Things

How do we let go—
we who have in a lifetime
brought things in—
collected,
gathered,
polished,
dusted things
to build our house against the wind?

How do we say now—
wind, come in,
disperse
to a heartless earth
all my lovely garnered things?

How do we let go—
after we have thought,
labored,
sweated,
toiled
to gain possessions,
locked our door against the night
and now are we to say—
Thief, come in—take it away?

Eternity—you say—has all the answers.
These are the shadowlands
where we have played
for just a day
as children do with toys,
sulking when night comes
and we are told—Put them away.

How do we let go?—we don’t—
as children—must be pulled away.

—© Shirley Anne Leonard

Poem Trees

Shall I pick them like the apples
hanging red upon the boughs—
these little gems with blazing lens
for kindling fire out of prose?

Shall I pare them like Miss Dickinson,
impatient so with frills,
disclose the core and seed within
to scatter broadly on the hills?

And then, should one forget to dream,
he may discover on his way
a full-grown tree of rhapsody
to lighten up a dreary day.

—© Shirley Anne Leonard

Without Words

Made into a song by Richard Silkebakken. To download and play the music, choose MP3 format or M4A format.

I cannot tell you,
words will not come,
but if soul should speak to soul
what need for tongue?

Let my eyes tell you
when they gaze into yours
and my soul gets lost
in their deep corridors.

Let my lips tell you,
barely touching yours,
of the tender love
in a heart that adores.

Let my hand tell you,
clasped into yours,
while love speaks
without words.

Let your music speak,
with the setting sun
in the soft hours of twilight,
that we are one.

—© Shirley Anne Leonard

Words We Use Every Day

The words we use
in conversation every day—
they are the bricks
of building up and tearing down.
Our thoughts—they are
the spirit’s tool, on which to weigh
the facts the world
drops at our door, or others say—
the pros and cons
that prod us to contemplate the rules
of right or wrong
to either keep or throw away.
If Truth exists
it’s absolute: no right for me
and wrong for you,
or true for me but not for you.
The Word of God
is clear and pure. It’s never “if,”
or hit-and-miss,
and what we say is what we get.
Our words return
to us in forms that either curse
or bless—the profit,
then, is saying what God says:
“In Him we’re blessed.”
It’s nothing more, and nothing less.

—© Shirley Anne Leonard

Remembering to Forget

Sometimes, it seems, when you’re with me
And days go laughing by,
I forget who I ought to be,
That I’m supposed to cry.

Sometimes I feel such happiness
I miss the former pain,
The comfort of that old distress
That I should know again.

What right have I to laugh and smile
When sorrow is my lot?
I ought to lament all the while,
But—sorry!—I forgot.

When we’re together now, it seems
It’s always been this way,
And memories of faded dreams
Are spared the light of day.

Sometimes when I should make my head
Remember with regret,
I get it mixed up, and instead,
Remember to forget!

—© Richard C. Leonard

A Noble Proverb

“Iron sharpens iron,”
so they say.
But what if I
am only made of clay?
Obliteration—
if I get in the way!

Iron sharpens iron.
So does stone
if rough, and with a
hardness all its own
to grind the weapon’s
cutting edge, and hone.

Iron sharpens iron.
Make me so
the wheel will grind
deliberate and slow,
and sparks will not inflame
emotion’s glow.

Iron sharpens iron.
Let us talk
and mind the words we say,
lest they should walk
toward battlefields
and kill us on the way.

—© Shirley Anne Leonard