Jeff Bresee

Careful steps on ice
Deep breaths
In silence take it in

Here all alone
On the way home
As winter walks begin

Shadows loom about
There's gloom
Yet something in the air

A peaceful still
Despite the chill
No other time compares

Silhouettes we are
And yet
We more than shadows be

Till winter's end
Here with this friend...
The fallen snow and me

Daddy, spend some time with me,
it's all I really need.

It doesn't have to be that much,
let's go do simple things.

Help me remember times back when
I was a little girl,

when you called me your princess doll,
back when you used to twirl

me round and round. You'd tossed me high,
just simply having fun.

So, Daddy let's go be carefree,
make me feel I'm the one

who's still your princess doll.
Yeah, let's go spend a little time,

pretending like forever
I am yours and you are mine.

A million ways to spend a day
not tried them all but have to say,

that if I had the way to when
I'd quiet find and open then

the pages of the poet's hand.
Then fly away to distant land,

or feel the fire of deep desire,
submersed in words, I'd never tire.

Or float through worlds that few have known,
no boundaries there, no thoughts of home,

nor caring what is real or dream
as feelings flow like crystal streams.

Which feelings I am lost to find
inside my heart, inside my mind.

In daily walk amongst the dead,
cast to the sea with boots of lead.

I feel that I would drown and die,
my only hope the thought that I

can find again the way to when
I'm all alone with such a friend -

the healing words of poet's hand...
the only words I understand.

I paused to stand and watch a man who had come to the road's divide.
My wonder soared as I watched his stare slowly shift from side to side.
He stood as if not noticing that many passed him by.
They moved without a second glance down the road most traveled by.

Then as I watched, he stepped full stride toward the path of lesser wear,
And soon he vanished from my view round a bend into the snare.
I soon, like him, stood center road, faced with that daunting choice.
My gaze down his road, causing fear, I quenched my inner voice.

For miles I walked the crowded road breathing dust from others' feet,
Until in despair I stopped and stood, my heart and soul deplete.
I gazed about, still holding hope, the other path I'd see.
On yonder hill I saw him there, the man who mentored me.

The path between us steep and rough, unforged with dangers there,
Yet still I left my path of friends, ignoring their bewares.
I pressed through hardship, pain and fear o'er rocks jagged and bent.
In time I crashed limp on that path, my every resource spent.

But then a warming touch I felt, a friendly voice I heard.
It said, get up and tread this path. I rose without a word.
And as I looked, I saw him there, he continued on his way.
His only words as he walked on..."You're on the path, now stay."

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I chose in err.
But looking back, perhaps as well...all memories now seem fair.
Much time I spent on the beaten path, and what I learned, immense.
But I reached, at last, the other path, and it has still made all of the difference.

Inspired by Robert Frost