Sarah

In shadow views of battle yet to be

I see the Darkest Angel and I fear

that I must now accept what I foresee

the day I’ll draw my final breath is near.

Oh Sarah, how I want to see you face;

to touch once more the softness of your skin.

Though fate is sealed and destiny in place,

I long to hear your gentle voice again.

If it is true that spirits conquer death,

then I shall yet return to you somehow.

The wind that cools your skin shall be my breath;

my tears the gentle raindrops on your brow.

I pray you, Sarah, do not mourn me dead …

think I am gone to wait for you instead.

~ 2000 Dean Neighbors ~

Sullivan A Ballou was a proud son of Rhode Island, a lawyer and Speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives. After Fort Sumter was bombarded he quickly answered President Lincoln’s call for volunteers and was commissioned Major in the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry. The unit marched to Washington DC and made ready to defend the city.

On July 14th 1861, Major Ballou wrote a letter to his wife Sarah

You can read the letter here: https://www.reddit.com/r/CIVILWAR/comments/vz9ec3/july_14_1861_major_sullivan_ballou_pens_a_final/?rdt=60250

Note, copy and paste into your browser. The letter inspired the poe

Autumn

Autumn

The Autumn apple, crisp and tart or spicy, crusty, warm in pies, to please the senses, touch the heart, the nose, the tongue, the hungry eyes.  ~Dean Neighbors~

~Inspired by watching my sister, Jean Westfall, make an apple pie. Photo of BOTH my sisters making pies together. Left to right, Carol Eggert and Jean Westfall

Recall

Recall

The memories that long endure gain worth in special ways, some are sharp and some obscure or lost in timeless haze. The images of brothers lost, the sadness and the tears, are funds accrued to pay a cost that's decades in arrears. So share your tales of distant youth, exotic Asian lands, when fate was held by older truths and hearts in younger hands. Recall the storms, recall the rain, remember every brother. As you recall a faded name then I'll recall another. ~ Dean Neighbors ~

This poem is for my Naval Communication  Station Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, brothers. 1969-1970

It Follows

It Follows

My eyes roam skyward sailing East  and, though each moment seems a moon,  when senses, on such beauty, feast  the night will pass away too soon.  My soul is drawn, when sailing west,  to more than one can safe absorb.  I am, by heaven's grace, possessed,  enraptured by an ancient orb.  It follows that a moonlit sky  will call your image to my mind.  No matter where my roving eye,  no matter where you are, I find  a glow that distance can't eclipse, I feel your love, if not your lips. ~ Dean Neighbors ~

Etchings

Etchings

What was it lured the babies off to war, the adolescent wonder fools, at best, who’d yet to learn the focsle from the floor and couldn't tell the study from the test? The military called us to a man except the privileged few held in reserve, whose fathers knew the secrets of the plan, and college students graded on the curve. Opposed were led directly to the blame, The dead were on the news before us all. Survivors had to live or die with shame for not becoming etchings on the wall. ~ Dean Neighbors ~

*A note: for “landlubbers”  Forecastle = fo'c·'sle /ˈfōksəl/ noun  the forward part of a ship below the deck, traditionally used as the crew's living quarters. .`

I Think

I think you had me from hello,

I loved your eyes, I loved your voice.

You stole my heart, you stole the show...

and I shall, evermore, rejoice.

And then you blessed me with a child

and then again, a girl… a boy…

You calmed the waters, tamed the wild,

and filled my life with simple joy.

I think you see me with your heart,

you look, somehow, beyond the gray.

A handsome prince should look the part,

but, still, you love me anyway.

I think I’ll keep you till the end…

through all life’s wonders, through the rain...

and then, my love, my dearest friend….

I think I’d do it all again.

Sarah

In shadow views of battle yet to be the final stranger beckons me. I fear that I must now accept what I forsee; the moment of my death is drawing near. Oh sarah, how I want to see your face; to touch, once more, the softness of your skin. Though fate is sealed and destiny in place, I long to hear your gentle voice again. If it is true that spriits conquer death then I will yet return to you somehow. The winds that cool your skin shall be my breath; my tears the gentle raindrops on your brow. I pray you, Sarah, do no mourn me dead... think I am gone to wait for you instead.

Sarah

In shadow views of battle yet to be
the final stranger beckons me. I fear
that I must now accept what I forsee;
the moment of my death is drawing near.

