Racing home to beat the storm
from another sylvan scout
I'm headed where it's dry and warm
a refuge from tempests about.

Alas the rains catch up with me
and overwhelm the wiper blades.
The deluge makes it hard to see
as water pelts adjacent glades.

Lightning strobes its actinic way,
shaking my bones with its deep thunder
while gusts of wind make large trees sway.
I seek a shelter to park under.

It travels across the seas,
the mountains and the trees,
passing through villages
and great modern cities

Its gentle touch
is like a lover's caress,
soothing and comforting
a troubled soul laid to rest

It makes me grateful
on a hot, summer's day,
when the heat is intense,
making me sweat all day

When it is erratic and violent
it's a force to be feared
as it devastated the cities,
inflicting a million hurts

In the western meadows I lost my heart
while strolling 'round with a little sparrow
then never after found my way out.

On the pastoral lands I rolled about
and walked along where brooks would furrow.
In the western meadows I lost my heart.

I trod the rocky routes that wore the mount
and walked when raging winds went slow,
then never after found my way out.

I followed the waterfalls, to hear a shout
that prayed one day to stop the falling-show.
In the western meadows I lost my heart.

The Lay Of Leithian by J.R.R. Tokien

A king there was in days of old
ere Man had yet.............the mould
his power was.........in cavern's shade,
his had was over glenn and glade.
Of .........his crown, his............green
his silver lances.........................;
the starlight in his shield was caught
ere moon was made or sun was wrought.

I've known rivers
I've known rivers ancient path,.wilder and longer than the
flow of the blood in my veins.
My soul has grown strong like the rivers.

I used to swim in the Euphrates when the days were young.
I built my house near the Congo and it took me awhile to find sleep
I looked upon the west and raised the pyramids of hope
I heard the song of the Mississippi when Abraham Lincoln
went sailing to New Orleans, and I've seen its clear
bosum turn to gold in the sunset.

Gone , I say and walk from church,
As the stiff body embraces the grave
letting the dead cool at the hearse
it is Jun, battling the sun is being brave

We turn to the Cape, I cultivate
myself a sacred melody from the sky
where the sea bangs like an iron gate
and we touch. In this way people die.

My darling, the wind has often blown
from the raging water and when we touch
we lose the touch entirely. No one's alone.
Men kill for this, or for such

Once walking in old Baltimore
Heart-free, soul-filled with glee
I saw a Baltimorean
was looking back at me

Now I was eight and very shy
and he was no mud digger
and so I smiled, but he poked out
his tongue and named me Nigger

I saw no more of Baltimore
from then until December
of all the things that happened here
that's all I remember

----

INCIDENT by Countee Cullen

Sundays too my father got up at dawn
and put on his clothes in the dim lit barn.
Then with oaken hands that ached
from labor of lumbering
he banked fires .No one thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold raspy roar.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call
and bellow. I would rise and dress
fearing the rousing angers of that house,

A LATE WALK by Robert Frost

When I go up through the fallow field
the bewildering aftermath
stricken like the thatch with the heaviness of dew
nearly closes the well worn path

Ans when I traverse to the higher ground
the whir of disturbed birds
emerges from the tangle of overbearing weeds
is more than unspoken words

A tree over by the wall stands mighty
but a leaf that has turned to brown
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought
comes tumbling down

In silence I keep on brooding
why it's me all the time,
while you folks are sleeping
I witness all the crime?

By a lonely light on the street
a beggar counts his coins,
a hooker is poised to greet
a bloke who eyes her loins.

In neon of the red lit zone
all dark sides come to light,
when sins are bared to the bone
under the cloak of a luring night

I watch lights go to sleep
one by one in your homes,
from some I hear a shriek
from some, frenzied moans.