Where Eagles Cry

On the heights we stand at last,
Stand where eagles cry.
To attain the goal we set,
Have we climbed too high?
From the valleys down below
Laughter echoes, ringing.
In this finer air we breathe
We hear angels singing;
Yet we miss the human touch--
Have we climbed and lost too much?

Chromatones
Second MFCP State Contest, Fall 1952

Wealth of the West

Give me the joy of the laughing brooks,
The flute-throated meadow larks;
The peace of the cooling emerald nooks
Or a killdeer-cry through the dark.

Give me the gold of the wild daffodils;
The violet's sweet perfume;
The beauty of bluebells on greening hills;
Let me bloom as the wild roses bloom.

Let my thoughts be high as the mountains reach;
Let me hear every star that calls;
Let me sing my songs with the silver speech
Of the rivers and waterfalls.

Country Nightfall

The gray steed, twilight mounted, canters through
My quiet country town.
Then toil and rest meet in a rendezvous
With peace. The stars dance down,
With astral singing ripple-splash the stream;
A killdeer-chime intones the heart to dream.

The white-limbed aspens' spangles twirl the air;
A cowbell faintly rings.
A whisper, "God is near," comes like a prayer.
Selene gently flings
Her veiling spun of opalescent light
Around the mystic loveliness of night.

Remembering Sun-Kissed Sage

The vines cling lovingly to gnarled old trees
Still holding hands across the laughing river.
Remembered coyote howls still send a shiver
Up through my spine. The lilac-harp-strings quiver
Strummed by returning robins. Errant bees
Sip nectar from the bluebell cups. The pleas
Of whippoorwill upon the canyon breeze
Retune the heart to love the Master Giver.

(How poignantly these childhood memories glide!)
The honeyed yellow dock conceals the age
Of hills grown old. A killdeer asks no wage
For healing twilight calls. How like a bride
The wild rose lifts her radiant face! I hide
Nostalgic tears, remembering sun-kissed sage.

Chaparral Writers' Year Book

Sing Minnesota's Saga

Sing, little Crow Wing, lyrical your falls;
The Moccasin is blooming; the goldfinch calls:
The catkins crouch upon the swaying willows--
Follow a time-worn path--Wing, dappled billows!

I hear the Crow Wing waters as they flow
Chant Minnesota's saga, and I know
They ran through primal prairies, gypsy-free,
Startled by church and school bells--Destiny!
The French explorers came, the British too;
Her native tribes, the Chippewa and Sioux;
Arrival of the settlers--trampled trails ...
The Indian missions--Light that never fails!
The Sioux-land treaty--wagons pushing west;
The great seal of the state with its attest:
"I fain would see what lies beyond." The white
Man with his plow is here--His dreams are bright--
The Indian must go. All this I hear
While listening to the Crow Wing, silver-clear.

Sing, little Crow Wing! Sing of summer skies;
Man bent to purpose; faith in woman's eyes.
Tassled are cornfields; saffron is the grain;
Aster-blue the prairies; fruited the plain!

Straight as the Norway Pine, the Red Man stands
Then slow-retreats as settlers claim his lands.
Gone, isolation with the pack-horse trail!
A miracle: the railroad! Daily mail!
The frontier fears and loneliness disperse.
I watch the "boom," the panic's violence;
See Minnesota's countenance grow tense
Then eased and confident. I feel the urge
Of freedom's spirit in her heart to purge
The land of slavery. I know her white,
High courage and her starward faith in right.
I see a day, one hundred years ago,
Her day of statehood--a new star to glow
Unsullied in the banner of the free--
A timeless star to touch Infinity.

Sing, little Crow Wing! Sing of scarlet, gold;
Filled is the empty hutch, all it can hold.
Sing, little river, slowly, slowly run
Chanting in gratitude; gone the harvest sun!

My heart is tuned to rhythm of the song
Of Minnesota's cities with their long-
Line traffic, swarming streets, their commerce-humming--
I love to hear her mighty cities' thrumming!
But more I love the still, reflective peace
Of her small villages when labors cease
And twilight gently comes, for then I hear
Her children's laughter ... As the stars appear,
The old recall the locust year's dismay;
The young in love await the newer day,
For hush! They hear prophetic waters sing
A greater Minnesota's offering!
Still looking westward, eyes adventure-flamed,
Then scan the vastness of the sky unclaimed.