Oh sarah, how I want to see your face;
to touch, once more, the softness of your skin.
Though fate is sealed and destiny in place,
I long to hear your gentle voice again.

If it is true that spriits conquer death
then I will yet return to you somehow.
The winds that cool your skin shall be my breath;
my tears the gentle raindrops on your brow.

I pray you, Sarah, do no mourn me dead...
think I am gone to wait for you instead.

Beauty in the Beast

She might have seen the beauty in the beast
who prayed for her affecton for so long.
She might have heard his pretty words, at least,
if only he had written them in song.

There lived a silent poet underneath
the muted suit of armor that he wore,
but only at its death did love bequeath
the nerve to write what wasn 't said before.

A never-written sonnet is a waste.
To hold the tongue of love is near a sin.
The sweetest words acquire the vilest taste
when seasoned with a love that might have been.

His poetry, his eloquence and light
is wasted on the cold and lonely night.

Eternally

I'm haunted by a temptress;
my own true love; the sea.
My dark and stormy mistress
forever calls to me.

I often walk the empty beach
throughout the midnight hours
to hear my lover's mounful call;
to feel her awesome powers.

I'm harbor bound; I'll stay the course...
from this I must not sway.
My life, my love is needed here;
I'm duty bound to stay.

Oh, cradle of all Earthly life;
great mother of the sea,
cast of the lines that moor my heart
and let my soul sail free.

In time I shall return to you,
my final love, the deep...
I'll pull your waters over me
eternally to sleep.

Epitaph

The poems form a universe
within the writer's mind;
totality in metered verse;
infinity defined.

The poet gives his soul away
in portions he decides
with thoughts that ebb and flow to play
emotions like the tides.

He writes of love and other things
he may have found in me;
of broken hearts and Angel's wings
I've lost and found at sea...

of parenthood and common sense;
of brothers on a wall...
revisiting their innocence
and other ports of call...

An honest bard, he re-ignites
the glaring torch of truth...
with wells of bitter ink he writes
the epitaph of youth.

Axle

Time is many wheels revolving slowly
along a central spine;
an axle. Is it accident or holy
this universal line?

The stars exist in circles never-ending,
arrayed in common space.
The paradox? The view of time depending
upon the viewers pace.

The Earth and her companion form an axis;
an ordinary wheel.
Man, and this is where the parallax is,
has pride enough to feel...

that time and space revolve around his need;
the need to understand.
And, strangely, time now seems to be, indeed,
unfolding as if planned.

On Easter

Enchanted by an island princess fair,
we sailed to Easter riding winds of light
and, soft, before the the people were aware,
removed her to our dark abyss of night.

Thereafter, from a time that's out of mind,
a sentry stands in place upon the shore
as drawn by Rapa Nui rendered blind
to life but for the sacred task they bore.

His stony face forever to the sea;
his charge to stand until we have released her
as bid by the forgotten race to be;
eternal shall he look away from Easter...

to leagues and leagues away and yet beyond
with all his stony brethern of the bond.

Star Sailors

I've looked into the future, looked
as far as dreams can see
at unimagined wonders and
the magic that will be.

The stars alive with sailing ships
the clippers of the skies...
all captained by cephalopods
with deep vermilion eyes.

They navigate the galaxies
and fly the steller winds
from Canopus to Betelguese
to where the matter ends...

They utilize another math
and octants made of ice
for human sums and instruments,
of course, will not suffice

to chase the moons and comet tails
to ports of call unknown;
to worlds inside a universe
where light has never shone.

Tugs

I wrote a manifest, a boatswain's list;
a log of all the promises I've made
to no one but myself; I raise a fist
defiantly to life. But I'm afraid
of weighing anchor; getting underway;
of challenging Poseidon under sail;
of running with a squall at break of day
while praying that the rudder doesn't fail.

Yet I will use the navigator's art
to plot a course through islands of despair
and I will trust the compass of my heart
to choose a heading caution wouldn't dare.

The promise of adventure yet to be...
will tug the weary Sailor out to sea.

Knights of the Breakfast Table

Said the knight to the dragon, "I'll lop off your head
and, foregoing breakfast, eat dragon instead."
Said the dragon, "You dreamer, you haven't a clue
I've hardly been trying, I'm toying with you."

And the battle resumed with sword and with flame;
the combatants concerned more with fortune and fame
than with dodging the heat or avoiding a thrust...
these equals in battle, their skills did they trust.

