One of my favorite Easter traditions is the Easter egg Hunt.

Starting here http://www.blogger.com/publish-comment.do?blogID=10285770&postID=110695288856713801&r=ok

Two Links Unrelated to my "Poetry"

Here’s an essay by Neil Gaiman on C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkein, and G.K. Chesterton. I don’t like Gaiman’s books but this essay is good. The link is here. Also here is Peter T. Chattaway’s article on Narnia and Paganism.

Poem #3 (An Old Tavern)

Spring rainfall dripping
Through the tin roof
In a dirty corner sits a
Dwarf quiet and aloof
There’s a mithril shirt he’d like
To sell for a drink
An elf begs for quiet minute before
He buys so he can think
A fairy ignores the loser gnome
Sitting at her Elbow
The elf can now buy the mithril shirt
By selling His bow
The hobbit, who owns the pub,
Polishes some Old crowns
That a passing wizard gave for a night
And now just fell down
The barkeep polishes his copper and brass
While humming an old tune
The fairy snaps saying, she’s no whore
And leaves looking for the moon.
The moon hidden in widower’s
Black and unable to see
Any affection in the Sun, or joy on
The green Earth or blue sea
An old man full and emptied of life
Is too tired not Too cry
An old man a gallery of memories,
Slowly peers through them with his wistful eyes.

Part Five of Five (Winter)

Part IV: Winter
Stalls decked with toys
And the snowfalls,
Snowy tinsel on the trees,
And snow stored in its great banks
Brown snow mud muck that’s slush
Churned by the crowded buses
We arrive in our village
In daytime darkness
(It’s only 4 o’clock)
Oh! How those village dogs bark
As we slip towards the bakery
Then from the bakery to Home,
And we only had pale streetlights to guide
Our way
But I think we would’ve known anyway.
St. Nick leaves chocolate by my boots
And Christ Day is close
With stockings of oranges and books
A day of stories greater than storms
And better than coats
Then five days away
Is my birthday;
The eve of an eve of a new year,
A brand new Chinese calendar on my wall
And a picture
Of Istanbul
Where Athens
And Jerusalem meet,
Socrates and Paul debate in
The streets
And Myths come true
The old regime is overthrown
And the infant democracy is
Wrapped fondly in velvet
She lights the fireworks
With her rosy fingers blazing the sky
With the rocket’s red glare, and
Bulbs of twirling flame,
And flowery fire
Droop onto melting snow
And igniting rumors of
Spring

Part Four of Five (Autumn)

Part III: Autumn
Three maiden sisters age in Europe
Gracefully, in peace
Life has shown
Great green stalks
And Oaks
And Aspens
In their green power and life
But now it is fall.
Too long ago I
Fell away from them
And I stare out of my
Window in Tennessee
Home even after (so long)
My parents ride to heaven.
I stare at barrows of kings
Made of leaves
In tints of bronze, gold, and
(Dung);
And I know I raked them all
I amassed this treasury
As my head is crowned with silver
But still, somehow
I remember Europe,
I remember its glory
And of all that is past;
Memories of candle lit graves
Doused by tears of the Madonnas
Made of grace and concrete
The wind disheveling Reason’s hair
Leaving Love bare.
It was Fall,
Yet still I stand,
Even as Fascist parades march by
As if in ordinary routine
Then as the echoes of their marching boots fade away
In silence I am again left alone
And standing surprised.
Now I chew on what Grace has left over
Swallowing daily Life,
Then I look outside
To see snowfall
And I know winter is here