Dream little Crow Wing! Sweet is your repose
While beauty lies asleep beneath the snows.
Dream of tomorrow--Moccasin awaits
Your song when rain comes tapping April's gates!

Reflective Artistry

Now when we are sketching
Every beauty-etching
For the face to wear,

Bid each thought-reflection
Be serene perfection
For our silver hair.

The Relief Society Magazine

Could I Awake to This

When I wake joyously
In that Far Empery
     When day has just begun,
Will meadow larks in glee
Play on their flutes for me
     And laughingly rivers run?
Will aspens, tenderly,
Sing hymns, while slenderly
     White birches greet the sun?

Will pine trees gently croon
And still the heart's typhoon
     As now; and reach to kiss
The paling crescent moon
Who hides her face as soon
     As day awakes in bliss?
Will heaven be flower-strewn?
I would not fear death's rune
     Could I awake to this.

Country Twilight's Peace

White fingers of the birches idly strum
The harp of summer, while the placid stream
With low contralto music weaves a dream
Love-cradled in my heart. The first stars come
Pale saffron, with a young white moon from some
Still port afloat upon a silver beam
Of mystic vapors of the sky to gleam
Softly upon the river's platinum
Bright ripples. As night's curtain gently closes
A killdeer chimes the hour--No artifice
Of man can thus enwrap me in a fleece
Of calm enhanced by lingering wild roses.
Oh, restless world, when will you fathom bliss,
Your great heart know a country twilight's peace?

Tiptoe in Summer

I stand tiptoe in summer's gay,
Still mood and view a Milky Way
Of daisy stars where grasses hide
Shy violets. Each bloom a bride,
Late lilacs with a breeze ballet.

Blue asters hem the book; a spray                                              
Of birch is mirrored; wind-lutes play ...                                      
Where lily yachts in stillness glide,
               I stand tiptoe.

Although this beauty cannot stay--
The rose that blooms and shuts today
Will bud no more--yet deep inside
My heart I hold the summer's tide
Of blossoming thought-ripples sway--
               I stand tiptoe.

Comparison

Wolves run in packs, obedient to the thunder
Of jungle lords they serve ferociously.
Their mouths are red as alien beasts they plunder,
But man with fiendish, atavistic glee
Destroys his sons for gain, a crime unknown
To wolves who never stalk to kill their own.

Different

Sing on O Sea!

Sing on! Sing on, O sea! your lyric swelling
To join the anthem of the spheres above:
"Lilies of peace will bloom, their beauty telling--
The earth a great DEMOCRACY OF LOVE!"

Cradled in arms of war, steel-hard and colder
Than winter's crystal eyes, my babyhood
Knew only sword-thin laughter. Then when older
I saw war leap in flames, and understood
Man's urge to God ... Storm-wild the sea was crying.
Fear-drugged, I heard it call, "I lead to peace!"
Then gently as mother lullabying
It crooned the melody, "Release! Release!"

Across hope-crested waves I came and found her,
The Lady of the Lamp, to welcome me,
Her torch held high illuming all around her
While lapping waters whispered, "Liberty!"
Here in her sanctuary, lilting laughter
Flows from my lips; I walk on living sod,
My paeans rising high to Heaven's rafter--
Freedom is holy, makes men kin to God.

O Lady of the Lamp of Hope, continue
To light the darkened trailways of the world:
Restore the fractured faith, the soul's torn sinew;
Bid God's vast reels of joy to be uncurled.

Faithful Farmer

When working for a harvest he would sow
The seed with care in fertile, waiting soil
And ask the Father to reward his toil,
Then still continue on to use the hoe.

The Relief Society Magazine

Calm Waters

Wearing despair's dark mantle, bowed in grief,
I sailed rebellious waters; on my head,
The ashes of my dreams. I craved relief
From sorrow's cross. My son--my all--was dead.
The octopus of war had barrened me--
The joy of watching children's children grow
Was ever lost. Within Gethsemane
The darkness fringed with silver; through the glow
There came the Master's timeless lyric, "Peace!"
With Him I walked calm waters of release.

