So Much Like an Angel

 

So much like an angel,

She moved upon the green,

A quality grace and poise

And beauty seldom seen.

She took her place among the rest,

Yet shown above them all,

Like an angel in a painting

Of the heavens I recall.

She did not have a word to say,

And still I heard a song,

A music that surrounded her

And rose above the throng.

Now there she stands, a woman grown,

Of  loveliness and charm.

It seems that not long ago

I held her in my arm,

A newborn child with promise

From the moment of her birth

Brought a special bit of heaven

Upon this gloomy earth.

She brings with her the glory

Of some celestial light

To share in celebration

And brighten up the night.

 

Stan Sanford

©2002 Stan Sanford

Little Things

 

We all stood there in disbelief

And watched the towers fall.

How could this be happening—

They stood so strong and tall.

Symbols of our wealth and power

In a pile of rubble lay.

We needed strength beyond ourselves

To make it through the day.

 

Some of us got angry.

We all felt weak inside.

Some of us just shook our heads,

And others of us cried.

Some of us got on the phone,

Some on our knees to pray.

We needed some connection

To make it through the day.

 

Some held a cherished wedding ring

Or the picture of a child.

Some of us took a stranger’s hand

And held it for a while.

Some of us listened to the wind

For something it might say.

We all needed something

To make it through the day.

 

Some days our worlds come crashing down.

Sometimes they just decay.

Sometimes it is the little things

That get us through the day

The kindness in a stranger’s smile,

The things that children say

Somehow give us faith and hope

To make it through the day.

 

Often I think how little things

Contain the power of life:

The cooing of my new-born child,

A love-note from my wife,

A kitten sleeping in the swing,

My little girl at play—

Sometimes it is the little things

That get me through the day.

 

 

©2001, Stan Sanford

Hope for the Flowers*

Hope for the Flowers*

For Jessica Hope Sanford Lang

 

Hope for the flowers, the butterfly

Floats through the garden, free as the sky;

The essence of life on delicate wing,

Hope for the flowers that bloom in the spring.

 

Profusion of colors with fragrances sweet

Appear where the pollen and beating wings meet,

Thrilling the heart and stirring the soul,

Each individually part of the whole.

 

Hope, hope for the flowers,

only when the butterfly

Is free to fly as it chooses

to carry the essence of life.

 

Just being you abundantly gives

Hope to my life each moment you live;

Abounding in beauty with light from above,

You bring to the world God’s presence and love.

 

All of my life, I’d dreamed of you;

Pictured the things I’d want you to do;

For I had been hurt and wanted to stay

Protected in dreams with life all my way.

 

The butterfly must not be told

How it should fly, what it should hold;

I have no right to ask of you

Anything not of your heart free and true.

 

©Stan Sanford

May 2, 1996

 

*Jessica’s middle name came from the book,

Hope for the Flowers, by Trina Paulus.

 

Picture retreived from: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1366&bih=605&q=hope+for+the+flowers&oq=Hope+for&gs_l=img.1.1.0l10.3236.5047.0.8272.8.8.0.0.0.0.96.665.8.8.0....0...1ac.1.26.img..0.8.664.Nx7ZxESgjuw#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=Qx5g468yTwLCzM%3A%3BePboJ8OL8nygJM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.walkingbutterfly.com%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252F2011%252F06%252Fhope-for-the-flowers.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.walkingbutterfly.com%252F2011%252F06%252F28%252Fhope-for-the-flowers-by-trina-paulus-1972%252F%3B1368%3B1814



Do You Hear the Wind Blow

Do You Hear the Wind Blow

~yhla xwr

 

Do you hear the wind blow?

What do you hear it say?

Can you hear it whisper?

Do you know the way

It moves upon the water,

It sweeps across the land?

Can you hear the wind blow?

Do you understand?

 

Listen to the wind blow

Stirring through the trees.

Listen to the wind blow

Moving o’re the  seas.

Do you hear the wind blow

Telling ancient tales.

Moving as the wind blows?

When it fills your sails?

 

Do you feel the wind blow?

Does it brush your face?

Can you sense its movement,

Its judgment and its grace?

Does it give you breath of life?

Does it renew your youth?

Do you feel a warmth or chill?

Do you hear its truth?

 

©Stan Sanford, 2011

 

Conversation

 

I spoke to myself;

No response I received.

I ignored myself;

And, thus self deceived,

I spoke to my friend,

But my friend turned away.

My friend did not care

Or had nothing to say.

I spoke to the wind;

The wind asked me why.

When I could not answer,

The wind passed me by.

I spoke to heaven,

To that realm in the sky;

The heavens were silent;

I received no reply.

I spoke to the Presence;

In a voice very thin,*

I heard words as pleasant

As ever have been.

©2013, Stan Sanford

*I Kings 19:11-12 ("still small voice,"

Hebrew: "the voice of a thin silence.")

They Were Giants

They were "Giants in the Earth,"

But the vast empty prairie

Swallowed Beret

And drug her into its dark bowels,

Replicating its emptiness in her soul.

Her closest companion, Per,

Could offer no solace--

Could not penetrate

The tomb that encased her life.

 

He was seventeen,

Reading the classic novel

For his literature class.

The tentacles of Beret's pain reached out for him,

Luring him into her morbid embrace,

As would some clandestine lover,

Drawing the innocent youth

To her bed.

He fell into the void of her soul,

Feeling as minuscule in the universe,

As she on the Dakota frontier.

 

His mind retreated from his body,

As he lay on a small cot

In a corner of a South Georgia farmhouse.

In an infinite regression,

He plummeted into outer darkness

Beyond the edge of the universe.

There, as the last remaining

Shred his sanity melted into nothingness,

He awoke in the light of Mind,

Ultimate Reality.

Time and space dissolved;

His mind became one with Mind.

Revelation!

His mind envisioned

The universe,

Universes beyond universes,

Universes within universes.

From the perspective of Mind,

All reality condensed into

A dimensionless point.

They were giants.

 

©2013, Stan Sanford

Reference: Giants in the Earth, Ole Edvart Rølvaag

When I Said, "I Love You"

When I said, "I love you,"

Fourteen years ago,

I meant in the depths of who I am--

Much more than emotion,

An intentional intuitive choice.

 

Things were bright and shiny then:

We made the best of presentations,

As lovers always do, at first,

All genuine, no deception intended.

 

As the years have gone by,

The flaws surfaced--

All that we have been

That make us what we are,

The warts, the scars, the failures--

Threatening to destroy us.

 

The Power that drew us

To each other

Defines us as much more than

Our warts, our scars, our failures

Protects us from all threats,

And lets us see each other

From his perspective.

 

Today, I say, "I love you,"

Fourteen years  later,

I mean in the depths of who I am--

Much more than emotion,

An intentional intuitive choice.

 

Stan Sanford

Valentine's Day 2013