Just in case

Was it a dream?

I wake up to your smiling face,
A cup of coffee and a warm embrace,
Kiss me quick, just in case...
Just in case it's a dream...
Just in case – it’s a dream.

Julian Luckham

Stratford

It's not about where you are,
but who you are with!

I, but for you, would find
a spot such as this divine.
For me, this scene save you,
could never really be mine.

Oh, when you were here,
and on this stage stood near.
True, a scene thus played
would only draw a tear.

Yet should this scene,
but differently be played?
Oh but then, could not
those tears, of joy be made?

Such a play we could write,
and all upon this page.
Come now, to this place,
and with me take the stage!

Julian Luckham

Now and Always

I will always... remember your smile.

I see the smile upon your face...
Those eyes that make my heart race
Now and always

I miss you day and night...
I wish I could be with you tonight
Now and always

To touch you and to hold you...
To tell you that I love you
To make a dream come true
I only want to be with you
Now and always
Now and always

Julian Luckham

You

You are a person of unknown reasons,
Reacting with movements and noises.
You may be bold, wear glasses, or have freckles,
Yet inside you there may be great feelings
Of beauty and love, fighting to appear
On the pimpled surface.
It reaches out – “I love you.”
A laugh, a jeer.
The feelings are trapped and you,
You – disappear.

Catherine Bush (aged 12-13, 1970-71)

You Reading This, Be Ready

I hope you’re reading this

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How the sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers,
what softened sound from outside fills the air?
Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry wherever you go right now?

Are you waiting for time
to show you some better thoughts?
When you turn around, starting here,
lift this new glimpse you have found;
carry into evening all that you want from this day.

This interval you spent reading or hearing this,
keep it for life - What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right now in this room, when you turn around?

William Stafford (1914-1993)

Return to the Words index

This is the Spot

This is the spot: — how mildly does the sun
Shine between the fading leaves! the air
In the habitual silence of this wood
Is more than silent; and this bed of heath —
Where shall we find so sweet a resting-place?
Come, let me see thee sink into a dream
Of quiet thoughts, protracted till thine eye
Be calm as water when the winds are gone
And no one can tell whither. My sweet Friend,
We two have had such happy hours together
That my heart melts in me to think of it.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

When You are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes once had, and of the shadows deep.

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

Among the Multitude

AMONG the men and women, the multitude,
I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs,
Acknowledging none else — not parent, wife, husband,
brother, child, any nearer than I am;
Some are baffled — But that one is not — that one knows me.

Ah, lover and perfect equal!
I meant that you should discover me so, by my faint indirections;
And I, when I meet you, mean to discover you by the like in you.

Walt Whitman (1819–1892)

Oatmeal

It's hard not to think of you
as I stand at the stove stirring oatmeal
looking out over the lake.
The morning sun touches the water
rippled by the warm breeze.
My sons' voices drift to me,
earnest conversation as they do last night's
supper dishes at the picnic table
under the cedars.

Finally learned how to make your own oatmeal,
after countless mornings of waiting
for me to do it.
And I did.
Hard to understand why a man
who can make a multi-million dollar deal
can't read those four lines of instructions
on the oatmeal bag.

Sometimes
when the breeze blows hot
and I float
dozing on the air mattress
drifting across the bay
I catch the sound of your laughter
booming out across the water
mixed with the shouts and battle cries of the boys,
all of you in a deadly water fight.
And I raise my head to catch the sound...
and it's gone
like a ghost shimmering in the heat waves off the sand.

And the tightness in the centre of my body
aches like I have been kicked
and lost my breath
and may never get it back.
But there is nothing to be done
so I move my head
over the edge of the mattress
to float in the crystal, cold water.
My hair
a bronze mass of tendrils
drifts around me
and I let the hot tears
stream from the corners of my eyes
into the lake's icy depths
without a sound.

I want to make oatmeal one morning
and not ache in the centre of my body.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer © 1995