With a sword made of poems, a shield made of hope
here's a modern day dreamer so far out of scope
as to wish himself thither, to there he'd be willed...
to win a fair maid when the dragon he's killed.

"Don't meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunch and taste good with ketchup!"

Rivers of Time

Dinosuars waiting for stone to erode,
their skeletons covered, uncovered again;
iron that's forgotten the blood where it flowed
and phosphorous leached from a primitive brain.

Delicate sabers of soft-stepping cats
enshrouded in shimmering oceans of sand;
strata of relative sediment that's
concealing the bones of the earliest man.

Visible traces of numerous beasts;
the sum of Earth's creatures forever enshrined.
Signs of their passing won't slow in the least
the rivers and runnels of ongoing time.

"We loved the earth, but could not stay" ~ Loren Eiseley~

Upside

Upside downer, little one..
squirmy wiggle lots of fun.

Crawling, standing walking soon...
eyes that can outshine the moon.

Kisses magnet, hug collector....
tiny concentration wrecker.

Papa's Angel, happy grin...
wrapped tight around my heart again.

Echoes From a Silent Heart

Memories of memories
          imperfect and surreal;
copies made of copies of
          a loss that others feel.

Photographs and traces of
          the one who was my world;
black and white reminders of
          a pretty little girl.

Questions ask me questions
           but answers don't reply;
the echoes from a silent heart
           can never tell me why.

The gray and faded images;
            the mother she became;
what do we have in common then
            beyond our common name?

A tattered family bible holds
            a note penned by her hand;
pieces of another's past
            I'll never understand.

And if I ask the questions
            will answers that I find
restore the faded image in
            the bottom of my mind?

Memories of memories
             imperfect and surreal;
copies made of copies of
             the pain I'll always feel.

Dateline

The Scholars made a circle out of time,

divided it in pieces like a pie.

Assigned to it a rhythm (not a rhyme)

and threw it, like a net, around the sky.

But Earth does not a perfect circle make.

Imaginary lines do not lie true

so pieces of our lives we must forsake

to hold it all together as we do.

For time will push against a Sailor's bow

when heading from tomorrow on his way...

and when he sails the other way, somehow,

it steals from him a piece of his today.

All things being equinox

Magical balance in equinox lives,

if spring or the ending of summer.

Autumnal or vernal the feeling it gives

is antipathetic of bummer.

I’m hating the solstices, bulging at ends,

unequal in daylight and lack of.

I’m loving the spring and the cool autumn winds

that summer just hasn’t the knack of.

Rhythm, circadian, charges in pools

of equally lengthy partitions.

The solsticey seasons appeal to those fools

encumbered by blind inhibitions.

Autmnal and vernal and solstices; props

and sets of the solar position.

To let us know when to be plantin our crops

and tell us when we should go fishin.

A Musing

The bards desire, a whiter shade of muse,
requires that deep depression be attained.
A genuinely somber tone, the blues,
must permeate the soul and be retained.
 
You're better off a human being sad
as lack of hope intensifies the senses.  
The muse will be obscure when one is glad...
embrace your pain. Oh poet, build no fences!  

A weary writer soon divines the well
and draws his muse from willful deprivation
of sleep that he may conjure bliss or Hell;
exhaustion is a path to inspiration.


Exhaustion's good, depression's better still...
if you can manage both you're almost Will.

Of Bob and Little Bob

A little Angel, hands o­n hips, sings, loud and clear, the “sunshine” song, and when the song has left her lips she wonders how I sang along. “My ‘little Bob without a curl’ my Mother sang that song. I knew another Bob, another girl, another Angel much like you.” She doesn’t know “the rugged cross”; your other song, (she’s o­nly three). She doesn’t know she soothes my loss with timeless magic; memories… of mother singing to her boy, of Bob and little Bob… and joy.

Well

I’m crazy for other reasons
but I so love a storm
from here inside a comfort zone
with coffee, safe and warm.

And I believe in kiss for kiss
instead of tit for tat;
that dreams are love’s reality;
can you imagine that?

That words are tools of verity;
that verse extends our scope;
the heart’s a harbor built for love;
the soul, a well of hope.

The Flow of Time

The flow of time is always cruel…

Like wintertime molasses

I'm older now and such a fool…

I don’t know where my ass is.

(okay...its stilly....I don't care)...lol..... it is a "draft"....which means it can look silly while I continue to work on it until it either makes sense...or I quietly delete it.

