Missy and I we reminded of our loss as we sat and watched twins eat their lunch a Sunday or so ago. Our boys would have been just a little younger. It brought to mind this poem I wrote shortly after our hospital stay, after the birth ( at home) and passing of our twin boys, Jack and Jake.

One Blue Tear Drop

All the hope you can find

Inside yourself and passed through your mind

Over the instinct of all you knew

Falling to pieces as it comes in view

No one smiles through such a threshold

Entering this door after they've been told

An act of mercy to all passers by

Not to be cheerful , not one joyful sigh

In a place where arrival is empty armed

Expecting to leave full of those never harmed

Heartache and tears that never will stop

Exit through the door painted with a blue tear drop........

Half Hearted

This one is personal.... well they all are to some extent....

Ancient this sentiment is, but I really

like the way this one came together.

Half Hearted

To the one with half a heart

Perhaps, maybe smaller pieces

Those who've given some to all

With aching , that never decreases

Once to live with only one

convinced of no one other

Now the pain of conscience split

With two , and one another

Why to test , what was rare

A love that was so pure

Fragments now, of broken hearts

Scattered and shattered for sure

Is there a remedy , meant to heal

To quench and release this sorrow

Well, maybe hearts are meant to break

And love a gift to borrow......

VACATION

On vacation..... Low Country and Florida here we come...Woo WHOO....

She calls for me.....

These last two posts are a reflection into the world that I still call home. I grew up in Beaufort, S.C. from the age of three until I was about eleven. It was during the Vietnam War and my dad was a lifer Marine ( Siemper Fi), he is buried there. It is the fondest place I know and although it has been a lifetime since I lived there, it will always be home.

She calls for me……

She calls for me on sand she lays
From an old light house in starry gaze
Tall sailing ships with sturdy mast
Warriors shouts who's fate was cast

She calls for me from way back when
Tabby forts and rivers bend
Bare foot boys on hot sandy ground
Boyhood friends all gathered round

She calls for me from childish past
Sandy beaches and wiregrass
Blue crabs caught on a single string
Up from the bottom shiny and clean

She calls for me in my mind today
Rescues me from world gone astray
Spanish moss on ancient oak trees
She beckons me my "Low Country"

Decades, My Low Country

With the crescent moon and a single star, the clear wisp of a summer Southern breeze. My mind is taken back on a more restful journey, where a decade was the total of a little boy's lifetime. Palm trees affixed in the bend, the movement of air reminding and inspiring one to move forward. Hot sand between my toes and the sting of salt on sun soaked skin was still the least concern of one who was afforded the oceans excitement. From the "Lighthouse”, through the dunes, my friends and I raced to escape the burning sand and be the first to immerse in the other world of cool wetness. We would cone our hands to the shape of binoculars, or maybe a pirates spy-glass, hoping in pretend to catch the distant sails of a tall sailing ship once used to break the Yankee blockade on our sweet Southern home.

Then to the forest we would find ourselves, and to the edge to a river" Broad”. There we raised our guns and shot musket balls at the passing Yankee fleet of "ironclads”, safe and secure behind the walls of " tabby forts”. Battlements left by brave men, those who never considered that they would be the playgrounds for their progeny.

Oh, this was a great place to be a boy, where unfenced yards were the path to another unbridled adventure. My furry brown " Shadow" and I, both unleashed into a world just prepared for our appetites. Here a fishing pole and casting net could be the providers of a bountiful feast, or just the vehicle of which an unfettered imagination would spend the day preparing the world for it's enviable future.

Yes, there were those of a more gentle nature in my playground, and my eyes viewed the dawn of adolescence, as I considered the allurement of blond curls, blue eyes, and a bright summer dress that greeted me every Sunday from across the empty street were I lived.

Could there be a more perfect time to be, a more perfect place, where large oaks older than time and covered in Spanish moss restfully cooled me on hot humid days. What more perfect place for the delight of a young boy than the dearest land I know, my "Low Country". No more amazing world than this sandy wooded land prepared just for pleasant memories from my boyhood home and ancestral resting place. This timeless place, covering me in peacefulness, calming me in the more restless decades of life.