Time And Eternity
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school where children played
At wrestling in a ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses heads
Were toward eternity.
~Emily Dickinson
On The Wings of A Prayer
I set you free on the wings of a prayer
To fly through life in His tender care,
You’re free from the nest and the ties that are bound
Free from the pressures I carry around.
If I kept you I’d only be cutting your wings,
Not offering the chance a true family brings.
The decision I’ve made has my heart torn in two,
But I know what I’m doing is the best thing for you.
The sky is so vast, the mountains so high
Take wing and remember: I love you.
~Lisa Bote-Phillips
Legacy Of An Adopted Child
Once there were two women who never knew each other
One you do not remember, the other you call Mother
Two different lives shaped to make you one
One became your guiding star, the other became your sun
The first one gave you life, and the second taught you to live it
The first gave you a need for love, the second was there to give it
One gave you a nationality, the other gave you a name
One gave you a talent, the other gave you aim
One gave you emotions, the other calmed your fears
One saw your first sweet smile, the other dried you tears
One made an adoption plan, that was all that she could do
The other prayed for a child, and God led her straight to you.
Now, which of these two women, Are you the product of?
Both, my darling, Both, Just two different types of love.
~Author Unknown
Kisses In The Wind
I hold you in my heart and touch you in my dreams.
You are here each day with me, at least that’s how it seems.
I know you wonder where we are… what’s taking us so long.
But remember child, I love you so and God will keep you strong.
Now go outside and feel the breeze and let it touch your skin…
Because tonight, just as always, I blow you kisses in the wind.
May God hold you in His hand until I can be with you.
I promise you, my darling, I’m doing all that I can do.
Very soon, you’ll have a family for real, not just pretend.
But for tonight, just as always, I blow you kisses in the wind.
May God wrap you in His arms and hold you very tight.
And let the angels bring the kisses that I send to you each night.
~Author Unknown
Secret Lands
Let’s go back to the old days
When we searched for waterfalls
We had found the hollow caves
Where water rushed in walls
Let’s lay, to look at the stars
On the ground we wrote our names
There’s secret rooms to explore
Their doors shown to us like flames
The leaves kept us well hidden
To whisper our thoughts aloud
We’d laugh late into the night
As though we were on a cloud
Let’s go back to the old days
When we’d skip while holding hands
We’d played every single day
Searching for the secret lands
~Emily Adams
Forever Friendship Ends
I don’t know if you’ll get this
I don’t know what to say..
I don’t know how to apologize
it might come out the wrong way.
That’s a chance I’m willing to take,
in hopes you can forgive me.
I never meant for it to be like this
but that’s what I can’t make you see.
You told me the wrongs,
so I could do the right.
I liked you looking out for me,
you were sort of my “light.”
I was the one you least expected,
forever I thought I would be.
Until I saw the hurt in your eyes,
now you don’t want to forgive me.
I never thought of consequences,
right now I’d rather die.
I mean to keep my promises,
I never meant to lie.
I can’t tell you why it happened,
but right now it’s killing me.
I have to admit I deserve this,
now I’m paying the fee
The punishment of not being
the best that I could be.
I just had to push my limits,
so now you’re hating me.
When I went to say sorry,
I saw anger in your eyes.
And I left with only goodbye,
but knew I was going to cry.
I stepped foot out your door,
the feeling just overwhelmed me..
I swallowed it back down,
wondering if it was meant to be.
I should have known,
never will it be the same.
I never will be able to look at you
without my eyes full of my shame.
You will look at me knowing,
I did the worst.. I lied.
You will never trust me like before,
but only I can say I tried.
Ten years we’ve been friends,
I’ve gone and made that forever friendship end.
In shorter words I can easily say:
I’m sorry, please forgive me,
Just don’t look back on the day;
don’t look back on the moment
when you felt you couldn’t rely,
On one of your best friends…
she didn’t mean to lie.
Don’t memorize that feeling,
’cause it never will be again.
