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.

Summer Is Too Brief

The summer waltzing in with hollyhocks
Held sprays of long-stemmed lilies in her arms.
Their fragrance bade the dozing four-o'clocks
Lift high their heads to greet her lambent charms.
She ran with golden sandals through the fields
That bronzed to harvest glory at her touch.
(How gentle is the scepter summer wields!)
All lavishly she filled the empty hutch;
Then quietly beside the slowing stream
She built an altar fire and bowed her head.
I closed my eyes a little while to dream
And unawares all noiselessly she fled.
I could not call her back, then in my grief
I wept because her stay had been too brief.

Eternal Summer

Think not that summer ends but rather say
Bright June lies sleeping in December's arms;
That in the shining pattern of today
Are yesterdays of beauty with their charms:
For summer mounts on spurs of columbine,
Her fragrance lingers in a lilied-grot;
A lark-flute rhapsody is ever mine
Recorded on the microfilm of thought.
The hollyhocks still hold their tapers high;
A moon canoe glides smoothly on the lake;
In winter's sculptured silence killdeer cry
And redbirds flash a challenge from the brake--
When the last darkness falls, we wake at dawn
To hear eternal summer's antiphon.

Summer Returns

The sun with golden sandals walks
Across the fields, while Hollyhocks
Hold high bright tapers of glad June.
At night a silver yacht, the moon,
Sails on the lake. My love and I
Stroll on its shores while killdeer cry,
And on the willow harps, a prayer
Is strummed by night winds passing there.

Montana Poetry Quarterly
Hon. Men. in Anonyme Contest

Summer Night Phantasy

While cellos of the bullfrogs call,
Moon-mother spins a thin, sheer veil,
Softens the face of night until
Each feature is made beautiful.
I hear the laughter of a troll
Who gaily twirls each tinkling bell
Of silvered aspens. Fairies smile
In lily-yachts upon the pool.

Midwest Chaparral
First in Consonance Contest, Spring 1952

Summer Evening in the City

Though tethered to the earth I joy in flight,
My wings a seagull flying smoothly over
The ponds gay-trimmed with mallards, meadow clover
Tauny with baby calves; where yellow-bright
With buttercups the cool spring winds. Not trite
But new with freshness comes the call of plover
From golding seas of wheat. At dusk my rover
Eyes see a lane . . . an open door . . . a light . . . .

How good the summer evening gives me wings;
That childhood trailways carve the paths for age!
What joy--as fragrance lifts from mountain sage--
Companioning with dear, familiar things!