Faery Harper

Azusa, California

In Montana, a long ago English teacher, who read us poetry to keep us quiet, enlightened me to the pleasures of English literature. I was twelve, and had been writing things, but when at seventeen, I discovered an old abandoned book of poetry, I was forever altered. I was stunned into my discovery. Now in California, I have written hundreds of poems; but seldom offer them for publishing. I worked as a Nurses Aid; and have enriched my education by taking college courses and doing much research. Am presently working on a novel. My philosophy: Be good to one another.

That We Might Know

That we might know, how are the dead;
Whether their state be happy or no;
My lost sire, I loved him so;
That I to him, might this have said.

It isn't enough in mood to fall,
Into those days, think what was ours;
For, weak and limited are those powers
To summon him again, and to recall

The gentle, and the still-adored.
O, limited, are the ways of man!
What mind, though gifted, can again,
Or ever has, this loss, restored?

I war with fancy; for it brings
Me to the brink of those last days,
And it but anguish, thought, repays,
And flees away on lightest wings.

Yet, come to me, who am laid low,
And say or whisper, and me, tell,
Loved and mourned, that all is well,
And I can peacefully let you go.

The Holidays

The holidays are freighted, still
With thoughts of others days, long past;
It is the same, yet, not like last,
Nor any day since he fell ill.

Something elusive, in vain, restored;
Strange, how one absence, makes the change;
For never can man here, rearrange,
With stranger, at the festal-board;

Ah, no! We sing the carols, old,
And speak of the Savoir that we love;
Times are unchanged; this we shall prove,
The day is Christmas, and not cold;

And whispers under smile and jest--
The times are strange, we are grown wise;
The Child has grown like us in size;
The adult holiday is best.