Barbara M. Thomas

Lula, Georgia

Live in Banks County near Lula, Georgia. Am married to John William and have one son, William Blake. Retired in August, 1996 from Gainesville College as Senior Administrative Secretary and presently employed by Harben & Hartley law firm Gainesville, Georgia as a receptionist. Have had seven poems published by The National Library of Poetry and these seven poems have been recorded on NLP's THE SOUND OF POETRY. One poem placed 3rd in one of NLP's North American Open Poetry contests. Also, one poem to be published by Creative Arts and Science Enterprise placed 4th internationally. One's poetry is the window to one's soul.

Leaves Of November

How you glide over the matted, frostbitten grass
Performing the last dance
A ritual before death
An unseen choreographer guiding your every movement
The wind, your lover, picking you up
Tossing you around in the air
Whirling you about as if on some great dance floor

Sometimes you dance in groups
Thousands of you in constant motion
Moving to your lover's music in no particular direction
Other times you dance alone, gliding through the air
Touching down here and there
Waiting, hoping for your lover's touch

The costumes are beautiful shades of gold and red
Autumn's finest
With only an occasional brown
The shade of impending death

Soon you will be lifeless
Forgotten by your lover
A thing of the past, to dance no more

Silence In September

Sometimes when I laugh I feel so guilty
For a moment I've forgotten, then I remember the sounds of your laughter and my eyes mist
I haven't come to accept yet the absence of your laughter
Silence of a home has its own agony

I never knew there would be a September without you
September with its endless sadness, its loneliness

Everything reminds me of you -- the color of wild flowers,
the smell of autumn air, the sound of creek water flowing over rocks, the mournful sound of a dove--
Small things I never noticed before

Death brings such poignancy, such humility
One is left so defenseless
Before I was never aware that the mornings rays of a September sun are somehow different
They appear to have a more golden glow as they caress the leaves
Perhaps sensing a coming farewell

Time is meaningless now
Our hearts broken
Something infinitely precious was stolen away from us
Days are long
Some we don't know how we'll get through
We feel so wasted, so empty, an eternal emptiness without you