Sample

COLLECTION ONE

PAGES OF LIFE

L. E. SHAFFER

Canto 20

"Eyes Ablaze"
October 3, 1988

Wondering eyes ablaze
A twinkling cast blue
Face young and beaming
Laughter of youth

Sounds so amazing
This creature
Darting here
Playing there

Starry eyes
Gazing eternal
Time so still
Laughter raining

The countenance
Affecting all
So small
The smile spreads

How can love help us
Overcoming restlessness
Viewing playfulness
Youth ever changing

Happiness eternal
In the face of a child
Forever young
The eyes on fire

"Feeling Like No One"
October 3, 1988

Waiting longing
Loneliness overwhelming
Time stands still
Feeling like no one

This feeling
Holds and tightens
Tears of no use
Longing for nothing

Eyes closed
Squeezed against
The restraints
Of being alone

Now the sands
Run slowly ashore
Wave after wave
Sparkling sadly

Once I was
Now only alone
And nothing exists
Not even I

Waiting longing
For hope no one
Knows for sure
As I become no one

"Blackly The Mood"
October 4, 1988

Blackness creaks along slowly
One mood upon another
Breathing existing
Moment by moment

Here once more
A land of moonlight
Dim but brightening
Awareness growing

We were at one time
A memory
The ember hot
But growing cold, black

Blackness surrounds
A bleak moon
Etching a steel sky
Once but long ago

Now to hold
To what was
In the Becoming
All is lost

Blackly the mood
Gone the melancholy
Only a moment
In an infinity

"Joining The Long Past"
October 10, 1988

Laughter born lightly of the wind
A tinkling sound so young
The breeze coolly flutters the curtains
Small form almost asleep

Dreams dart behind closed eyes
The sounds of children playing
Shouts dimmed by distance
Young heart quickens at the call

Nature so sublime so subtle
Falls from sunny sky
Leaves brown upon the ground
A smile hinting from nowhere

Small fingers twitching
Mind in dreaming delight
Running as the gazelle
Jumping as the impala

Laughter fades in and out
Small ones run wildly
By the window
Tender eyes flutter open

With a shout and a jump
Off into the wind
Lost among swaying trees
Joining the long past

"The Trekking"
October 12, 1988

After the long trek
A tiredness overcoming
All sense of living
Only desert thoughts remaining

Dry, cracked, a silence
Deadly, eyes dimming
A mind fogged
From the Remembrance

Wind churns the sand
Swirling pooling
Eddying in rivulets
Tugging at human form

A moan hisses with the sand
Eyes unmoving still
Deliciously nonexistent
Desert thoughts, secret

Dry thoughts slowing
The Remembering lost
Escaping from dry cracked lips
Words forming, words gone

The Trekking
Emblazoned on the mind
Burning images
Drifting from the sands of time

"Memories Steal Away"
October 24, 1988

A forlorn tune plays
Empty into the gentle wind
Breeze moving slowly
Upon hearing, upon living

A murmuring begins
And ends sadly
This feeling bringing a smile
Tugging at the heart

A tear streaks
Down the small face
A feeling morose
Risen with gentle persuasiveness

Why here why now
When memories fleeting
Steal away
As the moon hides

Quickly face upward
Towards racing clouds
Eyes squeezed shut
Hear the singing melody

From another place
Another time
Remembered well
Remembered not at all...

"Pages of Life"
November 6, 1988

A fire flickers
A sleep comes
The mood silent
Before me a book

In the dimness
A page
A beginning
Mood changing

Heart quickening
Eyes darting
Pleading
Questing

Page upon page
Life after life
The journey begun
Hope that there is no end

Here is sadness
Tears grip the soul
Here is life
By and by

Here is joy
Happiness unknown
Comes from the depths
A smile here and gone

Oh, life so cruel
Over before it begun
Don't cry after
These pages of life...

Publication date: May 1998
Author: L. E. Shaffer
Company: Shaffer Novels/Poetry Company
COPYRIGHT 1998 - 2007, 2008 L. E. Shaffer
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WORLDWIDE
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FIRST PRINTING; ELECTRONIC AND PRINT MEDIA