Talking In My Sleep

  "To make a mark upon the earth, and so immortal be!" You trumpet to the heavens when asked for what you seek.   Your name be known beyond your time, the goal for which you lust, Your voice be heard and not forgot when flesh returns to dust.   But any mark upon the earth will soon be washed away. To eternity a million years are no more than a day.   Eternal life dwells within your heart of hearts so deep, Where Man and God reside as one, your endless self to keep.   So if immortal acts are those for which you truly seek, Look no further than the one close within your reach.   Let love and simple kindness to this one be the goal. For these are acts that leave a lasting mark upon the soul.

    This essay was published in the June 15, 2018 issue of VTDigger   On many a summer evening, back in the 1960s and ‘70s, in the heart of Perry County, Pennsylvania, my family and I were serenaded by the whip-poor-will.   Its song is incessant, and haunting, with a mysterious allure that was deepened by my inability, despite many attempts, to ever lay eyes on the reclusive bird. Even when creeping through underbrush within a few feet of the caller’s lair, gloaming’s dim light and the whip-poor-will’s camouflage confounded my efforts every time.   Perry was the only Pennsylvania county so rural that it was, back then, devoid of stop light or parking meter and nature was at hand all around us. Brooding on those nights evokes another, seemingly unrelated, memory:   That of a massive number of bugs reflected in the headlights as we made nocturnal drives between our Shermansdale farm   and our home forty minutes southeast in Camp Hill.   Evidence o...

  My November Guest   My Sorrow, when she's here with me, Thinks these dark days of autumn rain Are beautiful as days can be; She loves the bare, the withered tree; She walks the sodden pasture lane.   Her pleasure will not let me stay. She talks and I am fain to list: She's glad the birds are gone away, She's glad her simple worsted gray Is silver now with clinging mist.   The desolate, deserted trees, The faded earth, the heavy sky, The beauties she so truly sees, She thinks I have no eye for these, And vexes me for reason why.   Not yesterday I learned to know The love of bare November days Before the coming of the snow, But it were vain to tell her so, And they are better for her praise.   Robert Frost   Typically, our inner voices are portrayed as querulous rival lawyers in the mind’s courtroom who argue competing interests before a “higher self” adjudicator.     Frost sets his...