Poem: Horizons

 

I would give all I have for a place to be
Where boundless horizons reach out to the sea --
Like the castles of war gods the mountains rise,
Crowned with ramparts of ice 'neath tumultuous skies.
I'd trade easy comforts; I'd trade youth and looks
For a warm, dry cabin, a trunk of books,
And the health and strength to be mates with the Vast
Till the winds and the stars call me home at last.

The Door into the Earth

 

After the rain, the old creek bed sparkled like a shallow stream. She followed it until the trees were almost too thick -- and there, in the last place she'd have thought to look for it, was a doorway. A doorway leading into the earth. She crept closer, thinking it looked a thousand years old, yet there on the threshold sat a black cat, with great golden eyes watching her intently, as if she were an intruder. Perhaps no one passed this way anymore. Perhaps, she thought, someone lived here.

Poem: When I am old as old can be

 

When I am old as old can be

And every year has passed me by,

I hope to sit beneath my tree,

This oak I grew; how times does fly!

            Once, it was young and I was young…

            But it will thrive long after me:

            When I am turned to earth beneath

            The roots it wove, and all you’ll see

Will be fresh blooms, the brighter grown

For growing there, where once I lay;

And high above my tree will stretch

Its branches to another day ―

            But long before I take my rest

            I hope to sit where shade falls deep.

            I’ll knit, read, sing, till memory

            Has ushered me to gentle sleep.

Jen Downes Writes ... in fact, she's been writing for some time!

 A new blog ... but not quite a blog. To me, a blog is a kind of journal, in which you should write regularly, or at least often. The trouble with that proposition is, it soon becomes a chore. I've been running three or four blogs over the years -- travel, art, personal -- and somehow it's too difficult to maintain a commitment to them. So, a new idea.

This isn't an old-fashioned blog; it uses the Blogger platform and template system, because that's what I know best, but in fact this is an anthology of miscellany. Stories, poems, art, anthologized where it can be found and enjoyed -- by me, if nothing else. The stories that have been published long ago and then forgotten can find a second life here, along with all the poems and "drabbles" I write for the fun of it, which don't get shared, and read. 

This will be a place for me to keep track of myself as the years pass by ... and my goodness, how they pass by! And since we're starting at Halloween, why not start with a Halloween story? That sounds like a plan, so here we go.