Tapestry

In tribute to the grace of loving long
I offer this to you in threads of rhyme –
A layered quilt of life, a silk sarong,
our tapestry – eternal, spun from time.

The narrow, cobbled, stony street we saw
where players danced and sang in days of yore
has yet to touch this lovers feet. In awe
I realize that now I love you more.

A piece of steel upon a knap of flint
can strike a spark that will, with luck, ignite;
we came together as if heaven meant
to purge for good the dark abyss of night.

A conscious thought, a choice, or cupid’s call--
you are my only love-- you are my all.

Summers end

The clouds, in fury, gather and the wind begins to blow
the summer from the land, but summer doesn’t want to go.

An angry shout of thunder follows each new flash of pain.
The weary earth is set upon by multitudes of rain.

The nights of autumn fall on the retreating summer sun,
and mists above the morning tell the world that Fall has won.

South of Clarity

"A constantly revolving parallax,"

perhaps describes the nature of my brain,

Unpolished, precious stone with tiny cracks,

where logic begs emotion to refrain

from taking over processes of thought;

where feelings beg of logic, "take a chance",

In both directions all of this for naught,

which serves to fuel insanity’s advance.

I've given all the time I care to give

to finding what my friends would call "a cure",

and frankly it is comforting to live

within the northern border of obscure.

The beauty lies in that the beauty lies…

in vain they search the babble for the wise.

The beauty lies in that the beauty lies

in places never pierced by crystal eyes.

The beauty lies in that the beauty lies

in murkiness that never clarifies.

(pick your favorite ending ....I can't decide.)

© Copyright 2005 Wayne D. Neighbors

When

When all our anger’s overturned
and innocents are free at last
from bloody sword and hellish burn,
when war’s a relic of the past,

when Man’s uncertain enmity
presents, in breach, from evil’s womb
and love becomes our legacy
as Mars is sealed in Satan’s tomb,

a marble, gilded monument,
inscription etched with golden rhyme,
will sing the dirge; the grim lament
to chronicle, to rue the time ...

when eyes beheld what souls abhor;
when children slept in arms of war.

When Rhyme has passed

---

I think I’ll think outside the bag
and write between the verses.
I’ll stiff them when they call for sag
and act while they rehearses.

I know I’ll live outside the land
of rules and lengthy speeches.
I’ll, finding rhythm, tune my hand
when free is what they preaches.

I’m anti-poet, since you asked,
inside the lines I’ll not.
And chances are, when rhyme has passed,
my verse they’ll long forgot.

Edited by: thewebsailor at: 1/15/04 11:56 pm

Watermarks

Watermarks

---

this is what happens to me when I am having trouble coming up with things to write about...... I get all crazy and turn out stuff like this...



So blocked you are again a fool,
personifying down.
A graduate of nothing school;
a makeup without clown.

So write what down inside you lives,
though hard it is to do.
Write verses your behind you gives;
a little past of you.

If share you do your broken dreams,
a healing you will know.
Much better pain not hidden seems;
be not afraid to show.

Release emotions from your head,
like pistons from a steam.
Escape they will if held instead,
like poets from a scream.

Write backwards if it calms the rage;
face gallantry with fears.
The watermarks upon this page,
they be the poet's tears.

Versions

Sections of life from the version du jour

in verses to hold all the pieces

fragments of me from the cutting room floor

the ego/producer releases

to public inspectors, interpretive fools

who read what emotions surround

attempting to fix me without any tools

by wiring my hot side to ground.

A cloth of intentions they’ve woven from thread

that’s spun from my lines or between.

They’d save me from living or ending up dead

or something they haven’t foreseen.

Unfinished

It's not exactly therapy I guess
although these words, I find,
are more than just the way that I express
the storms within my mind.

The poems are a lifetime set to rhyme;
the scripting of a role;
a simple heart attempting to define
a complicated soul.

The poetry is meant to shout above...
more often, though, it sighs
in sweetly whispered welcomes to a love
or bittersweet goodbyes.

The verses sail the seas of age and youth...
they wander where they will.
The poems wrote the poet and, in truth,
they're working on him still.

Thirty Four

The first ship I served aboard in the U.S. Navy was an Essex class aircraft carrier (USS Oriskany). We (the ex crewmen) tried to save her as a museum...not enough money..She narrowly avoided the scrap heap several times.

