(A selection of some of my favorites that I’ve written over the years.)

The Promise (also The Oath)

Upon the hill, his sweet wife weeps on this their wedding day.
The oath to King her husband keeps must take him far away.

As they embraced for one last time to his dear wife he swore,
that though the very fates be damned he’d come back safe from war.

And she to him a promise made that though the heavens burn,
waiting on this hill she’d be the day of his return.

For three long years of war, he served his noble king until,
on this, his day of homecoming he sought her on their hill.

Upon the hill, his sweet wife sleeps where she had sworn to wait,
as by her grave, her husband weeps returned from war too late.

The Leap

When at last we cannot bear
that lonely place upon the cliff,
we seek the means to cast off fear
and push the doubt from out our breast.

When neither mind nor sense consoles us,
then at last we come to faith,
and with it we must find the courage
to step up to the precipice.

Courage is an act of will
And we become its purest form.
We wrap these fears within blind hope
and cast ourselves into the storm.

As we tumble in the maelstrom
ask and you shall hear us say
“For good or ill
this I have chosen,
Come what may,
Come what may!”

A Kind of Poison

We taste these little sips of death
that numbs the soul and steal our breath.
and whisper to our anxious ear
“wait ’till a safer choice is near.“

“Not yet, not yet,” the poison sighs,
and with each dream that falls and dies
   we strive the less for life’s high reaches,
take the safer paths fear teaches,

 so when this lesson too well learned,
 so deeply in our soul is burned
 the seeds of dreams which might be known
land in our grasp and rot ungrown,

’till as life ends we can but weep “Too late! Too late!”
then dreamless sleep.

The Quest (Songs of Avalon)

There sailed a young captain who awoke from a dream
wherein he a great vision was shown
of mist-covered isle, and in dreaming he dwelt
in a glorious land, Avalon

On awaking, he wept with the longing he felt
for that mystical place he’d been shown,
and he swore that one day he’d somehow find the way
to this land of his dreams, Avalon

On warm nights he would sing to the crew of his dream
and in moonlight, his tears softly shone
as he told of a land wherein right must command
in a kingdom of light, Avalon.

Though some crewmen would laugh at their mad captain’s dream,
yet were others who’d listen and long
just to see such a place pledged to virtue and grace
as his mystical isle, Avalon.

And the captain, he swore, to be true to his dream
he’d embrace its ideals as his own
always treating his crew with those virtues he’d found
in that land from his dream, Avalon.

Over many long years, he continued his quest
every asking and then moving on
but wherever he went never word nor a hint
could he find of his fair Avalon.

As men left his crew to sail on different seas
they would tell of this captain they’d known.
And at night some would sing of their mad captain’s dream
as in moonlight their tears softly shone,
for he’d taught them that grace lived in deeds, not a place
as they’d sailed his good ship, Avalon