Warren A. Gasink

Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania

The fine arts-music, poetry, painting, sculpture, et cetera - develop in each of us an inner, all-pervading sense of beauty, worth, and humanness. When we find the rhythms and melodies in nature, in love, in life we discover the only unfading values. Each of us can learn to sense the beauty in viewing, hearing, and creating notes and rhythms, colors, the interrelationships of line and space in architecture, the caressing movement of sculpture, or the music and melody inherent in all language. When these subtle but oh-so-real joys become part of us we become complete and whole. Lifestyle: he has multiple sclerosis. His lifestyle changed in the last three years. He can no longer play an instrument, drive, dance, or even walk with a walker. He is now confined to a wheelchair. Yet his IBM -type computer enables him to continue to write poetry and compose songs. He praises The International Society of Poets for encouraging the writing of poetry. Biography: As an Assistant Professor of Speech Communication he taught public speaking, forensics,and communication for 26 years at East Stroudsburg University of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Upon retirement in August, 1991, the university awarded him the status of Faculty Emeritus.

MY ENEMY'S WALLS

I'm glaring at walls that stifle me.
Crushing, wounding, disabling me,
MS, so limiting my enemy
Steals my strength and my energy.

The MS walls do limit me.
Yet I can't accept, even partially,
The slightest drop in productivity.

God pierced those walls with beams of light.
His points of light illumined me.

With God's help they bolster me:
Those lights of love,
Those gleams of hope,
Those rays of God's divinity.

His perfect rays will penetrate
Those MS walls which limit me
So my MS can only win
If I surrender to infirmity.

OUR MOTHER'S FAITH

Mother lived her joy of life.
"The Book" to us she read.
Caringly she gave to us
Breath and daily bread.

When we were young
She held us close.
She spoke to us of Jesus' life.
His blood He shed for us.

Her gnarled, withered, aging hands
Wiped away our tears.
His compassionate, gentle loving hands
Cherished and protected her.

As death drew near
With Christ she spoke.
Then caringly He lifted her
Cradled in His arms.

In thankful, reverent memory
We recall her radiant face.
Her life inspires you and me.
Jesus to embrace.

OUR WASTED DEAD

Faceless, nameless, anonymous dead
Lie quiet where they fought and died.
They gave their minds and souls for us.
Then they gave their lives.

We sent to hell our warriors young
To fight and die in a war so wrong.
In searching anguished writhing deaths
They tragically lost their wasted lives.

Yet we have begun to see
In the blinding light of history
That the lives they gave for liberty
Were uselessly maddeningly wasted dead.