Spirit of Night

When the spirit of night
     Walks alone, unafraid,
Through the birches that stand
     By a river of jade,
Where the moon is a yacht
     And its pilot is peace,
Then I silently sail
     To the port of release.

Chromatones
Second in Precision Poetics--Anapestic Octave

Virtue

Virtue is beauty, serenely fair,
With sunlight and moon-glow on her hair;
Her eyes are unsullied and virgin-sweet
As the fragrant lilies about her feet.

Her heart is a chalice high-uplifted
To brim with trust when doubt is rifted;
Her soul illumined by reverence
Is filled with the gladness of innocence.

With joy bubbling over, she ever keeps
Her fountain of life as pure as the deeps
Of canyon pools with crystal bars,
And mounts an ascending path of stars.

When I am Old

Let me still see the beauty of the hills
Waving immortal banners in the spring;
Hear lark-flutes pierce the dawn. But let me ring
The bells of joy that youthful hearts may sing
Unhaunted by the twilight hours. Let frills
Of laughter trim my soul, and daffodils
Of sunshine bloom within my heart that spills
Joyance and hope at each day's offering.

May little children love to walk with me
No matter how infirm my step, and find
A kindred spirit, singing joyously,
Questing in burgeoning meadows of the mind.
And when at last I hear the Twilight Gong,
May hearts remember lyrics from my song.

Midwest Chaparral

Aspen Grove

Remembering, I saw
A grove of aspen by a cooling spring
That sang of pine-robed canyons as it tripped
Across the road. I heard their velvet laughter
Tuning the twilight hours to reverence;                                        
Then whispering lullabies to little stars
That twinkled over moon-veiled mountain heights
Like jewels in the dusky robe of night.

When dawn called radiantly
Wearing a copper veil announcing day,
Majestically they reached to touch the sky,
Yet loved the wild rose maidens at their feet
Content to catch an errant sunbeam's kiss.
Their fluttering leaves like tinkling silvery bells
Bade lilting robins meet for morning prayer.

When lightning streaking through
A darkened sky brought awful fear, they played
A symphony to calm the elements;                                                
As even now they calm my restless soul.
When lying sleepless on my bed in pain,
The quiet laughter of this aspen grove
Retunes my heart and I am spirit-free.

Reassurance

Death could not hold your love away from me.
Though it should close and bolt its heavy door,
You would come winging back, and joyously
Together--through the years--out hearts would soar.
Beside the moonlit river, I would hear
Your voice in words of love still speaking low;
Each winding country lane would bring you near;
Cicada call; the sunset's flaming glow;
Our garden where we dreamed at close of day;
Our path of stepping stones, a rainbowed sky;
The little church, the killdeer's plaintive lay;
The music of a new-born infant's cry.
So would you live and be with me each hour--
Upon love's memories, death can wield no power.

The Improvement Era

I Hear Thee Lord

I may not hear a clear call in the night
As did the youthful Samuel, but my ears
And heart are open and my eyes alight
That I can say, "Speak, Lord, Thy servant hears."
For there may come a whisper in the dawn
Like carillons from far celestial towers,
And listening, my soul could look upon
Earth's crests of grief as on a field of flowers
At morning. Like a canticle of peace
This call could ring the world in echoes tolled
To quiet spirit anguish, and release
Hope to the youth and comfort to the old.
A clear call or a whisper, let me heed--
Answer, "I hear Thee, Lord," then fill the need.

Beyond the Final Curtain

So this is death! Speak softly lest she waken
From her deep, painless sleep to hear our sighing.
Her fragile heart that was so often shaken
Has found the crown of all content in dying.

For on her face no lines are etched of sorrow;                                                                                                                                                    
She has recaptured youth, forgotten sadness.
I wonder, does she find the New Tomorrow
All that she dreamed, a sphere of hope and gladness?

Her worn old willing hands, at last, are resting;                                                                                                                                                  
Her slowing feet are stilled, yet I am certain
Celestial heights will always find her questing,
Could we but see beyond the final curtain.

