“Hope” is the thing with feathers - (314)
Emily Dickinson 1830–1886

Hope is the thing with feathers 
That perches in the soul, 
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Petals of the Fallen

This was written by my step-daughter, Hannah Denham.

Gone, but never forgotten - in honor of the twenty flowers who entered heaven's gates December 14, 2012.

Petals of the Fallen

 I came across the Painter today

His gently worn hands were spattered with flecks

of exuberant colors and hues

He used a cloud for a canvas

Red from passion mixed with the purity of white

for the pink of childhood's rosy cheeks

Dipping his fingers in the green

from virescence of recurring life,

he romanced the image to the skies

"What are you painting?"

I asked the bearded Man

with brown eyes that pierced the soul

He said not a word as his fingers worked

but I took no offense at his silence

and watched as his answer took form

Stalks of green were coaxed to the skyline

One, two, three, I counted

and when creation was complete, there were twenty

Pink blooms smeared the white space

above the stems, painted

not with precision, but untouched beauty

But then the Artist's expression changed.

Deep and anguished sadness

engraved the creases of his face

The white of the canvas turned black

with the darkening of the horizon

and the upheaval of the skies

And then it rained.

The sky opened, its quiet tears disappearing

into the shadow of uprooted innocence

I had forgotten the painter was next to me

until he exhaled into the mist, and

droplets of grief hastened from his whisper

He brushed his fingers once more

into the green of vitality,

sprouting life from the petals of the fallen

It occurred to me then -

though cut off from its source of survival

the essence of each blossom lives on.

From the rain of suffering, and from the tears shed

each spirit can grow, be revivified in the form

of a future in remembrance of the original twenty seeds.