OLD POETRY...

"Small Encounters of the Very Close Kind"

On my way to work, I chanced upon a sight.

There at my feet a slender rod, a twig,

Stood up and called to me.

Jaded human that I am, I was about to pass

This prince of caterpillars as

Insignificant and trifling.

"Ah, not so," he cried.

I paused and looked more closely.

He truly was a handsome creature,

All chocolate brown with coffee stripes.

So proud he stood (two inches high in all)

With head and shoulders straight and tall.

His arms (I counted ten, but there were more)

He waved as he continued his address:

"Now, gentle madam, if I may be so bold,

Please mind your step, for though I am indeed

of noble blood, alas, it spills with ease."

Oh, I hastened to apologize. Then with

Fair words to both our kinds we parted.

I stopped again for one last look:

He was already gone back to his verdant world.

I turned to mine, knowing that

Before the summer draws to end

I'll see my friend again,

Flitting high above my head. 

"Last Prayer"

Last year, I looked up.  The vaulted sky

lay deep and dark, pierced through

with a thousand and one lights

     of stars.

The frosty crystal air

Swept the distance aside, until,

my heart, exaulted,

saw every star a promise 

     of God.

Last night, I saw the same sky.

The frosty crystal air again brought

within the reach of my heart

     the stars.

Each one was now a shattered fragment

of a dashed hope and broken promise

     of God.

How clear the night is!!

(Both poems were written around 1983, and published in the 1984 edition of There Is, Niagara Poetry Anthology published by the Canadian Authors Association Niagara Branch.)