But, after a long and valiant battle to stay alive, she was to have an ending fitting to the american naval hero that she is. A burial at sea.....She was sunk as an artificial reef...with an appropriate monument nearby etc.... the final deployment of Ex-USS Oriskany CV/CVA-34 was completed on May 17th 2006. Despite early concerns that she had landed on her starboard side, she was found to be sitting perfectly upright in 212' of water, with the flight deck around 135', and the top of the structure at 69' in the Gulf of Mexico, 22.5 miles offshore from the Naval Air Station at Pensacola, FL, Coordinates - N30:02.542 W87:00.374

For more see the MBT (Maximum bottom time) divers website at mbtdiversers.com/

34

A call has come we can’t ignore;
the bells of glory chime…
to gather o­n a distant shore
a crew from out of time.

We come to grieve the many dead;
the shipmates lost back then...
and as we hear the tributes read
our thoughts return again…

to ports of call in foreign lands
a distant, brighter day;a
when life was held in younger hands,
ashore and underway.

We listen to the bugles call
and wipe away the tears,
as names and faces, we recall,
across the many years.

And as the circle draws an end,
forgive the tears we weep
to see our gray and weathered friend,
committed to the deep.

~ © 2005 By: W.D. Neighbors ~

"I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast for I intend to go In Harm’s Way."

John Paul Jones to M. de Chaumont on 16 November 1778.

Yestertimes

"Yestertimes”; a magic word she coined because she's four
she uses to refer us to, generically, "before".
"Pretend we are outside, she says, "and 'tend it's raining, ‘kay?"
Articulated joy in her unique and special way.

"Show me mad," I say to her, to make her strike a pose.
I aim and snap a picture as her little spirit glows.
"Woe is me" another pose, a hand across her brow…
I take a second picture through the love and tears, somehow.

The years will soon adjust her look, increasing age and size;
she'll add a curl and curve or two to compliment her eyes.
I'll save, of course, these pictures and this memory in rhyme,
but Lord, if you would let me now, I'd put a stop to time.

Lemons in the snow.

Opaque

Opaque, before the light of early dawn, a window pane; a portal to our youth, plays visions out of time. My eyes are drawn to scenes within. An oracle of truth embraces me, its chilly arms enfolding my heart and all my dreams. She loves him yet; she mourns the distant hand she could be holding; the touch her mind and body can’t forget. As dark as any moonless night I’ve known, and darker still; my heart. What muse that’s left is black as any crow that’s ever flown; beyond despair, and utterly bereft-- as if the eyes of God were unforgiving; as if my soul had died and left me living.

Gibberish

Gibberish (read it quick before I come to my senses and toss it). Some of the people who live in my head are dirt loving tree hugging freaks. Then there are those who drive battleship cars that smell of petroleum leaks. Christian-like beings in radical veils made of conservative shroud woven in ignorance spun on a loom with no thread of reason allowed coexist madly with liberal hacks consuming with plasticized spades the ugliness flowing from factory farms while wearing their rose colored shades. How is it possible reason prevails and lucid thoughts flow from my pen? Could it be this is just gibberish and I’ve thoroughly fooled me again?

Carlos

The old musician spoke to me in rhythms and in voice. The anger that he couldn't see revealed itself as choice; a choice he couldn't see to make, the boy inside the man, as forty years of this mistake electrified his band. With music of the heart designed to light his darkened soul, the sweet guitar sang in his mind and tried to make him whole. But in the end the instrument that opened up his heart was spoken word; a sentence meant to pull his life apart. And there, revealed, the pain he'd kept completely out of sight; the long forgotten boy who'd wept in fear throughout the night. And ever after, knowing now, he thanked the Lord above. And ever after, knowing how, he filled his songs with love.

Chronicle

So, it’s off to omega I go, and as future events I traverse it’s a comforting thing just to know in the end I’ll come back in reverse. My personal universe lives as a chronicle written in rhyme filled with hints that my subconscious gives me of previous travels through time. As I travel time's infinite scope I’m aware that my passage is paid with the tangible substance of hope from which all human wishes are made.

Melody

A never-ending melody
is playing in my mind;
the quintessential poem, yet
without a single rhyme,

a sonnet for eternity
containing not a word,
a lyric never written for
a ballad never heard.

I write a single verse a day
my heart in every line,
a tapestry of ecstasy
my love for you entwined.

My silent muse composes verse
to trepidation’s themes.
I write for you a song of love…
but only in my dreams.

