Margaret G. Perkins

Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

I am now retired from a carreer in Nursing. I spent close to twenty years in Psychiatric Nursing. I love music, spending many years in choirs. I recently received my fourteeen year certificate as a volunteer counsellor for the international t.v. Program of Crossroads Christian Communications. I have been published in Newspapers, Church Magazines and the National Library of Poetry.Philosophically, my writing reflects a spiritual component. I believe there is a loving God who longs for this world to be at peace personally and corporately.So why is the world in chaos? There is an answer.

Bridges

Let us build bridges of men today
For if we should wait until tomorrow,
We may be too late.
Let us span the gaping chasms of burning hatred,
Misunderstanding and fear,
For if we wait,
The cost may be too dear.
Let us pour abutments of love, and build
On that sound structure,
Solid towers of truth.
Fling wide steel cables of freedom,
Plant firm the footpaths of understanding,
And cross in peace unto the other side.

Vacation Worship

I come to the Cathedral.
Softly cross the mossy carpet fresh and green,
And seated upon a stump, an oaken pew,
I feel the gentle touch of hand unseen
Upon my hand.
Columns of spreading pine form windows tall,
Where streaming golden sunlight warm and bright,
Casts long and slender shadows on the wall.
Feathered songsters decked in colors rare,
With glorious hymns and anthems fill the air.
Silently, the message still proclaims
God's endless beauty, mercy, love, and care
For all that He created.
I kneel to pray,
By alter decked with feathery fern and yellow buttercups
And for a fleeting moment,
I am one with God.

Friendship

This tortuos path through hills and valleys too,
This upward climb, a task we all must do.
How sweet can be the road, if on the way,
You have a friend,
Oftimes the footsteps falter on the way,
And clouds surround to dim the light of day,
But courage steels the heart, when you can know
You have a friend.
True friends are rare, as rare as precious jewels,
To scoff at friendship is a trait of fools,
You know great depths of love and kinship, when
You have a friend.
A friend is loyalty, accepts you as you are,
A friend is constancy, and never very far.
When foes assail, you have a champion, when
You have a friend.
Of all God's precious gifts, I think by far,
The greatest one of all-the shining star,
This wondrous gift of love, what joy to say
''I have a friend!''