Instead of lyrics this month I decided to share a poem I found in a small book titled “A Pocket Treasury of Irish Verse.”

Inside the little book is an inscription that reads: “Dear Joann, It’s great having you on this trip. Congratulations on BINGO! Verg & Dorothy 2001” As far as I know this poem has nothing to do with Joann, Verg or Dorothy, I just like it.

A White Rose

By John Boyle O’Reilly

The red rose whispers of passion,

And the white rose breathes of love;

Oh, the red rose is a falcon,

And the white rose is a dove.

But I send you a cream-white rose bud

With a flush on its petal tips;

For the love that is purest and sweetest

Has a kiss of desire on the lips.

This poem has traveled along with me since I was around 12 or 13 years old and has popped up here and there over the following years. I came across it again recently and felt like sharing.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

By Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Source: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/148652/nothing-gold-can-stay-5c095cc5ab679

I finished the Japanese Haiku book recently and decided to try my hand at some haiku. Here goes…

Your hopping bird prints

Make spring smells rise up to me

Lovely first Robin!

A meeting of children

Could have been forgotten

But we continued

Pen Pals

You to Missouri

Then back to Iowa

We played and

Became best friends

Jumping on my bed

Listening to Beatles

We both wanted to be John

I was Paul

And so the summers went

Playing soldiers

And Planet of the Apes

Times in the tree house

I don’t know

If we could have been

More wonderful

And complete

2021 By David Jacobi

I was sitting outside tonight

And spoke my dead brothers name

I asked if there was any

tiny

small

scrap

bit

portion

leftover of him

That was still here in this dimension.

Was there any way he could give me

Some kind of a sign

That something of him remained

What ever that might be?

The answer I heard was nothing

But a slight wind in the trees

And moonlight shining down

Crickets chirping in the darkness…

I will take that as a yes.

2017 By David Jacobi

I have been away

From my hometown

For months, and now years

What goes on there

I don’t know

It continues along, without me

As it should

Walking along the shore

I asked the Lake Superior

Where do we go when we die?

It broke a wave and splashed at me

Is there an afterlife?

It washed ashore some debris

When it grew stormy I asked about heaven

It washed over the stones and back out again

Leaving some just so

2021 By David Jacobi

Walking in the woods

I asked my Lab, Marley

Where do we go when we die?

She wagged her tail and looked at me

Is there an afterlife?

We got home and she took a nap

When she woke I asked about heaven

She yawned and looked away

Ready to run again

2021 By David Jacobi