Poet's Reed

Open Gate

They come,
A throng of weary pilgrims
Pitiful in their deformities of limb and soul:
Children with eyes empty of laughter;                                                          
Youth burdened with the weight of dead dreams,
Their eyes great, dark, haunted pools
Where moonlight never dances;                                                                  
The elder ones feel only the tide receding,
Tasting the bitter wine of frosted fruit.

Standing in awe
Before the welcoming Goddess,
Their eyes--but burned out embers--
Relight with flickering sparks of faith.
Rusted lips, long divorced from smiling,
Yield to the lubricant of hope.
Bone-lean fingers caress gaunt throats
That too long have felt the choking leash of fear.

Yearningly they come to the portals of Eden--
Looking beyond they see
The green acres of democracy,
The lilied fields of peace ...

The Goddess smiles.
Her arm uplifted in blessing,
She hears the prelude to their song
Whose melody will swell into a triumphant chord
As, laboring in her fields, her shops and temples,
They will know the joy of which they dreamed,
The peace they thought to find only in Heaven.
With bowed heads, reverently they enter
The open gate, the gate of America.

Where Happiness Grows

When one begins his search for happiness
He often looks beyond his own loved yard
Into a strange garden. I confess
I journeyed far to find the singing bard.
A distant field looked greener. Sweeter chord
Of music seemed to echo from the shore
Of unknown waters. I was sounded, scarred,
When I returned much wiser than before
To find my happiness was waiting at my door.

Reflections

A Place Apart

The bloom of flowers
And youth's glad hours--
     How very quickly they may fade.
     So keep a place where dreams may go
     And lingering, an accolade,
Make sweet your sorrow;                                                        
For when you borrow
     A star-mist ray from lovely things
     You keep apart--of dreams that grow--
     Then always something, something sings,
And paths of duty
Illume with beauty.

Iris in Gethsemane

The Iris-Lilies in Gethsemane
With wings uplifted cheered the Master's soul
And bade Him look to Heaven's Empery
Where wounds are healed and spirit is made whole;                              
For there among their beauty all divine
Calmly He prayed, "Thy will be done, not mine."

The American Bard
Hon. Mention in Bard's Iris Contest

Down a Rainbow Path

When moonlight drapes her cloak of gossamer
About the earth upon a summer night,
Then Iris trips adown a rainbow path
To linger in my garden, in delight
Caressing every wing-uplifted flower;                                          
At dawn returning to her heavenly bower.

Third in Lloyd Austin's Iris Contest

Poetry

Silver words that flow over the soul
Softly as music; atom bombs of thought                                        
That scream through the universe.

The Archer
Hon. Men. in Archer Terset Contest

Granite Temples

Tenaciously I clung to outworn dreams,
I would be young and keep the mind June-burdened.
(A catacomb for ghosts, I learned, with gleams
From dead moons flickering) Now autumn-guerdoned.
Mature as earth, I taste the wine of youth;
Embrace October, and I hear no sighing
From musty tombs, but clarion calls of truth.
My spirit sings its freedom from the dying:
Reality is stern, but oh, how good
Though kissed more acridly by lips of sorrow,
To build of granite, not of rotting wood,
The temples to adorn the new tomorrow--
Ripe fruit was clinging to a withered bough;
Seeing, I shook the limb and greeted NOW.

Shall I Find Them at Last

Who will tell me where beauty goes
When gone is the bloom from the June hedge-rose?
Where is the path the lost dreams take
That whisper beyond the willow brake?
When I search in vain on earthly sod,
Shall I find them at last in the garden of God?

Of a June Night

I heard you calling
In the velvet-contralto voice
Of a June night--
The silence of doubt was pierced
By shining javelins of faith
That touched knowledge
And fathomed immensity:
Time, space ... eternity ... and God.

I heard you calling
And my dream, joy-inflated,
Burst into myriad bubbles of reality,
Each one a star.

Progress

Through winding, narrow, dusty lanes
We drove the old bay mare,
My small son's hands holding the reins,
While on the quiet air
We heard each note the meadow lark
Played on his silver flute.
Now roads are straight and paved. But hark!
The rippling, glad salute
Has grown so slow, as we race by
We hear but one short note.
Hands on the wheel, Son gives a sigh.
A tightening in my throat,
I hear about his dream airplane
And yearn for dusty roads again.