She doesn’t ask much,
She just wants you to see her as a friend.
All the sorries she could cry,
all the words she could say.
All the songs she could sing
won’t make it go away.
Here are those “some days” when everything went wrong.
She will always be here in the places friends belong.
~Emily Adams
Love Too
“The birds faded out,
The trees stopped their swaying,
The whole world hushed,
And there was only you.
You and I, eyes locked tight,
As you mouthed those words that felt so right.
Just like everything around me, I fell silent.
The courage I had before was gone,
Because I hesitated and thought about it too long.
I was shocked, and couldn’t speak.
So hating myself, not knowing what to do,
I turned my head and walked away from you.
I wish I had the words to help you understand,
Part of me thinks you do.
It all happened in a matter of seconds.
I walked away from the truth,
I hate holding my feelings from you.
Someday I won’t hide it,
And I will tell you that I love you too.”
~Samantha Adams
My Destiny & Fate
“Fate tripped and was temporarily out.
You promised me I would never lose you
And I was reaching for fire
When I recklessly believed you.
I didn’t know when I let myself love you,
I was stepping into the blade
Aimed straight for my heart.
Destiny signed me up for heatache I didn’t ask for,
And bitterly makes me go on living,
While my heart keeps bleeding,
These lies tearing it apart.
I believed that I had found
A way to alter my grievous path,
And I had things going my way,
But Fate came back & spotted me
Wandering too far from my treacherous edge.
I, forced to be friends with sorrow and grief,
Blinked and my life took the destined fall.
Destiny and Fate betrayed me again,
Maybe you should be friends with them,
Because it looks like you did too.”
~Samantha Adams
The Raven
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;–vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow–sorrow for the lost Lenore
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore
Nameless here for evermore.
And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me–filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
“‘Tis some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door
Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door;
This it is and nothing more.”
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you”–here I opened wide the door
Darkness there and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”
Merely this and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my sour within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping something louder than before.
“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is and this mystery explore
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;
‘Tis the wind and nothing more.
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he,
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then the ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning–little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as “Nevermore.”
But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if its soul in that one word he did outpour
Nothing farther then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered
Till I scarcely more than muttered: “Other friends have flown before
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”
Then the bird said “Nevermore.”
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of ‘Never–nevermore.'”
But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er
She shall press, ah, nevermore!
Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee–by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite–respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!–prophet still, if bird or devil!
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted
On this home by Horror haunted–tell me truly, I implore
Is there–is there balm in Gilead?–tell me–tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!–prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us–by that God we both adore
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
“Be that our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting
“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul has spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!–quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadows on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted–nevermore!
~Edgar Allen Poe
Fairy Land
Dim vales and shadowy floods
And cloudy looking woods,
Whose forms we can’t discover
For the tears that drip all over
Huge moons there wax and wane
Again, again, again
Every moment of the night
Forever changing places
And they put out the star-light
With the breath from their pale faces.
About twelve by the moon-dial
One more filmy than the rest
(A kind which, upon trial,
They have found to be the best)
Comes down still down and down
With its centre on the crown
Of a mountain’s eminence,
While its wide circumference
In easy drapery falls
Over hamlets, over halls,
Wherever they may be
O’er the strange woods o’er the sea
Over spirits on the wing
Over every drowsy thing
And buries them up quite
In a labyrinth of light
And then, how deep! O, deep!
Is the passion of their sleep.
In the morning they arise,
And their moony covering
Is soaring in the skies,
With the tempests as they toss,
Like almost anything
Or a yellow Albatross.
They use that moon no more
For the same end as before
Videlicet a tent
Which I think extravagant:
Its atomies, however,
Into a shower dissever,
Of which those butterflies,
Of Earth, who seek the skies,
And so come down again
(Never-contented thing!)
Have brought a specimen
Upon their quivering wings.
~Edgar Allen Poe 1831