he buried in the ground.
And letting go he waited for
Whatever’d come, without a sound.

Then, strange, a tugging in his soul.
He felt himself twist deep inside.
A change, a difference, a growing now …
An urge to do what he’d not tried.

Now skyward facing he took a breath,
And gave himself to what would be,
And felt his shell crack and give way,
The shoot inside now pushing free.

Toward Heaven stretching he heaved and worked,
Growing inches with his toil.
Finding strength with every breath,
growing inches with his toil.

As his limbs stretched to the stars
And mingled with both night and breeze,
He knew that it was letting go
That let him grow and be set free.

Throughout it all

Photo © Dawn Allynn


Throughout it all
You were there
Like a child’s glance
or a perfect, unblemished
cherry.
You sang to me

of unicorns
and rainbows
and shades of
living purple.

When the sun beckoned
you away
I felt your warm kiss
And sweet caress.

On a rainy day
you returned
(once)
and like a butterfly
touched me gently with love.

Somewhere in my pockets
I still carry it all
Bunched and crumpled
Like a bouquet of treasured daisies
Is your memory.

-1981

Desire

Desire caught the little star
Who twinkled in the nighttime sky,
And she yearned to travel far,
And mourned that life should pass her by.

Though troubles few she wept and moaned
Throughout each dust and dawn,
And with her worries carefully sewn,
She sought to carry on.

Each triumph seemed like sallow paste,
Each conquest tasted dirt,
And with sins as yet unfaced,
She soaked in her own silent hurt.

Across a silver speckled night
She searched for each desired whim,
Seeking what was hers (by right)
Her mind now tottering on it's rim.

Finally in her last despair
She bowed in desperation
And launched herself into the air
Away from perch and station.

Flying through a darkening void,
A speck, with tail of fire.
Her worries were at last destroyed
-And then, so was desire.

~November 1982





Graphics © Dawn Allynn