My Coronet

If I in my daily contact

....... Of school days spent with you

Have taught you

.......To live content with small means,

To seek elegance rather than luxury,

.......Refinement rather than fashion,

To be most worthy and respectable,

.......To study hard, talk gently and act

......................frankly,

To listen with open mind and heart

.......And grow up to be all that you should:

Cheerful, brave, and true

.......To G-d, home, and country;

Then I shall have completed

.......The setting of another tiny jewel, with

..................care

Into the crown of my life work.

O

- FRANCES G.V. KENNY

Sleep Apnea By Ted Kooser

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Continue reading the main story

Night after night, when I was a child,
I woke to the guttering candle
of my father’s breath. It made a sound
like the starlings that sometimes
got caught in our chimney, a chirping
that would gradually, steadily build
to a desperate, flat slapping of wings,
then suddenly drop into silence,
into the thick soot at the bottom
of midnight. No silence was ever
so deep. And then, after maybe
a minute or two, I would hear
a twitter as he came to life again,
and could at last take a breath for myself,
a sip like a toast, lifting a chilled glass
of air, wishing us courage, those of us
lying awake through those hours,
my mother, my sister and I, who each night
listened to death kiss the fluttering lips
of my father, who slept through it all.

Central Park

By Sarah Shapiro
h
I took you to the zoo today,
although you were not there.
We marvelled at the parrots,
slowed down going by the bears.
u
I watched you as you watched the seals,
linked arms with you at snakes.
You gazed at the gorillas
for as long as wonder takes.
u
It's not so hard being by yourself
It's not so hard to walk
along the paths of Central Park
if you've got with whom to talk.
y
But to look a thing of beauty
very closely in its eyes,
that's going too far for a heart that knows
it's alone.

uuuuuuuuuuuuHence these lies.

From Holding on to Nothing - By David Crosby

Today I’m somebody new;

Not really knowing 

Just coming and going

A stranger just passing through

I don't blog daily

Such foolish consistency

Says "I have no life."

-Siobhan Adcock

Haiku

By Richard Wright

The naked mountains,

Washing themselves in spring rain

As green fields look on.

That sparrow bent down,

Its head tucked beneath its wing, –

Sewing a button?

A darting sparrow

Startles a skinny scarecrow

Back to watchfulness.

The creeping shadow

Of a gigantic oak tree

Jumps over the wall.

As my anger ebbs,

The spring stars grow bright again

And the wind returns.

On my trouser leg

Are still a few strands of fur

From my long dead cat.

The neighing horses
are causing echoing neighs
in neighboring barns

Whitecaps on the bay:

A broken signboard banging 

In the April wind. 

I am nobody:

A red sinking autumn sun

Took my name away.

As the sun goes down,

a green melon splits open

And juice trickles out.

Spring begins shyly

With one hairpin of green grass

In a flower pot.

An apple blossom

Trembling on a sunlit branch

From the weight of bees.

Make up you mind, Snail!

You are half inside your house,

And halfway out!

Burning out its time,

And timing its own burning,

One lonely candle.

Entering my town

In a heavy fall of snow,

I feel a stranger.

Just enough of snow

To make you look carefully

At familiar streets.

The arriving train

All decorated with snow

From another town.

Holding too much rain,

The tulip stoops and spills it,.

Then straightens again.

Leaving the doctor,

The whole world looks different.

this autumn morning.

A spring sky so clear

That you feel you are seeing

Into tomorrow.

A balmy spring wind

Reminding me of something

I cannot recall.

A valley village

Lies in the grip of moonlight:

How lonely it is.

Settling on the screen

Of the crowded movie house,

A white butterfly.