Out of Print

Within the book of wasted time a section must exist with articles in perfect rhyme of poets never kissed by lady luck or fortune’s son; (the gender matters not); of loves and favors never won; of passions never wrought. My chronicle would grace this page my love, if not for you as written by some useless sage for all the world to view. My dearest love, I here exalt that I am out of print. The presses, dear, were made to halt by orders, heaven sent.

Memory

~ Memory ~ 2/02/02. For Mom. You crossed the boundaries of life to sail in Heaven's sea... and I was left to bridge the gulf between the world and me. You left a child too young to see you didn't choose to go. A child who grew into a man before he came to know... that you left too, a legacy... a memory of love that God himself would be content to be the owner of. ~ © 2002 By: W.D.Neighbors ~

Autumn Apple

The Autumn apple, crisp and tart or spicy crusty warm in pies to please the senses; touch the heart the nose the tongue the hungry eyes.

Summer's End

________________________________________ The clouds, in fury, gather and the wind begins to blow the summer from the land, but summer doesn’t want to go. An angry shout of thunder follows each new flash of pain. The weary earth is set upon by multitudes of rain. The knights of autumn fall on the retreating summer sun, and mists above the mourning tell the world that Fall has won.

In a Hand Basket

________________________________________ The bike is coasting down the lane the wheels go round and round, why am I in this basket and where is it that I’m bound? I take my chance, a leap of faith, then quickly to the farm to jump into her arms, again. I’m safe from further harm. Then off to walk the yellow road, adventures are in store. I think it’s safe to say we aren’t in Kansas anymore. This was inspired by a bumper sticker I saw.... it read, "Why am I in this hand basket, and where am I going?" and it just wouldn't go away until I wrote it. "If happy little bluebirds fly Beyond the rainbow, Why oh why can't I?"

Night and Day « on: Jun 14th, 2002, 12:33am » ________________________________________ Today is never good enough to keep; we long for the unreachable tomorrow. Perfection's in our hands and yet we weep until we've nothing left but perfect sorrow. We set our goals completely out of sight beyond the far horizons of a chance that we will have to step into the light and mount the stage of life to start the dance. For love and for the lack of love we've wept and, blinded by despair, we cannot see the world is filled with love we won't accept because we long for love that cannot be. And while our nights are begging life to stay... our days are busy pushing it away. W.D. Neighbors "And the day came, when the risk it took to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." - Anais Nin

If One

If you are gone and I am left or else the other way— if one is, of a love, bereft to face the break of day, then one heart wakes to God’s own light; the glorious unfurled, and one, the bitter end of night; a cold and lonely world. Which one of us will live alone? My love, what does it matter? With one name etched in marble stone the other’s heart will shatter. ~ © 2006 By: W.D. Neighbors ~

When?

When all our anger’s overturned and innocents are free at last from bloody sword and hellish burn, when war’s a relic of the past; when Man’s uncertain enmity presents, in breach, from evil’s womb and love becomes our legacy as Mars is sealed in Satan’s tomb, a marble, gilded monument, inscription etched with golden rhyme, will sing the dirge; the grim lament to chronicle, to rue the time-- when eyes beheld what souls abhor; when children slept in arms of war.

The Gibson My Father-in-law, Bob Blake, owned and played an old Gibson acoustic guitar for most of his life… from the age of 13 until he was about 60. While it was still around, in the mid-1960’s the guitar began to show her age. She had a crack in one side that went almost the whole length of the body. It had been played so much that there were deep grooves in the neck. Bob wrote to the Gibson company and asked if they could repair her. They said no, so he lovingly took her all apart and used epoxy to glue her side and filled in the grooves and cleaned and polished her and put her back together. She sounded more beautiful than ever. Bob has been gone for several years now…he, and his music, are missed. I wrote this some time ago…. it was, partly, inspired by another poem (Voices), written by my friend Kathy Earsman. Eventually, when arthritis took its toll on his fingers, Bob gave the Gibson to one of his sons… and somewhere in the shuffle the Gibson was lost. In gentle tones he sang the blues, with working hands caressed a chord. Not one request would he refuse for nothing more could he afford. He lived within a country song; his Gibson and his voice defined the only tune that wasn’t wrong; the hidden sweetness in his mind. And near the end, in sweetest voice, the music filled his soul it seems… and in the end, as if by choice, he left the music to our dreams. The sweet and mournful music sleeps in other hands– the Gibson weeps. ~ © 2001 By: W.D. Neighbors ~