By: James G. Piatt

Idols of Stone
Idols of stone, the remains of the ancient times of dinosaurs, pharaoh’s, pagan priests, kings, and tyrants, rest on tiny pebbles in a soft forest grove. They are silent during the day but speak in muted gravelly voices in the wee hours of the morn when no one can hear, they speak of the future.

As floods and fires cover their faces, they have no fear, no gloom, and no regrets. Even in the midst of the final bomb’s destruction, which will gobble up the remainder of the earth’s rusted hours, and reduce man and his structures to ashes, they will stand before the ebony piles of once-buildings, and once-cities, and bomb flattened land containing fields of molten glass and melted steel, and wait.

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Things I Love

The fragrances of beautiful roses in a garden
The scent of freshly baked apple pie on a windowsill
The beauty of a huge redwood tree in a forest
The serenity of a softly flowing brook in the woods
The melancholy chords of Mozart’s nocturnes
The soft meowing of an old stripped cat
The excited yelping of a young puppy
The laughter of an elderly couple
My wife’s beautiful and graceful smile
The silent prayers of parishioners in a church

The Ancient Concho Shell
The ancient Concho shell, beautiful briny home abandoned years ago, sits on the warm shore waiting for the outgoing tide to take it to another land where a new inhabitant can dwell in it:

Made of a strange saline magic, it will welcome a Hermit or Fiddler crab to its inner secrets and diverse vulnerabilities and they will dance in its colorful rooms.

During the intervals between its renters, it sings with a language of its own, a hollow, salty and puzzling voice that echoes happily in the froth of waves of teal and blue.

The vast ocean with its blue salty taste carries the shell on its back to new and different places, so it can temporarily provide shelter, and warmth to the sea’s homeless.

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Outdoors On An Autumn Night

The silver colored moon is full tonight, hidden secrets rebound across the ebony rims of its craters, and into my mind. The sky is overcast and a soft stillness prevails. Remote stars seem near enough to touch; clouds, heaven’s cotton candy, seem close enough to taste.

I bend to the wind rushing up the valley and notice the old road filled with grooves, and ruts is begging for smoothness. The moon’s rays paint twisted oak tree limbs lining the old road causing them to look like silver coated spider webs; the leaves glistening with youthful memories. Everything is peaceful. As I walk down the road, my anxieties disappear into the fading hours of Autumn’s brisk night.

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Summer Pages

Metaphors inside summer’s pages vanish into eternity as words escape from a poet’s pen in ebony ink using a language filled with fragrant flowers and warm loam. The passing between seasons encompasses the mysterious coming and going of hot summer breezes, cold spring winds, and icy winter storms.

Pages of heated phrases pervade the season filled with leaves fluttering in trees by the breath of summer. It is a time when lover’s hearts no longer carry the weight of the sorrow of their absence, and their souls no longer count the miseries of separation midway between the gasp of bliss and the wail of anguish. It is a time when it seems pulses strengthen and hearts throb with passion as the aurora of love solidifies after separated time.