Youth rekindled

Something I have longed for 
since nineteen seventy-seven
arrived on Christmas morning
with a little slice of heaven

My own Millennium Falcon
and an AT-AT for good measure
which after careful building
I can keep and always treasure

A present from my children
(there were tears and that's the truth)
some moments of emotion
to rekindle here my youth

©Jemverse

Photo – Jempics

Ubi Sunt

As a boy these docks, this harbour
was a playground for adventure
fascination for a mystery
with no interest in debenture
Freedom then to roam and play
in summers with no ending
gave birth to a long love affair
with Sussex there befriending

But that was a long time ago
and though docklands here remain
the yearning for adventure
I have long learned to refrain
Transitory was that time
yet still there's vestige here
with sun-bleached memories of my youth
rekindled by the year

The harbour may have changed yet I
am still that boy at heart
and though six decades since have passed
we're scarcely now apart
Yes transitory the passing
yet somehow just the same
as every time I pass I hear
the calling of my name

©Jemverse

Photo – Shoreham Harbour from the ‘Albert Dock’, Sussex, UK – Jempics

An ‘Ubi Sunt’ is a verse form in which the poem or its stanzas begin with the Latin words “…Ubi Sunt…” (Where are…) or their equivalent in another language, and which has as a principal theme the transitory nature of things.

This Jemverse ‘Ubi Sunt’ is dedicated to Frank Hubeny and ‘Another Fearless Year’ (aka Linda Kruschker) from whom the inspiration to write it came.

Autumn the wise

In the woods I saw a curtain
hanging from a tree
Really quite significant
It said a lot to me
It spoke of changing seasons
standing side by side
when youth makes ways for wisdom
and Summer turns to hide

The red was of the Autumn
standing next to green
An older man, the next in line
as it has always been
And I smiled at that analogy
for it was so full of truth
The wisdom of the cooler months
and the warmer ones of youth

©Jemverse

Summer’s child II

The winter’s shadow now has passed
And Summer’s child is here
To warm our bodies and our hearts
And fill our eyes with cheer

Summer’s child is pure and free
Her breath is fresh and new
Her hands give life to grass and tree
Beginning summer true

Summer’s child comes once a year
To give the fields their youth
She follows winter’s furious fear
Dispels its lies with truth

Summer’s child will not stay long
Her life has one short fling
For as seasons through the years have sung
Summer’s child is Spring.

©Jemverse