Dedication to a Teacher Poet

They clipped your wings as you stood center stage

Holding a pen and a silver-budded book

Of wondrous life aglow in a darkling age

Inspired by a ghostly muse who undertook

To guide your light plume steps to azure doors

To open them soft with your winged key

To build leafy bowers for knightly matches

To fill sultry olive days with Spenser’s lores

Or hear the hymnal mysteries of the sea

And watch stars shine above the beechen thatches

Blue crystal air got caught in your lungs

Your wispy curls glow russet in the sun

Your feet step light on the ladder between rungs

Your phantom mind at peace paused in its run

Your soul gently dips in pearl rose dew

Warm dreams are spun from threads of bluebell tulle

You feel them rise from sugar glaze on shepherd seas

Or hear the moon’s blanched songs begun anew

Amid the hazel kernels ripening full

And open soft foam doors with golden keys

And yet they left you standing on the stage

Dry violets lie scattered at your feet

Cathedral heart is freed from the world’s cage

It blesses its existence beat by beat

Your proud head is bent in soft acceptance

Of twilight fate you chose not for yourself

Of restless travels between windswept shores

Of quests for beauty mingled with repentance

For losing love worth more than fame or wealth

For losing life in elfin vale forlorn

You saw bluebells emerging from the ground

You heard nightingales pour their souls in song

Of life on wings and summer’s silver sound

Of whitewashed skies and woodland paths dream long

Your soul has skipped through snow star labyrinths

In search of papyrus truth and spectral hope

Of velvet stones in depths of wooded rivers

Or quiet joy in cream spike buds of hyacinths

Of gentle days on plush blueberry slopes

And violets rocked light by zephyr’s quivers

You spread the silver dust of ancient dreams

You reached for mango rays of blazing suns

You watched driftwood afloat in cyan dark streams

As rose sand caressed your feet in gentle runs

You stood beneath the world’s light highland shingles

Next to a hidden grot of crystal treasures

Crested all around by sapphire arcs

You watched how day with neon evening mingles

And enjoyed many dainty summer pleasures

Listening to triple dawn’s songs of the larks

They clipped your wings but you still reached for heaven

Your sun drop pen left gold marks on the page

You longed for life, love and a blissful haven

Like a sky-searching eagle in a cage

You looked for beauty on this turquoise earth

And heard the mellow peals of bashful bluebells

Or feathered Poesy’s gray paper wing

You reached for human kindness, not its dearth

Your spirit saddled winds from pickled seashells

As pigeon-soul broke free from this world’s ring