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Poetry, photos, misc.


5/09/2025

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.




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