A Lover’s Song
come to me
for comfort and for warmth
come to me for love
for friendship and for trust
for understanding and for care
come to me for love
for sunlit days and star filled nights
for laughter and for tears
come to me and speak your heart
and I shall then speak mine
Forever
death of grandparents
when I was a child
was just a fact
they were there; they were gone
I didn’t ask why
they had a soul
which survives forever
the priest said
I didn’t understand
but nodded yes and moved on
the death of parents
gave rise to questions
not why–they were old–
but the place where they go
I still didn’t understand
in my late years
no more clear facts, but hope,
a wispy faith
slipping through the mist
into my reaching hand
Beginnings
the earth is dying
in a whirlwind of fire
sweeping nations;
where are the beliefs once held,
the love for our brothers?
a new day awaits
with each dawn a chance to change
to make amends;
what was done carelessly
needs all hands to undo
softly, slowly
were I to reach out to you
would we meet half-way
one to the other onward
if we believe and try?
can we bury the lies,
the conceits and greed,
the suspicions?
when fires die out there is growth
of long dormant seeds to sprout
Adelaide B. Shaw lives in Somers, NY. She has been creating Japanese poetic forms–haiku, haibun, tanka, tanka prose and photo haiga–for over 50 years and has been published widely. Her book of haiku, An Unknown Road, which won third place in the Haiku Society of America’s Merit Book Award in 2009, is available on Amazon. Her other books, The Distance I’ve Come, and Travel Souvenirs, are available on Cyberwit and Amazon. Adelaide also writes fiction and non-fiction and has been published in several journals. Some of her published Japanese short form poetry are posted on her blog: www.adelaide-whitepetals.blogspot.com
