Setting Sail (For the OSU Seniors of 2011)

Now begins a time of change,
when old friends cruise with tattered mains,
their sails blown full with newfound dreams.

On some foreign coast they set their gaze
while we reminisce of the grandeur of our yesterdays
when kindred spirits and wry looks set hearts ablaze.

Emotions circle like gulls in the wind
and alight on the mast of beginnings and ends.
With sea breeze and freedom they now contend.

We wish them well with a pat on the back
and words of virtue to keep them on track
while hiding our faces when the tears do wrack.

They point their vessels to the rising sun
and feel the rays of a journey new-begun.

We see them vanish before our very eyes
and pray to God that true friendship never dies.

Ode to the Shotgun

I would rather have a shotgun than a car, home or steady career. In the well-crafted shotgun is the spirit of adventure, the soul of nostalgia and the dream of wilderness. A shotgun justifies the worn boot-leather of a wayward traveler. A shotgun provides a brace of game to both the pampered nobleman and the famished vagabond. A shotgun is the only worthy rival to the dog as utmost friend of man. The broken double-gun bespeaks the raw character of the olden sportsman for whom the beckoning fields are not an escape, but home itself. When the trigger is broken and the charge is sent to greet fur or feather the heart beats with a vigor rarely witnessed. A shotgun is the nobler firearm simply because its nature is that of fluidity and grace. As the cock flies in the copper-burnished sunset so the tempered barrels swing to it with equitable beauty. Even the residual trinkets of a sporting encounter are romantic. Those red hulls topped with gleaming brass release the fragrant curls of nitro—their pungency is the greater peer of bergamot. Hands that have not cradled the form of a fine shotgun have no more claim that those that have not touched smitten lass. Neither person should be entitled to the designation of “man”. Such is the understated merit of the shotgun!

On the Interview's Eve

Thinking on tomorrow
A host of possible outcomes
They settle not on my mind,
But amidst the hara

Deep breaths expel
the negative remnants of the lesser me
Like November leaves they fly,
And the clarity of fall fills my soul

One good suit in the back of my closet
hides like the doe in the oaken grove
I drape it over and imagine buckskin—
A cloak of confidence in a threatening world

An overpriced tie, all stripes and paisleys
The salesman said it was for “power”
I’m not naïve to believe all that is implied
God and I will make my own destiny

A rust bucket of a truck,
sails over the glassy sea of tarmac
I wonder if it will start
when I am to make my victorious return.

What does it matter after all
whether or not I am to succeed?
I would disappear into the shadows
of a world not confronted by the burden of achievement

Is a measure of devaluing currency
worth a lifetime of treading concrete?
Loam between bare toes appeals to
the untamed and unwashed self

When I speak to the interviewer
with words intended to persuade
I wonder if it is not society
who has in the end beguiled me?

Nomad's Spring

Fine sand deepens
As a foot crosses here
Shallow water speaks
A gobble echoes afar
Dogwoods dance at April’s bid