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Plant, above my lifeless heart
Crimson roses, red as blood.
As if the love, pent there so long
Were pouring forth its flood.

Then, through them, my heart may tell,
Its Past of Love and Grief,
And I shall feel them grow from it,
And know a vague relief.

Through rotting shroud shall feel their roots,
And unto them myself shall grow,
And when I blossom at her feet,
She, on that day, shall know!

(Poem is in the public domain) 

Anne Reeve Aldrich (1866 – 1892) was an American poet and novelist. Her works include The Rose of Flame (1889) and Other and The Feet of Love (1890) and Songs about Life, Love, and Death (published posthumously in 1892). Aldrich was born in New York City. Her father died when she was eight; her mother moved to the country, where she educated Aldrich. By the time she was a teenager, Aldrich was proficient in composition and rhetoric, was able to translate French and Latin. She wrote poetry constantly from a young age.

When love was young,
my mind was new.
All my thoughts of love,
were about you.

Now I'm an elder,
my mind will stay,
as my thoughts of love,
refuse to go away.

             Ophelia

My sister went to the Angels,
Years before I was born,
Her photo, always displayed,
Was a normal part of our home.

The pain from her early death,
Came out slowly, a bit at a time,
But not fully understood,
By the mind of a child like me.

Her photo now in my home,
Is displayed just as before,
but I still wonder why and why not,
Not understanding, and unable to ignore.

All Copyrights are reserved: Calob 2023

I see,
as you walk by,
a happy morning,
a sad goodbye

"Only a dad, but he gives his all
To smooth the way for his children small,
Doing, with courage stern and grim,
The deeds that his father did for him.
This is the line that for him I pen,
Only a dad, but the best of men"

Last Stanza from Edgard Guest's Poem "Only a Dad" See complete poem

For all the joys, you are.
For all the love you bring,
my soul burns brightly
of your virtues, I'll sing.

Church bells are ringing,
on this Sunday morn.
Sun rays starting the Dawn,
as another day is born.

You are the best.
You are the one.
You are my moon.
You are my Sun.

It was reported this week, that Rob Graham Education Center, a K-8 school in Miami-Dade County, has restricted access to the poem "The Hill We Climb" written by Amanda Gorman and recited by her at President Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, 2021; becoming the sixth and youngest poet, at age twenty-two, to deliver a poetry reading at a presidential inauguration.

The school decided to remove access to the book for elementary grade students and to only allow access to the book to Middle School students, after one parent filed a formal complaint on the grounds that the poem was “not educational” and included indirect “hate messages", Read More at NPR and The Guardian. According to the American Library Association, nearly 2,600 titles were targeted for censorship in 2022, an increase of almost 40 percent from the previous year.

“The Hill We Climb,”

When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade
We’ve braved the belly of the beast
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace
And the norms and notions
of what just is
Isn’t always just-ice
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it
Somehow we do it
Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken
but simply unfinished

We the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one
And yes we are far from polished
far from pristine
but that doesn’t mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect
We are striving to forge a union with purpose
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man

And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us
but what stands before us
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,
we must first put our differences aside
We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms
to one another
We seek harm to none and harmony for all
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew
That even as we hurt, we hoped
That even as we tired, we tried
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious
Not because we will never again know defeat
but because we will never again sow division

Scripture tells us to envision
that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
And no one shall make them afraid
If we’re to live up to our own time
Then victory won’t lie in the blade
But in all the bridges we’ve made
That is the promised glade
The hill we climb
If only we dare
It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit,
it’s the past we step into
and how we repair it

We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation
rather than share it
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy
And this effort very nearly succeeded
But while democracy can be periodically delayed
it can never be permanently defeated
In this truth
in this faith we trust
For while we have our eyes on the future
history has its eyes on us
This is the era of just redemption
We feared at its inception
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
of such a terrifying hour
but within it we found the power
to author a new chapter
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves

So while once we asked,
how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?
Now we assert
How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was
but move to what shall be
A country that is bruised but whole,
benevolent but bold,
fierce and free
We will not be turned around
or interrupted by intimidation
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation
Our blunders become their burdens
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
then love becomes our legacy
and change our children’s birthright

So let us leave behind a country
better than the one we were left with
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one
We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,
we will rise from the windswept northeast
where our forefathers first realized revolution
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,
we will rise from the sunbaked south
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover
and every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it

Blow ye wind blow,
from across the sea.
Please return my love,
back home to me.

Forget about me,
you don't need the grief,
when looking for
the old, love thief.

If I tell you tomorrow,
about the love's lost,
will you tell me stories,
no matter the cost?